Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Chamber of Errors

I just finished reading a very interesting biography of Whittaker Chambers, about which I shall probably post later, but it made me dredge up his "review" of Atlas Shrugged which appeared in William F. Buckley's National Review.

Mistakes in the review actually make you wonder if he read the book through. He clearly hated the book, so I can see where he wouldn't want to read it through, especially considering how long it is.

Consider this:
One of them is named (the only smile you see will be your own): Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian dAntonio. This electrifying youth is the world's biggest copper tycoon. Another, no less electrifying, is named: Ragnar Danesjold. He becomes a twentieth-century pirate. All Miss Rand's chief heroes are also breathtakingly beautiful. So is her heroine (she is rather fetchingly vice president in charge of management of a transcontinental railroad).
So, he misspells d'Anconia, he mispells Danneskjöld, and falsely claims that Dagny is breathtakingly beautiful. All in one paragraph.

He found little to like,
and his fact checkers were on strike.

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