Anthem

Un futur dystopique intéressant, dans la même veine que Atlas Shrugged, où tout individualisme a été effacé au profit de la seule communauté et où toute différence supérieure est pourchassée pour le bien de tous. Malheureusement le héros sonne creux, découvrant des choses beaucoup plus facilement, de manière innée à un point illogique, assez classique chez Ayn Rand mais un peu décevant. De même la fin en long monologue philosophique est un peu lourde à supporter.

If you've sampled some of Rand's other fiction, or maybe have heard of this book, but don't know much about it, this is a short story, more of a novelette than a novel. Written in an intentionally surrealistic style, this is a portrait of a dystopia, a reductio ad absurdum of collectivism.

And it's great. I don't think you need me to tell you that. This book ought to be talked about along with Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, but for some reason it isn't. It's a classic. Read it. But read it for what it is. Don't expect a novel. It's short.

I find this book intriguing. It leaves me asking questions and really looking at society and myself in a way that I wouldn't normally.. especially when Equality wonders to himself how this world came to be, how anyone could allow this to happen. It makes me ask myself, are there things in my life that I am allowing that take away some freedom or happiness? Am I being complacent when I should be actively seeking and doing? I would like to think that not a whole lot, but I know I can do better. I must do better, I think.

Eerie how this felt like Prometheus was writing this in a future that completely correlates with current events...and it was written by Ayn Rand all the way back in the THIRTIES. It's been a slow, deliberate dive towards this type of censorship, hasn't it?

Individualism is something Western culture takes a fierce pride in. This book illustrates that philosophy quite well, but in very black and white terms. Although I did enjoy that Prometheus is completely fine with leaving the brothers that wish to remain ignorant, right where they are. Rand, despite her seemingly stark view on the matter of Individualism, at least allows that there is no pleasing everyone, and that you shouldn't be forced into a philosophy or culture.

Chapter 11 was quite a moment. It reminded me just slightly of how I felt realizing I was the “god” of my reality and then, an atheist. Individualism certainly took on a new meaning then, and I feel as though this book added another layer to that personal philosophy.

I have this notion that the similarities between Ayn Rand and H.P. Lovecraft merit a closer look, and so I was kind of excited, when I was about two chapters in, to discover that Anthem was first published in 1937, the last year that the Old Gent dwelt within the confines of Euclidean space. Because, and I cannot stress this enough, this novella starts off very much in the Poe/Lovecraft mode of the first-person Gothic tale, with our narrator confessing to his terrible crimes in writing. He's even writing by the light of a stolen candle, and it's hard to get more Gothic than that. And then we learn–more shades of Lovecraft–that the confession is connected to the protagonist's discovery of a subterranean space belonging to a lost civilization about which dark things are muttered.

The setting also has something of the feel of Lovecraft's Dreamlands, since the setting is a city of no later than medieval technology run according to traditions interpreted by a council of elders. (Though no mention is made regarding prohibitions on feline homicide.) So, here we have all the makings of a strong Gothic tale: the society with its arbitrary laws and customs, the daring (if off-kilter) protagonist, the discovery of the lost civilization, the quest for forbidden knowledge. I wish I could say that the story lives up to that early promise, but it doesn't, and since most people won't read this for its Gothic qualities, I'll try not to dwell too much on that.

The first chapter is actually solid enough. There are a few flaws in the world building, but nothing to really ruin the plausibility. In the second chapter, when the main character falls in love with a beautiful lady, we learn that men and women are not allowed to have sexual thoughts except for once a year when they have sex in order to reproduce. This society doesn't have powerful libido-suppressants or brainwave modulators or anything like that at it's disposal. It basically tries to suppress the human sexual drive through disapproval, a strategy with the same long-term prospects as stopping a locust swarm with a large umbrella. (Even Lovecraft, who liked sex way less than Rand did, would only have attempted such a thing with a society of aliens or transdimensional beings or something along those lines.)

Soon, the protagonist discovers electricity–through a plot contrivance that is, frankly, amateurish–and realizes that electricity and lightning (‘The power of the sky') are the same thing. Soon, he is experimenting with electricity and, having recreated a light bulb, declaring: “The power of the sky can be made to do men's bidding. There are no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask.” That's not the only instance of an increasingly mad scientist tone that the protagonist takes on.

Having figured out the principles of the funny glass spheres in the cave and the protagonist reinvents the light bulb. He gets excited about showing it to the elders, reasoning that never had such an invention been offered to men. And I realize that maybe he means the people of his current civilization, but the way it's written, I just wanted to point out the whole cave full of batteries and light bulbs and how he's taking credit for someone else's invention.

This peaks in the climax of the novel, when he shows the light bulb to the elders, and they say it will have to be destroyed, and he runs out, yelling, “You fools! You thrice-damned fools!”

That's also pretty much where the story leaves off being interesting. He runs away to surprisingly unpopulated woods, his lady friend joins him, he makes a bow and arrow (though there's no reason to believe he would have any training in how to do this), they find a conveniently abandoned and well preserved house where he learns (because she's a woman and not up for learning on her own, or something) about the past, and then he engages in a long and tedious rant which is either the kind of thing you're into (if you like Rand's politics/philosophy) or should just be skipped over.

Interestingly (and getting back to the way the story collides into Gothic archetypes), the story ends at a familiar premise: the hero in an ancient, isolated structure believing himself safe and the rightful lord of the property wherein he dwells. In a Gothic text, that tends to be where things start to go wrong

There are some other elements, minor absurdities which wouldn't stand out so much if the rest of the work was actually engaging. One thread is how certain words–such as I, she, he, and ego–have been forbidden, but it's kind of half-assed, and if you're interested in how a regime might manipulate language to make the wrong kind of thoughts impossible, stick to Orwell's 1984. (Rand may have experienced totalitarianism up close, but her understanding of it does not match Orwell's.)

Really, the main problem is that at this point in her career, the need to deliver a polemic has started to take over whatever gifts Rand has as a writer. At least a pulp stylist like Lovecraft could have made this entertaining, though the moral message would likely have been much more ambiguous. I do wonder what Ayn Rand's version of “Herbert West - Reanimator” would have been like, though.

A note on scoring: I oscillated between 2 and 3 stars for this. That lest section, though brief compared to the filibuster ending of Atlas Shrugged, is painfully dull, but right up until that point, I was entertained enough to be leaning towards 3 stars. I thought about downgrading, but since it's so eminently skippable, I decided I shouldn't penalize the novel for it.

Seriously, Ayn?I understand Ayn. It was very traumatic for her, after all, she was only 12 - and Jewish - when the revolution ripped apart her life and everything she knew of, and she actually experienced Stalin's Soviet. She was 21 when she moved to USA. BUT she writes like a 16 years old who is still living those days. What I don't understand are the whiny Westerners who don't have any idea of what Ayn Rand went through and what formed her, who think THEY are living in a society Ayn Rand describes. These people haven't read any Soviet social criticism or satire, and don't understand the Russian mindset. So, they are going straight out to the opposite end of the spectrum, from “only we matter” to “only I matter” - how could they understand that Ayn is talking about a situation where “I” actually WAS seen as something nasty, equivalent to exploitation, wish to enslave your fellow human beings, getting rich on the cost of others... so much so that the mere wish to get rich was an expression of wanting to own and exploit your fellow human beings. And which one of us wants to be owned? The slavery in Russia was quite different from the slavery in USA. Uh. Anyway...“My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus.” “It shall be your name,” said the Golden One. “And I have read of a goddess,” I said, “who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods.” “It shall be my name,” said the Golden One. So... he's to become the god of all the people he chooses, and she... no-one asks what she wants. She doesn't even get to choose her own name. She is to be the mother of his SONS, daughters need not be born.Reading list;[b:We 76171 We Yevgeny Zamyatin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421883730l/76171.SY75.jpg 2144026][b:Moscow 2042 74399 Moscow 2042 Vladimir Voinovich https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347593949l/74399.SY75.jpg 71964][b:Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982.SY75.jpg 1272463][b:1984 40961427 1984 George Orwell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427.SX50.jpg 153313][b:Brave New World 5129 Brave New World Aldous Huxley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575509280l/5129.SY75.jpg 3204877][b:The Handmaid's Tale 38447 The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) Margaret Atwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447.SY75.jpg 1119185]

I am a sucker for dystopian fiction, and this certainly qualifies. I like the story and it's interesting how it's told without first person tense and pronouns from the speaker. When the dude finds a house ready for him full of knowledge and treasure to just take and then he starts talking about how he will only live by his own works I think that's the most Ayn Rand thing I've ever read.

I knew I was in love with this book after the first paragraph. I can't remember the last time I was so completely drawn into a story. I read it in one sitting. I can't remember the last time I did that. Do yourself a favor and check it out. It's a novella, so even short attention span readers will love it!