It's funny but I took in Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as political documentaries. So much of what she wrote had puzzled me back when I was learning about the Constitution and our Bill of Rights. I would read the words of our founders and be unable to locate them in the governments from the late 50s through the 60s. I was very aware of the pressure from the majority of people that hurt the new thinkers of the era that she wrote about. She was warning us of the power of the masses within a Democracy. The acceptance of that which we were told were good things upset me badly and I finally saw her points.
Rand's style has been criticized because her heroes are found in her own ideal people. Hank Reardon and Howard Rourke were her ideals and she used them to demonstrate their lasting power that overshadowed the ignorance of the government, local in Fountainhead and Federal in Shrugged.
She was the spokesman for individual freedoms and no one has since done such a fabulous job. She walks over the subject of faith and ignores the superstitions of the religious masses. That has turned the Christians against her but not a day goes by that her name is not spoken in awe of her essays and novels.
About every 10 years I reread Shrugged as a renewal of my own desires for a governmenr based on freedoms not silly prohibitions. Sadly many who respect her writings tend to over analyze her words. It has brought many people into missing the points whe wanted emphasized. That is what is so interesting about Rand is that just about everyone has a opinion on her subjects. I remember when her essay "The Virtue of Selfishness" was in print and the religious masses wanted every charitiable action done in the name of God and Rand spoke out that it in most cases these actions were done because it brought joy to the giving person. I never did convince my mother that doing for others was done as an offer of love not as a deed to prove something to God. She did not have the mind set to read Rand and she was annoyed that both my girls read both books including her book of essays.
