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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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Man, asking her to write about “A Faith for Modern Management.” 10
The many executives who distributed excerpts from Atlas Shrugged or
sent copies to their friends further spread her message.
When professional reviewers looked at Atlas Shrugged, they tended to
overlook this celebration of business and the tight philosophical system
that Rand had woven into her story. Instead they focused on her bitter
condemnation of second-handers, looters, moochers, and other incompetents.
Atlas Shrugged inspired a shocking level of vituperation. Reviews
were often savage and mocking commentaries rather than literary assessments.
The New York Times Book Review, which had generously praised
The Fountainhead, featured a scathing article by the former Communist
Granville Hicks, who declared, “Loudly as Miss Rand proclaims her love
of life, it seems clear that the book is written out of hate.” For the most
part, reviewers did not primarily object to Rand’s political or moral
views, or even her adulation of the superior man. What they focused on
instead was her tone and style. “The book is shot through with hatred,”
wrote the Saturday Review. Others complained about Rand’s repetition,
grim earnestness, and utter lack of humor. 11
Reviewers were right to notice that alongside its reverent depiction
of capitalist heroes, Atlas Shrugged had a decidedly misanthropic cast.
In many ways the novel was the fi nal summation of the theory of
resentment Rand had fi rst formulated in Crimea. It was also a return to
the mood of her earliest unfi nished fi ction. Once again Rand let loose
all the bile that had accumulated in her over the years. Particularly
when John Galt takes center stage, Rand’s text seethes with anger and
frustration and yields to a conspiracy theory that sees the world as a
battleground between competence and incompetence. Galt tells his
radio audience, “What we are now asked to worship, what had once
been dressed as God or king, is the naked, twisted, mindless fi gure of
the human Incompetent. . . . But we—we, who must atone for the guilt
of ability—we will work to support him as he orders, with his pleasure
as our only reward. Since we have the most to contribute, we have the
least to say” (688). Rand’s Manichaean worldview comes through in
Galt’s speech, with a competent elite facing off against an ineffectual
commons.
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