Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter IX: The Generator

Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter IX: The Generator

Pages: 1126 – 1146

Summary: And now … torture!  John Galt, having refused the entreaties of shyster hooligan Mr. Thompson, gets stripped and strapped to Dr. Ferris’s electrical contraption.  The torture is horrendous until the machine breaks and the idiot operating it doesn’t know how to fix it.

In other news, Dr. Robert Stadler heads back to Iowa where the Xylophone is under control of effeminate fascist goofball Cuffy Meigs.  Words are exchanged, a melee ensues, and KA-BOOM!

Reflections: The torture scene comes across as dramatically puzzling and unintentionally funny.  What kind of sociopath tortures for laughs?  Oh, right …

The humor in the scene throws a giant monkey-wrench into the narrative’s tone.  Granted, the electrical apparatus breaking down proves Rand’s point, but to use the phrase of libertarians, “at what cost”?  Galt, the muscular genius hero guy, gets tortured by fat looter morons.  What’s so dramatic about that?  The characters, such broad caricatures of humanity, sap the scene of momentum and give it all the depth of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  Hell, Rocky and Bullwinkle had better plotting, better characterization, and better jokes than this banal horseshit.

The only real explanation for this nutty scene is Rand needed to make John Galt into the book’s Christ Figure.  A rather odd thing considering Rand’s rabid atheism, although not that odd since cults of personality adopt the liturgical features of religion to suit the star’s egomania.  (Yet another similarity Ms. Rosenbaum shares with Uncle Joe.)

“Aw, come on, John, be our Economic Dictator.  Pretty please!”

For a former seminary student, Stalin cleans up quite well.

Compare this to the torture scene in 1984, written by British Socialist George Orwell.  In the novel, dissident functionary Winston Smith faces torture from O’Brien.  Winston thought O’Brien was also rebelling against Big Brother, when in actuality O’Brien belonged to the Inner Party.  Unlike the rotund dimwits in Atlas Shrugged, O’Brien uses a rat-cage that he attaches to Winston’s face.  No electricity involved.  It’s sustainable and has a small carbon footprint.  It’s also effective as hell.  Perhaps Mr. Thompson had difficulty attaining rat-cage-face-masks from Airstrip One, considering the United States is in transportation crisis in the novel?

In the end, Winston confesses and thus, 1984 becomes tragedy.  Dr. Ferris’s shenanigans just seem idiotic, especially since it is in aid of making John Galt their Economic Dictator and solving all their problems.  It’s a scene diametrically opposed to that of 1984.  1984 is a critically acclaimed novel that attained its rightful place in the Western Canon, easily making 100 Best lists without breaking a sweat.  Atlas Shrugged, on the other hands, required market manipulation by hordes of crackpot cultists buying books in bulk in a facetious attempt at popularity.  That’s just sad.  But so is having the inability to break the $2 million dollar mark on opening weekend and coming in at a lame-ass #14.  In Glengarry Glen Ross, Blake challenges the real estate salesmen to “Always Be Closing.”  Second place is a set of steak knives, third prize is your fired!  What’s 14^th?

Like the Left Behind series, Atlas Shrugged isn’t literature for the ages, it’s only appeal lies with a sliver of the population that buys into its nutjob theories and infantile views of economics.  In a word: marginal.  Here’s another one: Inconsequential.

Call me anything you want, Objectivists.  I’ll make sure to have a couch handy for you to jump on.

At some point, Scientology and Objectivism become indistinguishable.

One chapter left and we’re done with this overwrought literary abortion.  Huzzah!

Quotes:

• “There was nothing beyond the lighted strip but the emptiness of the prairies of Iowa.”
• “He [Cuffy Meigs] wore a tight, semi-military tunic and leather leggings; the flesh of his neck bulged over the edge of his collar; his black curls were matted with sweat.”  Jeremy Clarkson?

• “We want ideas – or else!”

• “Had enough?” snarled Ferris, when the current went off.  “Yes, end this book NOW!  Oh, you were talking to John Galt.”
• “Don’t kill him!  Don’t dare kill him!  If he dies, we die!”  Whew, good thing somebody explained the stakes in the scene or I wouldn’t have understood what was going in.  Way to not insult the intelligence of your readers, Ayn.

• “Galt burst out laughing.”
• “Galt was watching them; his glance was too austerely perceptive.”  Or if someone with actual talent rewrote the sentence: “Galt watched them; he perceived them with a muscular austerity.”  Seriously, Ayn, use the money you made from The Fountainhead and take some creative writing courses at Columbia or the New School or something.  Your utter lack of talent is repellent, lazy, and childish.  “I’m here on a mission of mercy.  If it was up to me, I’d fire your fucking ass.”