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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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presentation. In his role as commentator he held forth as an authority,
commending Rand in some areas, tweaking her in others, suggesting
avenues of further inquiry or points to clarify. This was not the
kind of treatment Rand had expected, and she was deeply hurt. At the
reception afterward neither she nor the Collective would acknowledge
Hospers’s presence. By criticizing her in public Hospers had committed
an unforgivable error, made all the worse by Rand’s sensitivity to
her status among intellectuals. He tried to heal the breach, but Rand
would never again speak to him. Hospers continued to acknowledge
Rand as an infl uence, including a discussion of her work in his textbook,
Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. But he alone could do little
to transform Rand’s reputation in the academy. Later he even came
to believe his identifi cation with Rand cost him a job at UCLA and a
Guggenheim fellowship. 41
The long years of labor on Atlas Shrugged, the stress of her relationship
with Nathan and her disappointment in Frank, regular drug use
and unhealthy personal habits, all had culminated in a mental rigidity
that increasingly defi ned Rand. She was even unwilling to acknowledge
her own intellectual development, releasing an edited version of We the
Living in 1959 that erased any passages at odds with Objectivism. 42 For
years she had sealed herself off from all outside infl uences save Nathan
and Leonard, and it was now impossible for her to communicate with
contemporaries. The woman who had written long demonstrative letters
to Isabel Paterson and Rose Wilder Lane, trying her best to understand
and be understood, had vanished forever.
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