The book is about human identity and freedom, and how one can degrade under the chains of collectivism.

A lot of reviews on this book, which are posted on this site, use the word “futuristic” events. I intentionally put the quotes around this word as I tend to totally disagree with the choice of this word. I used to live under socialist regime, a collectivistic society. So I can relate and completely understand the events described in the book, where the word “I” doesn’t exist, when it is a shame to stand out and be different from the rest.
However, you don’t need to come from the socialist country to understand that this is about NOW, and not the future. We face this “phenomenon” (again I am using the quotes to underline that this actually is a normal event that we face every day), when we need to struggle to form our own opinions to think this is white, when everyone else thinks this is black. We struggle to stand up and not to get under the influence of the media propaganda and continue to act with the high integrity and high morals no matter what.

This book is about the man, who stands out on his own and is not afraid to position himself against everyone else just to rediscover his “I”.

My favorite quotes:

"My hands...My spirit...My sky...My forest".

"I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning"
Many words have been granted me,...but only three are holy: "I will it!"

"I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before."

“ I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned."

And now I see the face of god... . This god, this one word: 'I'

"...man will go on. Man, not men."

"I am. I think. I will."

Published in 1938, this is a classic dystopian. Even if well intended, the overcorrection of a society, leads to more destruction than the original problem.

It is not a love story, but it does contain love. As someone who enjoys a good dystopian/apocalyptic story, it is easy to see how this book paved the way for stories from authors like Lowry, Orwell, and Bradbury.

Give a listen to the Rush 2112 album.

And the meek shall inherit the earth

We've taken care of everything
The words you read
The songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure
To your eye
It's one for all and all for one
We work together
Common sons
Never need to wonder
How or why

I never quite figured out why my highschool lit teacher made this required reading. It's something I've always wondered about. Anthem struck me as too much "anti-communist." Somewhat propaganda material for the anti-communist forces. I've always been skeptical of rabid anti-communism. In the novella, the characters have serial numbers instead of names, isn't that what's happening in the capitalist system as well, with our identity cards and employee numbers?

A fascinating little read. The book is an Anthem for Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which teaches that people should pursue their own happiness, for which they alone are responsible. It is a statement against collectivism (communism, socialism, totalitarian states).
It is also a fascinating little novella in which a man is born into a society which forbids the use of the word “I”. Everyone refers to themselves as “we”. It’s a little confusing at first! It is forbidden to even have thoughts that are not the thoughts of the collective. Of course, the main character has forbidden thoughts of self-determination which lead to a story which I found hard to put down. Well-written, intriguing, and quite pertinent to our time in spite of its surprising age (1937).

Based on everything I've heard about Rand, from her supporters, her detractors, or in interviews with the author herself, I feel there is no reason to believe that this book or any of her others contain anything that is worth reading, not even as 'cautionary example'. Since my goal here is to read as many good books as possible and to do my best to avoid bad ones, I'm going to be giving Rand a wide berth.

I really liked this book. I think it conveys Rand's message better that he more well known books. The characters and the story are far more interesting. Very inspiring.
This is the best edition of it available at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Anthem-General...

I generally don't read much dystopian, but just thought, 'what the hell, let's give it a go'. Although the concept for Anthem sounded promising, on the whole I felt it was poorly executed. Being relatively short I had nothing to lose, unfortunately by the time I reached the last page, put the book down on the table, went to make a coffee, before gazing out the window, Anthem had already started it's super quick journey of escaping my thoughts, scampering off to the nearest forest.

So then, this is some sort of stupid future, where all sense of the individual is annihilated in deference to the collective state and each man’s role in that society is assigned to him. Even some words have been completely obliterated from the language, and all citizens carry a designation such as 'Equality 7-2521', in this case, the name of our protagonist, who we learn right away was probably unfairly assigned to the duty of street sweeper for the great collective. In this setting, mankind’s reverence for a collective yet compartmentalized society has plunged him back to the dark ages, as all knowledge of the age before was destroyed and society’s new structure continues to keep men floundering in ignorance. 7-2521 is a bit of a rebel, a dystopian luke skywalker, who goes against the values of his society when he finds a secret lair belonging to people from the time before, and resolves to learn its forbidden secrets. Also in this time his newfound wisdom and courage causes him to flirt like Casanova with an attractive girl he calls 'The Golden One'. He starts developing some much forbidden feelings for her. In other words, he wants to jump in her pants.
Our hero flees to the dangerous wilderness, quickly followed by his beloved, and they start their new lives together.

Though Anthem contains some interesting moments, it falls flat on it's face for several reasons, not least because Rand's writing style seems incredibly tedious and pretentiously boring. Also the story just isn't convincing at all, we're expected to believe that the main character is familiar with such complicated terms and expressions which should be unknowable to someone with that kind of background. It's absurd that he's able to pick up books, read them, and understand with little to no problem. Maybe he was a book junky in a previous life, who knows.

As for Rand, she preaches with a sense of disregard, her efforts have been rewarded calling her a visionary, when she is clearly doing nothing more than following a trend to bash communism, socialism, and any political theory that does not promote capitalism and competition. Obviously Rand's own position in Soviet Russia comes into play, fair enough, why wouldn't it.
A Utopian society as fundamentally evil as this because it suppresses technology?. What Rand forgets is that a society's worth should not be judged solely on technological advances and science.
The world is a little more complicated than that to just go lumping things into different categories.

Weak philosophically and written with mediocre literary finesse, I really don't know what all the fuss is about. I regret having wasted my money on it.....Hang on?.....I didn't. It was borrowed. That's the only positive.

3.5 stars

I read this for school and actually enjoyed it! Kinda reminded me of The Giver.

• هیچ چیزی نمیتواند آزادی انسان را از او بگیرد جز انسانهای دیگر؛ آزادی بشر در گرو آزادی او از بند برادرانش است. این است آزادی، همین و بس..

Writing in the first person plural toward a central theme, Ayn Rand tests the reader's patience. I recommend Doris Lessing instead. Her wonky, awkward descriptive power is more attuned than Rand's. Rand has a tendency to produce a monotone. I was picturing THX 1138 the whole time. Naming characters with numbers was also a poor choice. If you were not a fan of her characters in Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, you won't care for them here either. A general icy tone of indifference to human empathy pervades her work. The worship of the ego is taken to laughable pinnacles.

Rand is one of my favorite authors! Her SciFi is well done and provocative. In this book she writes a dystopian story about a world of people living with a collective, predestined world. The hero is punished for thinking for himself.
When you realize this was written in 1937 it's really amazing. Not only did she write during a time when there were few women writers but she wrote SciFi. A field that is still male dominated.
This is one of the few dystopian stories that still holds up and a precursor to so many other stories.

After spending the entire book fetishizing rugged individualism and extolling the importance of not letting anyone think for you, the first thing the narrator does after escaping is tell the woman what he has decided her name will be. Sigh.