Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Rand, Ayn (Vol. 30) - Terry Teachout

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

TERRY TEACHOUT

If your definition of a "modern classic" is a book which still sells briskly in both soft- and hard-cover editions a quarter-century after its publication, which deals with serious issues in a serious way, and which continues to stir up controversy as each succeeding generation discovers it, then—better brace yourself—Atlas Shrugged fills the bill. Sure, it's a preposterous book; sure, the reviewers demolished it; sure, virtually every reputable conservative from Russell Kirk to Frank Meyer rushed to repudiate it. Indeed, there aren't very many bad things to be said about Atlas Shrugged that aren't true. No novel of comparable quality has ever been so tenacious in its hold on the public, give or take Gone with the Wind….

Rumor has it that Ayn Rand herself was, at the time of her death, hot at work on the script for a ten-hour Atlas Shrugged TV mini-series; and it's no rumor that she turned up on the Phil...

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