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A ROUND UNIVERSE 135
widened its scope signifi cantly. It remained an adventure story, with her
heroes refusing to participate in an economy dominated by the welfare
state. The main plotline drew from Rand’s own biography, particularly
her father’s reaction to the Russian Revolution. Originally she thought
“it would merely show that capitalism and the proper economics rest
on the mind.” Her reading of Aristotle and Plato, done for the forsaken
nonfi ction project, had sharpened her appreciation of rational philosophy.
She decided her novel should demonstrate the connection between
reason and reality. As she began making this theme concrete, a series of
questions arose: “First of all, why is the mind important? In what particular
way, what specifi cally does the mind do in relationship to human
existence?” Pondering these questions, Rand realized her novel would
be more than just an interesting political fable. By the time she began
outlining the novel seriously, she saw it as a large-scale project that was
primarily metaphysical in nature. 4 Still, she had trouble understanding
the nature of the task she had shouldered.
Throughout the late 1940s Rand insisted the book was almost
done. Certainly she was making progress. By July 1947 she had written
247 pages; a year later, with the book at 150,000 words, she still thought it
would be shorter than The Fountainhead. When the manuscript topped
three inches in width and fi ve pounds in weight, Rand fi nally admitted
it would be “bigger in scope and scale” than the earlier novel. 5 Even so,
she had reason to believe the book was close to completion. The plotting
and planning had gone faster than she could have imagined, and she
had already fi nished much of her research. Her heroes and heroine were
easy to imagine, and secondary characters developed quickly out of “the
philosophical issues involved, and the generalized nature of the plot.” In
1950 she convinced Hal Wallis to terminate her contract, freeing her to
write full time. It now seemed entirely possible that she could fi nish in a
matter of months. Rand did not yet understand that Atlas Shrugged had
become, as she later put it, “the underestimation of my whole life.” 6
As Rand began writing seriously she continued to receive visitors.
Ruth and Buzzy Hill visited nearly every weekend, and a small coterie
from nearby Los Angeles State College were regulars. Rand had
spoken to a political science class there at the invitation of the professor
and invited students to visit her at home, provided they were not
Communists. Their professor remembered, “She was welcoming and all
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