Books

Finished reading Atlas Shrugged and Rashomon.

Be forewarned that Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is one of those few books that will change you fundamentally as a person. Whether you agree with her ideology or not, at the very least this book will open new philosophical, sociological, and moral portholes through which to view the world. Many times the righteous monologues and lumbering narratives thrashed me into boredom, and I had to wage internal wars in order to march on. Once or twice, my MTV attention span would win and I would find myself skimming along reading the first sentence of each paragraph. The 1,000+ pages of long-winded descriptions bogged me down and I had to take time off from the novel, which resulted in a two-month effort to read the book. I’m glad I did, though. All you got to do is perform a basic Internet search to get tons on info and reviews on this book.

As far as writing styles go, the polar opposite of Ayn Rand is Ryunosuke Akutagawa. His Rashomon and Other Short Stories are exactly that, concise economic succinct tales. Every time I needed a break from Ayn Rand’s wordy prose I would consume a couple of Akutagawa’s stories. It’s only fitting that I finished Atlas Shrugged last night and Rashomon this morning. I picked up this book because of the references in the movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and I wasn’t disappointed. Sometimes the subtleties of the narratives left me guessing at the moral or lesson that should be learned. Perhaps that’s because I’m not a scholar of feudal Japan, although Akutagawa’s stories do lend a glimpse into that place and time. Pearline said it best in Ghost Dog, “Fuedal Japan was sure a weird place.” (Or something like that.) All in all, I liked it, also.

My book for the trip to Atlanta will be Hyperion. Anti-Shenry lent it to me and it looks like it’s won a couple of sci-fi awards. I trust the Anti-Shenry, so I know it’ll be a good book. I’m also packing George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones as a backup. Although I read it once before, my mental retention is approaching nil in my old age and I need to re-read before I pick up the two sequels that weren’t available when I read the book.
...and so it was written, shenry at 9/05/2002 10:07:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .