John Galt

Terribly disappointed to find out there are John Galt mugs and whatnot out there -wondering what Ayn would have to say about it...

Me? Also terribly disappointed to find out John Galt is an actual character.

Twitter -Day 2, Ayn Rand -round 2

I'm getting a bit better at tweeting -I'm now learning to use TweetDeck, which I find can be a big help to keep track of my tweets, but is not without its perils. For example, I now have quite a few columns that sort out nicely the lists and people I follow, but they don't all fit in the width of my screen...It's great for multitasking (well, bi-tasking) though, so I can now visit websites and
follow tweets. And the feeling of being in a rollercoaster is beginning to go away, as is my problem with the 140-character-limit.

I'm putting the online organisers on hold, because I'm meeting my reading group on Thursday to discuss the work of Ayn Rand (second round) and I'd like to finish Atlas Shrugged. I have to say -almost 20 years apart from Anthem, I feel I can still see stitches. Perhaps she wanted it that way, but if she did, it bugs me that she wrote about the same issues in her non-fiction works. Did she see in the novel the instrument to apply her philosophical theory? She claims in the Romantic Manifesto that she's a Romantic writer because, unlike Naturalists, what's important in her fiction is the plot. I'm inclined to disagree based on what I've read so far.

As for the stitches, to me, Anthem expresses the lack of individual status in a social organization, and Atlas -it seems so far- the emergence of a system where individuality primes and the way of doing business is changing; social bonds don't matter if they don't contribute to business.

Interestingly, while the hero in Anthem -the one that finds his individuality- is a man, the one with nerves of steel for business in Atlas is a woman.

One of the things I'm curious about is whether the poliphony I'm finding now will continue throughout the rest of the novel. It's also interesting that (now that I'm writing I notice) both stories have two strong figures each and that these, in each story, are a man and a woman. It may cease to be interesting -I don't know. And if Anthem reminded me of Shirley Valentine, Atlas takes me back to Albee and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's John Galt?

Needles and thread

I thought I was going to write a melancholy piece again tonight, and begin by remembering a poem that's touched me deeply even though it has but three lines. I went to the book where it sits and opened it -the page's bookmarked- and then I saw I'd mixed up the lines of one poem with the name of the author of the poem on the other side of the page.


Then different thoughts came to mind. The poem I went to see is called "Separation" and it was written by W.S. Merwin. I thought -I was absolutely sure- the author had been Marianne Moore. Who actually has, on the other side, a poem of her own entitled "I May, I Might, I Must".

I was baffled for a few seconds, and then I saw it: Moore's title became my motto this year and I shared it with those I won't be seeing for a while. Still, the separation runs more deeply, to include those that have made an impact at different moments of my life.

I didn't intend to adopt that motto, but the force of circumstance (and I suppose some trait in me) drove me to do so. And, like pieces of thread making a fabric, I'm reminded of yet another literary piece; one of the very first short stories in English I chose to read. "The force of circumstance". The thread takes me to an essay called "A Tapestry of Friends", and the melancholy softly begins to vanish. A veil is lifted, white, vaguely see-through, to reveal a woman's head and "The Woman in Black" comes to mind. A rocking chair frantically moving on the stage of a tightly packed tiny theatre and a woman screaming in the middle of the audience to wake us all from our thoughts.

The plot thickens (some vague literary recollection, and my Spanglish making "plot" transcend the field of literature right into that of making cloth, just like "trama" does in Spanish, while I search for the word I do want, but cannot find, "urdimbre"). The plot thickens, then, and I'm back inside a theatre, where a house falls apart: it's the Birlings's, after the inspector has done his job...and in a sudden twist I come back full circle to Ayn Rand and collectivism vs individualism but now I get it, I get it in a different way because I'm not the same and because my world is not the same.

And though the inspector's words will always have a place in my heart, and reverberate more powerfully every time someone suffers close by, I understand now that my own identity is a gift and should be cherished. Or, anyway, I cherish it. And what I think I've learnt this year is exactly that: the world is composed of "I"s and "We"s and little by little a fabric takes some shape. And "I"s and "We"s do not need to be mutually exclusive, and I'm luckily and inevitably linked to each of these other threads in a unique way.

Of course life hurts sometimes, but all wounds eventually heal (and, no, I will not succumb now to the corny impulse of quoting Ms Dickinson and point that there is no scar...) My wounds are healing and don't look half as deep as I thought they were.

And as I end this by choosing a title, punk music fills my head through The Ramones (and I suppress another impulse...).Music which, oddly enough, I've always found secretively ironic -but then again I'm not one to analyse lyrics...

On finishing Rand's Anthem

I've just finished reading Anthem and confirmed what I thought when I started it. I'm afraid can't feel the same way as Ayn Rand when it comes to terms like "we" and "I".

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that we must have grown up in very different contexts. She experienced a smothering "We". I suffered alienating "I"s.
Unlike when I started the book, however, I now think that perhaps we may share some ideas but we may be coming at them from opposite directions. I'll have to explore her works a lot more and let my thoughts set in before I can add any further comments, though.

Melting pot

Welcome!

I hope you enjoy reading my posts and will want to share some of your thoughts as well.
At the moment I'm reading Ayn Rand's Anthem and at times I feel I'm inside a melting pot. Images of  Brave New World, Farenheit 451º and the likes get mixed up with those of more tender stories I can't quite identify so clearly, with Shirley Valentine for some reason, too, and I also see it dealing with timeless social issues that sometimes appear more politically dressed but abound in everyday life.


It doesn't, however, remind me of any Russian writings I've read -which was a surprise- and I find Ms Rand's tone in her introduction quite different from the one used in the story -as befits a gifted writer.
I'll be finishing it shortly. More on it when I do...