this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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[–] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 68 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Anything by Ayn Rand. She’s a terrible author and most people are more interested in showing that they could have read The Fountainhead than actually reading that unfun, meandering garbage.

[–] twice_twotimes@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I read The Fountainhead in a high school English class and then got super into Ayn Rand and read Atlas Shrugged and some of her other stuff on my own. What actually happened was that I was a child in the Florida Public School System and so 1) didn’t understand what capitalism was, 2) couldn’t recognize terrible writing, and 3) was enjoying how proud my dad was for once.

Now I’m in my 30s and I can’t bring myself to throw away books at all, but also refuse to give them away and put them back out into the world for other dumbasses and/or impressionable children to find. They live on a bookshelf in my back room strategically positioned so that even if someone did go into that room they’d have to dig through a bunch of French textbooks and ancient American Girl books to find them.

If anyone would like some garbage propaganda advocating for a society of psychopaths written in the style of your drunk uncle’s auto-transcribed voice memos, hit me up.

[–] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

You should burn them for warmth so they finally serve a purpose

People can just enjoy them for stories and not actually believe in what the writer wants them to believe.

I can personally attest to that as I have to do it with most fiction, including Ayn Rand stuff.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

-John Rogers

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I tried to read the Fountainhead twice when I was a teenager and I never got more than a third of the way. It felt like watching an old person try to remember their shopping list

[–] bubbalu@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah. My grandpa made me read Atlas Shrugged when I was in HS and it was so dumb it made me a communist. I did like the scene with the fast train on the green rails. Literally the only scene in the whole book with imagery.

[–] JuryNullification@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Nothing killed libertarianism for 19 year old me like reading that trash.

[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

Can you blame them? Even South Park made fun of how bad Atlas Shrugged is.