I don't have a reasonable explanation for why I enjoy Ayn Rand's writing since, as a human being, I find her and her values (which include but were not limited to homophobia, xenophobia, classism, sexual discrimination/harassment, and being mean to poor people) kind of repulsive.

My first experiences with her writing are also weirdly synonymous with my first experiences on the internet since my very first profile (on AOL thank you very much) included a quote from Atlas Shrugged. I very clearly recall getting simply loads of IM's (instant messages for the babies reading this) from people with handles like "GaltValley" and "HowardRoark" who literally invited me to Rand Retreats, whatever the great goddamn those are.

So she's got sort of a special place in my heart I guess.

I think I like the grandiosity of her writing. Like if you look up the definition of "Ego" in the dictionary there she'll be. I don't want to say I admire her, but there is something almost impressive about someone who is that completely self absorbed. Not impressive good like a Van Gogh painting, more like impressive the way World War I is impressive in the sheer number of horses it managed to kill.

Also I read most of her stuff when I was teenager. So forgive me for thinking things like Howard and Dominique's relationship in "The Fountainhead" was epically romantic and not disgusting since, well, he's a rapist. Teenagers like big, grandiose, dramatic shit. Her specialty.

Given her propensity for letting characters commit fraud, sabotage, murder, rape and basically end civilization in the name of the all mighty EGO in her larger works I don't think its unfair to call Anthem "light reading" by comparison. Its certainly shorter and it lacks a lot of the menace of her other, longer works.

The horrors of things like socialized health care, welfare, and compassion for humanity have already destroyed civilization when the book starts. Everyone has names like our hero Equality 7-2521 and refers to themselves as "we" and "us" because THERE IS NO INDIVIDUAL!!!!!!!!! EVERYTHING IS FOR THE BETTERMENT OF HUMANITY AS A WHOLE!!!!!! THERE IS NO "I" THERE IS ONLY "WE!!!!!!!"

Equality 7-2521's circumstances are a little different though. See he has...desires. He wants to learn things, study things, build things. Not for the betterment of his fellow men but just cause he wants to.

This is, naturally, horrible because THERE IS NO INDIVIDUAL!!!!! So Equality 7-2521 heads for the hills with a conveniently gorgeous babe named Liberty 5-3000 and they live in the woods for awhile and then they find a house from "the unmentionable times" when people said "I" and read books and other things that ran contrary to the whole THERE IS NO INDIVIDUAL agenda.

Blah, blah, blah they read books, they discover "I" yadda, yadda, yadda.

Clearly this is Rand's own personal 1984 but since it never gets further than hysterical yelling of EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE OR NOTHING FOR ANYONE!!!!! it doesn't really succeed on any level. Our heroes are just so perfectly perfect and gorgeous and geniuses and weirdly Aryan and the terrible, horrible, very bad "Council" who run the world are little, mean, stupid and vaguely "other" which is to say not white, blond and blue eyed that it all just feels icky and racist and like some kind of nightmarish fairy tale that you would never, ever read to a child.

I know a little about where Rand came from (communist Russia) so I do sort of get it. She literally lived through the sort of stuff she rails against in her stories. My problem with her philosophy is that its honestly just as extremist as the agenda of the people like Lenin. She'd rather the world burn than have anyone offer a hand up to someone struggling. It just makes me kind of ill.

So after all that it might surprise you to learn that I kind of enjoy this book. Just like I can't help but enjoy "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" even if I ALWAYS skip the twenty pages of sermonizing the heroes of both those books do at the end. She writes strong characters, characters you can't really help but admire. There's fire in her writing that I frankly defy you not to feel. I want Equality 7-2521 to win out over "The Council" even if I objectively know the whole thing is nonsense. She makes me care about what happens to her characters. She make me glad when things work out for them.

She's just also totally full of shit.

see i could DEAL with rand's writing this. she says what she's gotta, then ends it. she's like, "okay let's be honest, i'm not a novelist b/c i really don't write very well BUT i have this THING i really believe in and i wanna share it and gosh darnit people like parables so HERE." why ANYONE would want to read MORE about it and suffer through the out-of-her-element (yes donnie, i said it) torture of the other beasts is beyond me.

ayn rand is the most ridiculous author i have ever read. i hate her. and her philosophies. she takes hyperbole to a hyperbolic extreme in this book. i hate how she makes the main characters these perfect beings whose only flaw is that society won't accept their superiority. i wonder how ayn rand would have thought if she had been unattractive, unsuccessful and poor. absolute rubbish.

سرود نوشته آین رند ، نویسنده سرشناس روسی – آمریکایی شرح وحکایت یک پادآرمان‌شهراست . داستان خانم رند در تاریخ نامعلومی اتفاق می‌افتد که بشردرآن گویی وارد عصر تاریکی شده‌. همهٔ انسان‌ها به صورت دسته جمعی زندگی می‌کنند و مفهوم فردگرایی و حتی نام افراد هم حذف شده‌است . ویرانشهر خانم رند ، حالتی بسیار ابتدایی و بدوی دارد . افراد در جامعه ای زندگی می کنند که مسئولان آن به دنبال حداقلی از پیشرفت هم نیستند ، آنان در بهترین حالت خواهان حفظ شرایط موجود هستند . در این جامعه ، هیچ‌کس نام یا هویت شخصی ندارد و همه با شماره‌ شناسایی می‌شوند و ابراز احساسات و تفکر مستقل ممنوع است.
این جامعه توسط یک دولت تمامیت‌خواه اداره می‌شود که به دنبال ایجاد یک جامعه‌ی آرمانی است. این دولت معتقد است که تنها راه رسیدن به آرمان‌شهر، از بین بردن فردگرایی و ایجاد یک جامعه‌ی یکدست است .
شخصیت اصلی داستان، در چنین جامعه‌ای رشد کرده. او از همان ابتدای داستان کم کم متوجه می‌شود که احساسات و خواسته‌های او با آنچه جامعه به او می‌آموزد یا از او می خواهد متفاوت است . او به دنبال پاسخ‌هایی برای سوالاتش است و به دنبال افرادی دیگر می گردد که مانند او فکر کنند .
در ستایش من
با وجود داستانی معمولی و شاید تکراری ، اهمیت کتاب را باید در پیام آن دانست . نویسنده بر اهمیت فردگرایی و آزادی های فردی در زمانه ای تأکید کرده که استالین در شوروی ، هیتلر در آلمان و موسولینی در ایتالیا ، خواهان حذف من و ساخت جامعه بر پایه ما بودند . این کتاب تاکیدی ایست بر این که انسان‌ها موجوداتی فردی هستند و حق دارند که فکر کنند، احساس کنند، و زندگی خود را بسازند.
من در برابر ما
رند با استادی و مهارت ، فلسفه من یعنی فردی بودن انسان ها و حق زندگی کردن بر اساس ارزش ها و آرمان های خود را در برابر ما یعن�� اهمیت اجتماع و همکاری ، مسئولیت جمعی و فرمانبرداری مطلق قرار داده ، گرچه در کتاب در کنار پادآرمان شهر ، جامعه جدیدی هم بر اساس فردگرایی و آزادی ساخته می شود که می توان آنرا نماد پیروزی من بر ما دانست اما شاید در ادامه و در جامعه جدید ، افراد به این نتیجه برسند که ما نیز مهم است و افراد در هر جامعه ای نیاز به همکاری و پیروی از قانون دارند .
سرود نثری لطیف و دلنشین دارد که هم به کوبندگی داستان و هم به درک حال و روز راوی آن کمک کرده . ترجمه خانم تناسان را می توان درخشان دانست . او هم در برگرداندن احساسات لطیف راوی و هم در ترسیم فضا تاریک و سرد داستان ، کاملا موفق عمل کرده است .

First off, let me say this: SHAME ON YOU AMAZON! You have prohibited a great cover of this novel from showing here on goodreads. The cover I speak of looks like this: five ghostly apparitions stand forlornly, one is reaching toward a light that looks as if it is an exploding star; they all have chains on their wrists; the far right figure, the only woman, is tenderly reaching for the hand of the man trying to grasp the light; a pitch black background acts as a backdrop. It is the perfect cover for this novel. It tells so much without revealing anything (that is unless you have read the novel). So I say again: SHAME ON YOU AMAZON.

Okay, now on to the book.

ANTHEM by Ayn Rand is a novel set in a far-off post apocalyptic future, in a world where technology has been relegated into the land of myth and fancy. People of this world are no longer given birth names; they are given a name according to the cohort they were born into. It is a world where the individual is less than the collective.

This is the story of Equality 7-2521. In the beginning, they (he) are destined to be great thinkers. No other cohort in history has thought the way they (he) do(es). But this is not to be. Equality 7-2521 is given the job of Street Sweeper by the Council of Vocations. It is this council that determines what is essential for the collective at the moment. Equality 7-2521 does a grand job of keeping the streets clean. It is not until they (he) comes across Liberty 5-3000, renamed the Golden One, that Equality 7-2521 begins to think outside of the proverbial collective box. Later, when Equality 7-2521 discovers a secret cave (which in reality is an abandoned subway tunnel) does the meaning of individuality actually begin to take root in their (his) head. While stealing away to this “secret place” Equality 7-2521 begins to experiment with copper wires, eventually making an apparatus that conducts electricity. Equality 7-2521 is overwhelmed by this discovery, and wants to share it with the World Council of Scholars. But before they (he) can do that, it is discovered that they (he) is not in at curfew. Equality 7-2521 is taken away to the Palace of Corrective Detention where they (he) are beaten and tortured and interrogated. Equality 7-2521 never talks, not so much as a whisper. When they (he) decide to escape, the morning of the meeting for the World Council of Scholars, they (he) bring the electrical apparatus. When shown the device, the members of the World Council of Scholars shirk back from it in fear. When Equality 7-2521 offers to give the council this gift, they scoff at him and berate them (him) for thinking not of the brotherhood but of only them(self). Equality 7-2521 refuses to be detained again and runs off into the Uncharted Forest with the device, there they (he) wander aimlessly, and await the moment a beast tears them to shreds. But it is not a beast that confronts them (him); it is the Golden One that finds them (him). Together, Equality 7-2521 and the Golden One go on a journey further into the Uncharted Forrest. When they happen to come across an old cabin, they investigate the relics left behind from the Unimaginable Times, mainly books. It is at this moment that Equality 7-2521 goes from them to him. It is at this time that he begins to understand that “I” can be more powerful than “we”. With this new knowledge, Equality 7-2521 renames himself, Prometheus. It is also at this time that he gives the Golden One a new name, Gaea. It is at this time that first-person narration takes over. (The rest of the novel you will have to read for yourself.)

For this reader, the premise of this novel is intriguing. The setup and the style in which it is written allows for a fast paced story, packed with delicious nuggets of thought. And, to boot, Rand wrote this as a writing exercise while she was outlining ATLAS SHRUGGED. Now don’t get me wrong, I think Rand was a big sloppy bowl of crazy. But what she has written in ANTHEM is a testament of what people should do to keep their governments in check. Basically, Rand tells the reader to remember this: governments work for the people, not the other way around.

Alongside Yevgeny Zamyatin’s WE, ANTHEM is considered a classic within post apocalyptic literature. I’ve never read WE, but I will be certain to read it sooner than later. Is ANTHEM a good book? Sure. Is it a book worth reading eighty plus years after it was published? Yep. Does it have all the answers? Not even close. This is a book of ideas. Plot and characterization and setting are shadily written. Perhaps that is the genius of this brief 120 page novel. Perhaps Rand wanted the reader to fill in the gaps with their own struggles against their own government. Regardless, this is a quick read that any reader of science fiction, or any person interested in the struggle between individualism and collectivism should read. If anything, it should make you think.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I'd somehow had the impression that Ayn Rand would be completely inaccessible and difficult to read, but it wasn't the case - at least in this book. But I don't know, it was just lacking ... something. It didn't evoke in me the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach that some of the other dystopian novels I've read this year have - namely The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World & 1984. They made me feel, and tingle, and bristle, but this just didn't. In fact, I finished reading a chapter, went to the next page and came to the acknowledgements, and was like "Oh. That's it?". Talk about ending with a whimper. I feel that the ending was meant to be powerful, but it was more like a deflated balloon.

It was ok, but nothing more than that.

اقتباس :
"كيف تتحقق سعادتي إن كانت كل الأيادي، حتى القذرة، تستطيع الوصول إليها ؟ ما حكمتي إن كان حتى للحمقى أن يملوا عليّ أفكاري؟ ما حريتي إن كانت كل المخلوقات، حتى الشاذة والعاجزة، أسيادي؟ ما حياتي إن لم أفعل بها غير الانحناء والخضوع والطاعة؟

ليس هذا العبث منهجي بعد الآن."
2.5

یکی از کتاب های خوبی بود که این چند وقت خوندم. با دید خیلی متفاوت نسبت به بقیه از این جهت که الان که همه جا صحبت از کمک به هم نوع و دیدن بقیه و برابری و کلمه (ما) میشه این کتاب برای توجه به (من) نوشته شده. داستان آینده ی وحشتناک بشر رو روایت میکنه که بعد از اتفاقاتی همه چیز نابود شده و کسی هم حق صحبت راجع به گذشته نداره. همه با هم زندگی میکنند و همه تصمیمات توسط شوراها گرفته میشه تا اینکه شخصی متفاوت فکر و عمل میکنه و بقیه ی داستان

2020-10-08 I first read this book at the suggestion of a girl friend my freshman year in college. I liked it, but it was more extreme and too simple for what I preferred. I remember reading Barry Goldwater's book "Conscience of a Conservative" right around the same time and liking that better, since it actually got into the major political-economic issues of the day. I also preferred the non-fiction style for these kinds of issues, though I did see some value in this as well as Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm.

Recently, I decided to read Anthem again (probably for the 3rd time) because it is on the list of books to be discussed in a potential Reading Group that I wanted to join. I had another several motivations too:
- I was given, not too long ago, a copy of a new Graphic Novel version of Anthem, and just read that a few days ago.
- I have seen parts of one or two screen adaptations of Anthem in the last few years.
- I have read a review of a somewhat recent (2019?) stage adaptation of Anthem.
- I have liked the works of Ayn Rand generally very much and rereading such a short book after many years seems pretty reasonable - and it sure worked out well with rereading 1984 a week or two ago.

Needless to say, the book did not disappoint. In fact, my previous rating here in Goodreads for the book was only 3 stars, which I just upgraded to 5!

More soon - I took some notes that I would like to share.

Some passages I liked:

p. 18 "You shall do what the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies." Sounds pretty Soviet Unionish, eh? Or maybe North Korean? Or Khmer Rouge Cambodian? Or Covid years American?

p. 19 "And we learned much from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat, and that the sun revolves around it which causes the day and night.... We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all ailments." Laughable, eh? Well, just 35 or so years ago, climate scientists were teaching that the earth was cooling so fast we were in danger of another ice age. Just 10 years or so ago we were hitting "peak oil" so the price was well over $100/barrel(bbl) and people thought we were running out. The price now is around $40/bbl (2020-10) $70 (2023-07-02, with much inflation since) and there is plenty of known reserves.

p. 29 "Everything which is not permitted is forbidden" - This is from the dystopian world in Anthem... but the parallels to today's world are too close for comfort - think Covid medical treatments!

p. 65 "We must not keep our secret (electric light) to ourselves, nor buried under the ground. We must bring it into the sight of all men." The naivete of the main character in thinking that the powers that be would welcome his revolutionary invention is a bit sad and reminded me of the main character in Ibsen's play "An Enemy of the People."

2023-07-02 edited with come Covid era updates.

أنا لست عدوًا لأخوتي ولست مواليهم، ولكن فيَّ من الاثنين لهم بقدر ما يستحقون مني. ولا يكفي أن يولد إخوتي في هذه الدنيا كي يستحقوا حبي. أنا لا أمنح حبي دون سبب، ولا أمنحهُ لأي عابر سبيل يرجو أن يستحوذ على حبي. أنا أُشرِّف البشر بحبي. والشرف مكتسب، لا مُهدى.

~على الدوام سيبقى كل من خرج عن المألوف و بحث عن التجديد، في حالة من الإنكار له، دومًا سيكون الخوف والتغيير متلازمان كالجسد وظله، على مر التاريخ والعصور، لا يحدث تغيير إلا بحروبٍ أو فقد أو هروب.
الرواية قصيرة وتحمل في باطنها معاني كثيرةً، ومقارنة بزمن كتاباتها، فإنها تسبقه كثيرًا.
تمت

Third time around for me to read this. Originally I rated it 4 stars but I decided to upgrade it to 5. More than a novella, it is, I believe, a beautiful and lyrical poem of deep meaning that goes way beyond communism against capitalism. It's just common sense. Besides, I'm not here to talk about Ayn Rand's philosophy; I’m here to review--albeit very briefly--this work of hers which speaks to me like no other. So here we go: I simply think Anthem is a masterpiece, period.

الكلمة نور
وبعض الكلمات قبور
ما دين الله سوي كلمة
ماشرف الرجل سوي كلمة
مفتاح الجنة في كلمة
ودخول النار علي كلمة
وقضاء الله هو الكلمة
أتعرف مامعني الكلمة؟
عبد الرحمن الشرقاوي - الحسين ثائرًا وشهيدًا

"ناديتُ الذهبية فأخبرتها ما قرأت وما تعلمت، أطالت النظر إلي، فكانت أولى كلماتها: أنا أحبك"
آين راند - ترتيلة.


تحكي الرواية قصة الإنسان في مجتمع تمحي فيه الذات وتحل محلها "النحن" في إشارة واضحة إلى التضييقات التي أحاطت بالفرد في زمن كتابة الرواية، وفي الزمن الذي يسبقها.
توجز الرواية قصة سقوط الإنسان من الجنة واغترابه عن ذاته الحقيقية، حيث تخلى الإنسان عن عصمته، وربوبيته، وقرر لأول مرة ارتكابه الاختيار الحر. هذا الخيار الذي كلفه جنته، وعالمه السماوي، لكنه منحه الحرية في أن يكون إنسانًا.

تدور الأحداث في عالم يسمى أفراده لا بمسمياتهم، لكن بقيم وخلق، بقيم تفرض عليهم من علٍ.
قيم تمنع، هي ذاتها، تلك المشاعر. تمنع أي قيمة تلبي رغبة الذات. أي شيء قد يمنح الإنسان إنسانيته، بمشاعره، بحريته، بأخطائه بالطبع

القصة لا تتوقف عند هذا الحد، لكنها لكنها تفجئك بالإسقاطات المتتالية.
إسقاط الخلق
إسقاط الإنقسام الذي حل بالعاشق والمعشوق
وإسقاط سارق النار الذي، رغبة في هداية البشر للنور، تكبد العذاب والسجن والشقاء.
هاهنا، وفي سردية أكثر رومانسية، وجد العاشق معشوقه، والذات أناها، وبروميثيوس غايا(ه).