from somewhere a week or so ago came the name ayn rand. i’d never heard of her. if i had any pride ,i would exhibit it over the breadth of my knowledge in such matters. this was a gap.
i love gaps.
i looked her up, of course. there was her magnus opus, atlas shrugged. lauded and deprecated, selling by the truck-load. her last work of fiction. but i ordered”the fountainhead, the book that made her name.
it reminds me of herman hesse, a lot. i’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing. but she’s smarter than him. all i can say is that 200 pages through i like it. i read it whenever possible, outside my normal times, which is a good sign.
i love gaps.
i’ve spoken about ayn rand to a few people. it seems that she is passe. old school. best not be seen with. apparently in the college days of one american friend there were two groups, the randians and the vonnegutians. the randians were the reagan voters.
talking of vonnegut, and not a million miles away from ayn rand, i saw today this page of vonnegut’s rules for writing. number eight:
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
