Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Rand, Ayn (Vol. 30) - Granville Hicks

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

GRANVILLE HICKS

["Atlas Shrugged"] comes among us as a demonstrative act rather than as a literary work. Its size seems an expression of the author's determination to crush the enemies of truth—her truth, of course—as a battering ram demolishes the walls of a hostile city. Not in any literary sense a serious novel, it is an earnest one, belligerent and unremitting in its earnestness. It howls in the reader's ear and beats him about the head in order to secure his attention, and then, when it has him subdued, harangues him for page upon page. It has only two moods, the melodramatic and the didactic, and in both it knows no bounds. (p. 4)

It would be pointless to discuss either the logic or the feasibility of the program Miss Rand so vehemently puts forth. What is important is the spirit in which the book is written. Like "The Fountainhead," "Atlas Shrugged" is a defense of and a tribute to the superior individual, who is, in Miss Rand's view, superior in...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Harold Strauss
3. Ben Belitt
4. William Plomer
5. Lorine Pruette
6. Albert Guerard
7. John Chamberlain
8. Ruth Chapin Blackman
9. Granville Hicks
10. Helen Beal Woodward
11. Patricia Donegan
12. Gore Vidal
13. Nathaniel Branden
14. Bruce Cook
15. Gerald Raftery
16. Philip Gordon
17. Mimi R. Gladstein
18. KEVIN McGANN
19. Terry Teachout
20. DOUGLAS DEN UYL and DOUGLAS B. RASMUSSEN
21. Tamara Stadnychenko
22. Copyright

1. Ayn Rand