Jubilee Prosperity

Later, while reading it, Cerf reportedly ran out of his office and down the hall, waving the manuscript, shouting: It’s magnificent!

While they did not completely agree with her philosophy, Cerf and Klopfer loved to show Rand off to friends who sneered at them for publishing her. Clifton Fadiman and George Axelrod were two of these friends.

They were charmed by her, and spent hours talking with her at their respective first meetings.

Axelrod said:

She knows me better after five hours than my analyst does after five years.

On the other side of the balance, when Random House threw a surprise publication party for her at The Plaza, Rand spent most of the evening bitching about how she did not like surprises.

CONTENT

Let’s get to the book.

I read the novel on three levels.

On the macro level, it is about the importance of reason and productivity, and how those characteristics have such a bad press, relative to hope and inadequacy. The book succeeds stupendously on this level.

At the micro level, the behavior and dialog are brilliant reflections of the way many people speak and interact. I admit, though, that there is an intermediate level of actions in the plot that are downright hokey.

For example, the State Science Institute develops a torture machine that is used to try to force the free-marketeer hero to become dictator over the national economy.

Another incredible feature: There is an opportunist official who runs for the U.S. Senate, from a state in which he has never even lived before!

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