I think some Randians have convinced themselves that people who don’t like Atlas Shrugged are either mindless communist go-alongs or members of the liberal intelligentsia (if there’s a difference). Well, I’m a Republican, and though I’m know that greed may be good, I also know that this book blows.

Imagine Fyodor Dostoevsky with no talent
Unlike my esteemed colleague, I didn’t even put a dent in this turgid boondoggle. I tagged out around page 250, after reading the same over-philosophized economic old saw for what felt like the fifteenth time and realizing that I was probably going to have to read it about 45 more times if I wanted to finish the book. Shrugged compels you to constantly check the page number, not to monitor your progress, but to assure yourself that you’re not reading the same page over and over again. It’s a polemical Groundhog Day: A 1,100 page hamster wheel. Think about it—The Great Gatsby was a hair over 190 pages, while Common Sense topped out around 50, but copies of Shrugged despoil our nation’s woodlands to the tune of over 1,000 pages. Take it from someone who is undisciplined, that is undisciplined writing of megalomaniac, almost masturbatory, proportions.

Their Name is Legion
Even more frightening than the book itself is its enormous and ever-expanding readership. If you take public transportation, you probably can’t go a month without stumbling across some poor slob who is 600 pages deep in this bottomless pit. And it’s not just shmoes with whom you ride the train, it’s also your friendly Federal Chairman, Alan Greenspan. Throughout the sixties, Greenspan was a hierophant of Objectivism and a devotee of Rand’s cult of personality, which referred to itself as “The Collective.” He was also probably Rand’s boy toy. And if the idea Al and Ayn making sweet econolove isn’t disturbing enough, consider how Greenspan once described the group’s belief system:
“Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived. Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world. Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter of any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth.”

How do you feel about your 401(k) now?