atlas shrugged chapter 1, james vs dagny

[cab21]

so reading atlas shrugged, just finished chapter 1

 

Right now my biggest thought is "how is James Taggart president of the company"? The character seems the most unfit character ever to be a company president, and I don't know how he turned out so differently from dagny, and why he has a job with the company at all, rather than dagny being the president? How could the their father let this happen? James is a total train wreck here, and Dagny is more on track, although operations wise, the employees of the company are complete jokes and either was not told how to do their job or did not listen on how to even operate a train. The corporate structure of the company seems like such a mess. Things James says are just plain weird rather than showing any attributes at all to make him fit for a president of a company it seems. Things dagny says seem robotic and not giving true motivations, and blaming that if only almost everyone else was not such a idiot, she would be so much more accomplished and the non idiots would share the abundance with her. That she can find a few employable people here and there, but not enough to competently run a company and expand it, maybe there is some truth to that, yet James seems to go out of his way to find these incompetent people to hire and do business with. While dagny is shown with judgment, knowledge, responsibility, leadership, prospecting, individually heroic, and mindful, James is shown without judgment, without knowledge, without responsibility, without leadership, without prospecting, individual heroism, and without mind.

 

so the stark contrast between the two is making me wonder if this is any way to start comparisons off in a novel or other discussion? is this kind of thing effective or just turn people into saying that the characters and situations  are a bit unhuman and unreal?

 

 

 

 

[nathanm]

Rand's stories are about big ideas crammed into cartoonish, often unrealistic characters.  Which is a nice contrast to unrealistic characters with NO big ideas.  If you are feeling the philosophy you can deal with the weird people, but it's still frustrating.  Whenever I read her books it feels like a 3XL fat guy of pure ideology is trying to squeeze into a Medium-size t-shirt of plot.

[cab21]

so the big idea is more important than the people.

seemed like a big idea there was in picking heirs.

[greekredemption]

Rand's stories are about big ideas crammed into cartoonish, often unrealistic characters.  Which is a nice contrast to unrealistic characters with NO big ideas.  If you are feeling the philosophy you can deal with the weird people, but it's still frustrating.  Whenever I read her books it feels like a 3XL fat guy of pure ideology is trying to squeeze into a Medium-size t-shirt of plot.

Wow, now, that's a good description.

 

If I may also add, when the 3XL of pure ideology can't fit in the medium-size T-shirt, it comes spilling out in the form of a dull 6 page monologue.

[LanceD]

Oh you just wait until you get to the monologue in part three. The only thing comparable in repetitiveness is Stefan's Introduction to Philosophy podcasts.

[ribuck]

... cartoonish, often unrealistic characters ...

 

By the time you're an old guy like me, you will have encountered people who match every one of the characters in Atlas Shrugged, We The Living, and The Fountainhead.

 

Then you can read the novels again and you will get much more from them.

[nathanm]

The personalities are certainly realistic, but the dialog strains credulity.  People just don't give long philosophical tracts in normal conversation.  However, courtroom scenes do allow for such things.  But it's still cool overall, just because it's the opposite of what you normally find.  Most stories hide their messages in metaphors and symbolism, but Rand delivers it to your doorstep with trumpet fanfare.

[cab21]

obama is a person whose physical description would likely be a rand protagonist than a antagonist, yet Obama's view would make him a antagonist.

 

"James Taggart sat at his desk. He looked like a man approaching fifty, who had crossed into age fromadolescence, without the intermediate stage of youth. He had a small, petulant mouth, and thin hairclinging to a bald forehead. His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance of his tall,slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the confident poise of an aristocrat, buttransformed into the gawkiness of a lout. The flesh of his face was pale and soft. His eyes were pale andveiled, with a glance that moved slowly, never quite stopping, gliding off and past things in eternalresentment of their existence. He looked obstinate and drained. He was thirty-nine years old."

 

just the physical description alone makes james like someone who would not have a high position at a company. i'm not sure how many presidents of companies have such features as james has, let alone personalities.

[LanceD]

The personalities are certainly realistic, but the dialog strains credulity. People just don't give long philosophical tracts in normal conversation. However, courtroom scenes do allow for such things. But it's still cool overall, just because it's the opposite of what you normally find. Most stories hide their messages in metaphors and symbolism, but Rand delivers it to your doorstep with trumpet fanfare.

This is because her first book was pretty popular but the readers largely missed the message she was trying to get across using the more subtle means common to most media. She then decided in her following books she was just going to cram her philosophy down the reader's throat!

[Malovane]

Bear in mind the time this was written, and the era it was set (somewhere between the 1930s and 1950s). While Dagny was more qualified, she was a woman. James probably inherited the bulk of the company stock for that reason alone.