Rand, Ayn (Vol. 30) | Gerald Raftery
GERALD RAFTERY
A surprising favorite among the high-school taste-makers is Ayn Rand's "Anthem" …, which is set in the far distant future and is remarkably free of its author's murky economics. Written nearly 30 years ago and published in hard cover about 10 years later, it enlarges upon ideas which are expressed in [H. G. Wells's] "The Time Machine" and implied in [Aldous Huxley's] "Brave New World"; it might almost be an extrapolation of [George Orwell's] "1984"—say, into 2084. The final scene depicts the hero, who has escaped from a deteriorated ant-like culture, vowing to restore the vanished technical civilization of our times and adopting as his motto the one word "Ego." This is somewhat more attractive than Miss Rand's current philosophy, which she expresses with the lapel emblem of a dollar sign. (p. 16)
Gerald Raftery, "High-School Favorites," in The New York Times Book Review, Part II, February 27, 1966, pp. 14,...
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