"For you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ’To think or not to think..‘"

It seems to be difficult to find another book that elicited such a wide range of emotions and opinions: from glowing praise to horrified condemnation. But of all labels attached to this work "mediocre" is not one of them.

Looking at this book as a literary work of art, there's a lot of issue to take: from characters verging on the point of being cartoonish (especially the antagonists), to sometimes unbearably long-winded dialogues (advice to Mr. Galt: a three-hour manifest could probably be reduced to a 45-minute one without loosing any detail and probably without having lost 80% of your radio audience). However, I forgive all of that for the motive and the message.

It is crucial to remember, that this book is not a recipe and not a political program. Playing a "reductio ad absurdum" trick and claiming that the Author glorifies leaving the widows and orphans, the old and the weak to their demise cannot be more wrong and Mrs. Rand professed it on numerous occasions. She knew full well how complex the real world was - and how it would be impossible to define a "simple" solution for its ailments, even on 1,300 pages. This book is not that. It is a thunderous anthem to the human ability to create - a blueprint for man's self-perception and a loud warning against the "looter mindset."

I cannot help seeing the irony of having read this book at this point of time with so many developments almost coming off the pages. That I'll leave to you, so you are free to draw your own conjectures.

I will finish with Ayn Rand's own words: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."