Atlas Shrugged: 20-32

Pages 20-32

·         Meet Dagny Taggart! First off, I’m not the kind to automatically cast Hollywood actors for parts in my head as I’m reading. I did it for both Patient Zero and The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry, because to me those books read like movie scripts, but I did that consciously, too. “I wonder who’s going to play this guy when they inevitably get this to Hollywood?” When I’m just reading things I create people in my head, but they’re vague and undefined, and it’s not until someone disagrees with my version of a character that I realize I had a version of the character at all. That said, Dagny Taggart has always been Angelina Jolie in my head. Always. And I am just finding out NOW that not only has the Atlas Shrugged movie clawed its way out of development hell, it’s already in post-production. I’ll talk about the movie separate from the book, but this Taylor Schilling person is NOT my Dagny Taggart.

ANYWAY, getting back to some semblance of the point. Which was…oh. Dagny Taggart. First off, girlfriend works hard for the money. For her fellow man? No. For the money. She is trying to keep Taggart Transcontinental from the spectacular crash and burn it is currently heading for, and she quite frankly doesn’t give a shit what she has to do for it. Now, in our world, that would make her the antagonist in an Erin Brokovich type movie, but here, in what I’ve decided to call the Atlasverse, that makes her our hero, because all it means is while everybody else is waffling about trying to avoid making decisions (I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of facepalm that must happen with people in the service industry there) Dagny is making hard line decisions and getting things done. The Rio Norte line is crap? We’re going to fix it! Associated Steel still hasn’t given us our steel? Fuck ‘em! We’re going to Rearden! And further-fucking-more, we’re using their new Rearden Metal! I don’t need anyone’s opinions on it! I’ve looked at the facts, and the facts say you can suck it. Oh! Look at this! They also say the board can suck it, too! Oh, hold on, one more thing, it’s kind of in tiny print down here at the bottom…yeah, I can read it now…neener neener neener.

All of this, obviously, is in stark contrast to her brother, James. James doesn’t want to leave Orren Boyle (we haven’t even met him and I know he’s shaped like a Weeble), he doesn’t want to use Rearden Metal simply because nobody else has ever tried Rearden Metal, which, by the way, is exactly why everyone else is staying away from Rearden Metal, and he straight up hates Henry Rearden, which is our cue to know that we should like him. And why doesn’t he like him? Dagny’s got some ideas, but…

“If she were insane, thought Dagny, she would conclude that her brother hated to deal with Rearden because Rearden did his job with superlative efficiency; but she would not conclude it, because she thought that such a feeling was not within the humanly possible” (p26).

Oh, Dagny. You’ve lived with the man your whole life and you can’t get a bead on him? In the end, James agrees to the whole thing as long as Dagny takes full responsibility. James also accuses Dagny of being unfeeling and heartless because of the way she deals with other companies, looking at the money instead of the people, but of course Dagny feels everything, it’s just that she’s not a blithering idiot like apparently almost every other human being on the planet.

Dagny Taggart’s official title, by the way, is Vice President in Charge of Operations, but it seems like everybody who knows anything about the company knows that she’s really the one who keeps the company going. ‘Dagny’ means ‘new day’ and ‘Taggart’ is still ‘son of the priest.’

·         While we do not meet him, we learn about a composer named Richard Halley, Richard meaning ‘powerful leader’ and Halley perhaps most importantly being the name of a well-known comet. He is a favorite of Dagny, and it’s noted that he writes “a clear, complex melody – at a time when no one wrote melody any longer…” (p20). It’s kind of funny to think that no one writes melody anymore, and I think its following with the entire theme of the Atlasverse. A melody is something sung or played by one sound. A harmony includes many sounds working together. It’s not explicitly stated but I imagine there aren’t too many solos in music in the Atlasverse (“Should I do this solo in C or in A?” “I don’t know. Why don’t we vote on it?”).

There’s also something weird going on with Halley. Dagny hears a brakeman whistling a piece she recognizes as Halley’s but doesn’t recognize the particular tune. The brakeman informs her it’s from Halley’s Fifth Concerto, except as far as anyone knows Halley only wrote four, and no one’s heard from Halley in years. Clearly, Halley is alive somewhere and still composing and just not sharing anymore, which sounds like it makes sense to me. If Dagny Taggart loves the music of Richard Halley it’s a good bet everyone else hates him like they hate food shopping (“Should I get low fat ice cream or sugar free ice cream? I don’t know. There’s no one to ask. Damn it, I’m going to be here all day…”).

·         We also get more information on Henry Rearden. While I’ll hold off on the GUSHING AND UTTER LOVE I remember having from when I read this in high school for the man, I will say that ‘Henry’ means ‘home ruler’ and ‘Rearden’ means ‘bard or minstrel.’ Also, as mentioned above, he spent ten years creating Rearden Metal, which no one wants to use because no one else has ever used it, thus there are no opinions on it and no one to tell them if it’s good or not. It’s the ice cream thing all over again.

·         Ayn Rand also uses the chapter to show that the clusterfuck of nondecision isn’t just happening in New York City. We were given hints in the last part, obviously, that things were not right all over, based on the Rio Norte line all the way in the American Southwest being about as useful to trains as a pair of dolphins, but we get a direct view into it from Dagny, as she travels from the Rio Norte line back to New York City. There is only one train left worth its salt, and that’s the Taggart Comet (on which Taggart is listening to Halley, oh, Rand, I see wat u did thar). And then it gets sidelined because of a red light, and then this happens:

“The conductor spoke up. ‘I don’t think we had any business being sent off on a siding, that switch wasn’t working right, and this thing’s not working at all.’ He jerked his head up at the red light. ‘I don’t think the signal’s going to change. I think it’s busted.’

‘Then what are you doing?’

‘Waiting for it to change’” (p22)

Boyfriend might as well be waiting for Godot, but dammit, he isn’t paid to go against a red light! The whole thing reads like some low-rent, depressing version of Abbot and Costello, and once again, the conductor and the engineer only agree to go against the CLEARLY BROKEN red once Dagny says she’ll take responsibility if anything goes wrong.

·         So, we know that what we’ve seen here and in New York City is representative of what is happening across the entire country. And we begin to understand that it’s happening throughout the world as Dagny and James discuss the fact that they’re going to lose a line in Mexico once Mexico ‘nationalizes’ it. I love the way Rand has introduced the world to the reader. It’s done slowly, and in pieces, so the reader can keep up, but there’s no hand holding and there’s no explicit explanation of how it happened or how it’s different. You’re given pieces and left to fill in the rest, which shows remarkable trust in the reader.

·         The best indication we get of the attitudes and worldviews that are powering the Atlasverse comes from (surprise!) James:

“That’s an impractical attitude. Selfish greed for profit is a thing of the past. It has been generally conceded that the interests of society as a whole must always be placed first in any business undertaking which-” (p29).

Most important, of course, is that we’re seeing the same themes here that were pushed by Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead, that people must live for everyone else but themselves. But not to be missed is that James Taggart never says it’s what he believes in, or what any particular person believes in. It is just ‘generally conceded.’ Lots of people think it work, just like lots of people rely on steel instead of Rearden Metal and lots of people are used in a harmony.

·         The chapter ends the same way it began. “Who is John Galt?” And our tally is up to four, by the way.


All Atlas Shrugged But Sunday