It's The Beginning ...

"It's the end," she said. "It's the beginning," he answered.
She is Dagny Taggart, he is John Galt: the heroine and hero respectively, in Ayn Rand's masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. When the men of reason, the men of strength, the men of intellect, the men of the mind went on strike against a World which sought to exploit their virtue at the same time admonishing and punishing them for it; it slowly but inevitably destroyed itself. Once the destruction was complete, these men would return to rebuild it - to mark a new beginning.

Yesterday, seven months after I started reading the book at the Ohare International Airport in Chicago about to board my flight to India, I reached the end. And today is a new beginning - the beginning of this blog. The book took me almost eight months and three flights halfway across the World to complete.

Rand's philosophy (for those who are unaware) consists of individualism, objectivism and rationality among other things. People at times consider it too extremist, too conservative and too capitalistic. I am certainly deeply influenced by her unbending support for rationality, reason and Objectivism. Hence the title and theme of this blog.

Atlas Shrugged is definitely a must-read although I wouldn't ask all to agree with all that is says. In fact, for those new to Ayn Rand, I would suggest you read the Fountainhead first. It is much smaller, lighter, quicker and more moderate. In Rand's own words it is "only an overture to Atlas Shrugged." Atlas Shrugged tends to get a bit slow in parts but once it picks up one can't let go of it. The end is a bit of an anti-climax I thought; but the rest of the book more than sufficiently makes up for it.