Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed.[208] Lorine Pruette's positive review in The New York Times was one that Rand greatly appreciated.[209] Pruette called her "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly", and said "you will not be able to read this masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time".[210]

There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them for either misunderstanding her message or for being in unimportant publications.[208] Some negative reviews focused on the novel's length;[11] one called it "a whale of a book" and another said "anyone who is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper-rationing". Other negative reviews called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian".[208]

Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative.[11][211] In National Review, conservative author Whittaker Chambers called the book "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly".[212]

He described the book's tone as "shrillness without reprieve". He accused Rand of supporting a godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming, "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!'".[213]

Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications, including praise from the noted book reviewer John Chamberlain.[211] Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", saying it was "execrable claptrap", "written out of hate", and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity".[11]

Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged.[214][215]

Philosopher Sidney Hook likened her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union",[216] and author Gore Vidal called her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality".[217] Her subsequent books got progressively less review attention.[214]

The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives (often members of the Republican Party),[249] despite Rand taking some atypical positions for a conservative, like being pro-choice and an atheist.[250] She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley Jr. and other contributors to the conservative National Review magazine, which published numerous criticisms of her writings and ideas.[251]

Nevertheless, a 1987 article in The New York Times referred to her as the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate".[252] Republican congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and have recommended her novels.[253][254][255][256]

She has influenced some conservative politicians outside the U.S., such as Sajid Javid in the United Kingdom,[257] Siv Jensen in Norway,[258] and Ayelet Shaked in Israel.[259]

The financial crisis of 2007–2008 spurred renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis.[260][261][262] Opinion articles compared real-world events with the novel's plot.[249][262]

Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests.[261] There was increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left. Critics blamed the economic crisis on her support Opinion articles compared real-world events with the novel's plot.

[249][262] Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests.[261] There was increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left. Critics blamed the economic crisis on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan.[256] In 2015, Adam Weiner said that through Greenspan, "Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy".[263]

Lisa Duggan said that Rand's novels had "incalculable impact" in encouraging the spread of neoliberal political ideas.[264] In 2021, Cass Sunstein said Rand's ideas could be seen in the tax and regulatory policies of the Trump administration, which he attributed to the "enduring influence" of Rand's fiction.[265]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand