My daughter now has my first editon, w/cover, of "Atlas Shrugged."
PEOPLE
Many hearts still held captive by Ayn Rand
BY PHIL KLOER
Cox News Service
Fay Stephenson's old copy of Atlas Shrugged was turned into soggy mush when her basement flooded and ruined a bunch of stored books. Bill Fallin keeps his copy of the novel in his desk and re-reads sections occasionally. Ron Mahre read The Fountainhead in college and plans to give his battered copy to his daughter Bethany, 17.
Like a first rock concert or a first slow dance, some people never forget their first encounter with Ayn Rand, the passionate, controversial author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, creator of the philosophy called objectivism, patron saint of libertarians (both capital ''L'' and small ''l'') and galvanizer of several generations of intellectually inclined teenagers.
TEEN INFATUATION
''I think at that age you're still sort of forming who you are and who you will become,'' said Stephenson, 49, a former marketing executive, recalling her own teenage infatuation with Atlas Shrugged while in high school in New York. There was something rebellious and utopian about Rand's harsh but romantic critique of society, she said, that appeals strongly to young people.
Wednesday was the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth and was marked with a conference at the Library of Congress in Washington sponsored by The Objectivist Center. A new illustrated biography, Ayn Rand, by Jeffrey Britting in the Overlook Illustrated Lives series will be released, and the new issue of Reason magazine re-assesses Rand.
Ayn (rhymes with ''fine'') Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the United States in 1926. She was an extra in movies, including Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings, but soon made a name for herself as a writer. The most widely read of her many books are The Fountainhead, her 1943 novel about an architect with a rigid code of honor, and Atlas Shrugged, a 1,000-plus-page 1957 novel about the greatest achievers of the world going on strike. Huge, overblown, romantic, it's packed with lengthy speeches on philosophy and spawned the catchphrase ''Who is John Galt?'' (the novel's mysterious hero).
Rand died in 1982, but her books continue to sell well -- Atlas alone sells more than 150,000 copies a year, with overall sales past 5.5 million, the Ayn Rand Institute says. In a 1991 Library of Congress opinion poll, it was cited as the second most influential book ever -- after the Bible.
Rand was ''a cult figure with plenty of worshipers and plenty of desecrators,'' contributing editor Cathy Young writes in Reason, noting that she offered her readers ``a bold, ardent vision of defiance, struggle, creative achievement, joy and romantic love.''
Yet Rand's intense celebration of the individual, rationalism and capitalism remains, for many readers, ''a way station on a journey to some wider outlook,'' Young writes.
Which is another way of saying that many people go through an ``Ayn Rand phase.''
''You initially get sucked in by the pulpiness of her novels,'' said Merridith Kristoffersen, 34, a trainer for a real estate company, who read Atlas and Fountainhead in high school in Florida. ``They're kind of racy and lavish, but she's sending a message that's more weighty than just pulp.''
While still a fan, he said Rand's philosophy of unfettered capitalism wouldn't work in today's society.
Jean Crabbe, a stay-at-home mother of three, was so into Rand's novels in high school that she wrote her senior term paper, The Fountainhead of Objectivism, on Rand.
She remembers arguing with friends in the early '70s over which was the greater novel -- Atlas Shrugged or Lord of the Rings.
''And I have to say now, maybe they were right,'' Crabbe said. ``Maybe Lord of the Rings was better.''
IMPACT OF `ATLAS'
Better or not, Lord hasn't influenced public policy as much as Atlas. Rand's promotion of laissez-faire capitalism free of all government regulations made her a fountainhead for many economists and conservative thinkers. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, no less, wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times in 1957, responding to the paper's negative review of Atlas Shrugged and calling it ''a celebration of life and happiness.'' Greenspan has called Rand ``clearly a major contribution to my intellectual development.''
Like Greenspan's, some love affairs with Rand last a lifetime and are not a ''phase.'' Bill Fallin, 74, read Atlas Shrugged more than 30 years ago, when he was on the verge of bankruptcy. The book's message inspired him to turn his business life around, and he went on to be president of three companies.
''I've guided a lot of people toward that book,'' Fallin said. ``I've probably recommended it to 200 or 300 people over the years.''
Like many fans, Fallin agrees with only some of Rand's philosophy. Rand was an atheist, but Fallin, like others, says he has no problem being a Christian and also being inspired by Rand.
Rand would not have stood for such disagreement among her acolytes. Although she preached individualism, she demanded that her close followers agree with her every pronouncement or face banishment from her inner circle.
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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