I don't recall the particular thing that triggered Venom, but I guess it's an explosion of lifelong frustration with a certain kind of person who just loves to criticize.
I don't know that I've written in detail about my history with Objectivism. I gave an interview to a defunct magazine, Full Context, which went into that stuff a little.
Basically, in high school, I read Anthem and loved it. I read it partly because it was a mainstream fiction / science fiction crossover, and at that time most of the fiction I read was science fiction. Then I read the Fountainhead for a special school project where each student could pick his own book to read. I was wowed by the book, although I disagreed with the author's philosophy in part. Then, just before I turned 17, I read Atlas over a few days in August 1969. This time I was truly blown away. I saw her diagnosing fundamental problems with a variety of things I believed. I thought she was logically consistent and made sense. So I decided to try her philosophy out.
On the ironic side, before this I had seen her appear on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. He asked her about atheism, and she said that many people were atheists but were reluctant to admit it. I shook my head and changed the channel. I had been waging a lonely one-man war for atheism in my high school, and I didn't think she could possibly be right about lots of people being atheists. Now I suspect she was perfectly correct. In high school, my sample was biased, since I was at a Catholic school!
About We The Living, I just want to say that all her novels are different. There are gigantic common themes, but the method of tackling those themes is different from book to book. We The Living is the most realistic, in form and intent. Have you seen the movie version of We The Living? It's very well done, in it's way.
I don't recall the particular thing that triggered Venom, but I guess it's an explosion of lifelong frustration with a certain kind of person who just loves to criticize.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I've written in detail about my history with Objectivism. I gave an interview to a defunct magazine, Full Context, which went into that stuff a little.
Basically, in high school, I read Anthem and loved it. I read it partly because it was a mainstream fiction / science fiction crossover, and at that time most of the fiction I read was science fiction. Then I read the Fountainhead for a special school project where each student could pick his own book to read. I was wowed by the book, although I disagreed with the author's philosophy in part. Then, just before I turned 17, I read Atlas over a few days in August 1969. This time I was truly blown away. I saw her diagnosing fundamental problems with a variety of things I believed. I thought she was logically consistent and made sense. So I decided to try her philosophy out.
On the ironic side, before this I had seen her appear on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. He asked her about atheism, and she said that many people were atheists but were reluctant to admit it. I shook my head and changed the channel. I had been waging a lonely one-man war for atheism in my high school, and I didn't think she could possibly be right about lots of people being atheists. Now I suspect she was perfectly correct. In high school, my sample was biased, since I was at a Catholic school!
About We The Living, I just want to say that all her novels are different. There are gigantic common themes, but the method of tackling those themes is different from book to book. We The Living is the most realistic, in form and intent. Have you seen the movie version of We The Living? It's very well done, in it's way.
ReplyDeleteI think I was told that original movie included Kira getting shot, but it was horribly done, so the American re-editors eliminated it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the ending isn't right.