Here’s the kind of person I am: I read Atlas Shrugged as a joke. Political satire is one of my favourite things, and this novel from the 1950’s has been gathering a lot of snark potential. Members of the Tea Party keep name-dropping Ayn Rand, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin requires his staffers to read the book, and now a film version is being released on – you guessed it – 15 April. (The deadline for taxes is actually 18 April this year but whatever.)
One day as I was goofing off on Twitter, I had an idea. I’d get the book from the library (the socialist library, HA!) and live-tweet my reactions as I read it – kind of a “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” thing for my liberal friends. I was so gleeful about it that I went to the library that same afternoon.
And that’s when I discovered that Atlas Shrugged is 1,168 pages long.
The joke was on me, but I’d already announced my plans to everybody – I couldn’t back out now. I took the heavy paperback home with me and got started. One month, eight days and $7.00 in library fines later, here’s what I discovered.
