If it weren't terribly off topic and likely to lead to pointless flame wars, that might make for a fun poll. "At what age did you go through your Ayn Rand phase? How long did it last?"
Personally, I read it and half-agreed, half-disagreed. Her ideals are powerful and moving. It would be great if people could be like that, but they aren't. Plus, her characters seem to have a few too many tantrums and blow up buildings ;-)
Overall, I ended up incorporating elements of her philosophy into my world view, but rejecting other parts. I'd still highly recommmend her books to anyone, but really, if you're not willing to think about what the books say and blindly follow what she outlines as her philosophy... well. you've just become one of the sheep that she heaps so much contempt on in her books.
The point of a novel of ideas is not that you agree with every single idea within, but that the novel presents the ideas in a way that brings out their power in a concrete way.
Ayn Rand didn't want people to form a religion, so please don't feel that you have to apologize for "agreeing" with some aspects of her fiction. Those who try to paint Rand's philosophy that way are looking at it through the timid, dark-ages lens of their religion, in which everything is black and white, the way George W. Bush's "good vs evil" nonsense is.
I was 18 or 19. And it was pretty much like a rope swing to the other side of the river for me, rather than a convincing argument to go for a swim (i.e. I turned out to have anarcho-capitalist tendencies, rather than Objectivist ones--and I was already an atheist before reading Rand, so there wasn't much room for her to have an impact on that front). But, mostly, I'd be happy if everybody would just agree that the founding fathers of the US got things mostly right (excepting the obvious bugs: slavery, male-only voting) and leave well enough alone. I don't much care for the strident tone of Rand's books (excepting Anthem which was short enough that it avoids all of the mind-numbing angry repetition of all of her other works).
17. Being fourth generation progeny of critical thinking literary snobs, I was unable to make it through Atlas Shrugged.
Unfortunately, as it is difficult for Hollywood newcomers to avoid Scientology recruiters, a college freshman finds it difficult to avoid the Objectivist Club recruiters.
Thus, later in the same year I had a brush with Rand again. I tried reading "The Romantic Manifesto" and found it unintentionally hilarious, in the same way Sarah Palin's press conferences are hilarious.
You have too much taste for Atlas Shrugged because of your illustrious bloodline?
If reading Atlas Shrugged is too much work for your taste, then I think the actual ideas contained in it would surely be quite distasteful to you, but I guess the world will never know.
Yes, I do have too much taste to work through Atlas Shrugged, and I attribute this at least partially to good parenting. It always saddens me to read about good minds softened by the writings of Ayn Rand, and I shudder to think about the sorts of childhoods they must have had.
I suppose I'd fall under the category of "baleful Eye." I still haven't heard a good argument as to why the ideals of her philosophy is flawed, and her ideas still make logical sense to me, so I'd identify myself as objectivist faster than I'd identify myself most other things.
