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Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged

Editor's choice –

editor-in-chief's choice

There are very few books that can radically change the way you look at the world. This book is one of those.

Alexey Ilyin, General Director of Alpina Publishers

Frank O'Connor

Published under license from Curtis Brown Ltd and Synopsis Literary Agency

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.

PART I
Consistency

CHAPTER I. TOPIC

-Who is John Galt?

It was getting dark and Eddie Wheelers couldn't make out the guy's face. The tramp spoke four words simply, without expression. However, the distant glow of the sunset, still yellow at the end of the street, was reflected in his eyes, and these eyes looked at Eddie Wheelers as if with mockery, and at the same time equanimously, as if the question was addressed to the causeless anxiety that was consuming him.

- Why are you asking? – Eddie Wheelers was alarmed.

The loafer stood leaning his shoulder against the door frame, and the fiery yellow of the sky was reflected in the wedge of broken glass behind him.

- Why do you care? – he asked.

“I don’t care at all,” Eddie Wheelers snapped.

He hastily put his hand in his pocket. Tip stopped him and asked him to borrow ten cents, and then started a conversation, as if trying to quickly get over the present moment and get ready for the next. Lately there had been so much begging on the streets that there was no need to listen to explanations, and he did not even have the slightest desire to delve into the reasons for the financial difficulties of this tramp.

“Here, you can drink some coffee,” Eddie addressed the faceless silhouette.

“Thank you, sir,” an indifferent voice answered him, and a face appeared for a moment out of the darkness. The tanned and weather-beaten face was crisscrossed with wrinkles, indicating fatigue and complete cynicism of indifference; the eyes betrayed an extraordinary mind. And Eddie Wheelers went on his way, wondering why at this time of day he always felt unreasonably terrified. However, no, not horror, he thought, he had nothing to fear: just an extremely gloomy and vague premonition that had neither a source nor an object. He managed to get used to this feeling, but could not find an explanation for it; and yet the beggar spoke his words as if he knew what Eddie was feeling, as if he knew what he should feel, nay, as if he knew the reason.

Eddie Wheelers straightened his shoulders, hoping to straighten himself out. It's time to stop this, otherwise it's already starting to seem like things. Was it always like this with him? Now he is thirty-two. Eddie tried to remember. No, not always; however, when it started, he was unable to recall it in his memory. The sensation came to him suddenly and accidentally, but now the attacks were repeated more often than ever. “It’s all twilight,” he thought, “I hate twilight.”

The clouds with skyscraper towers looming on them acquired a brown tint, turning into the semblance of an ancient painting, a masterpiece faded over the centuries. Long streaks of dirt ran from under the turrets along the walls covered with soot, and a crack stretched ten floors like frozen lightning. A jagged object cut the sky above the roofs: one side of it was colored by the sunset, on the other the solar gilding had long crumbled. The spire glowed red, like the reflection of a fire: no longer blazing, but dying, too late to extinguish.

No, there was nothing alarming in the appearance of the city, which seemed completely ordinary.

In the narrow space between the dark silhouettes of two buildings, as if through the crack of a slightly opened door, Eddie Willers saw the page of a giant calendar glowing in the sky.

The mayor of New York erected this calendar last year on the roof of a skyscraper so that residents could easily determine what day it was, as easily as they could tell the time on a clock tower. A white rectangle floated above the city, telling the current date to the people filling the streets. In the rusty light of the sunset, the rectangle announced: September 2.

Eddie Wheelers turned away. He never liked this calendar, the calendar annoyed Eddie, but why, he could not say. This feeling was mixed with the anxiety that consumed him; they had something in common.

He suddenly remembered a fragment of a certain phrase that expressed what the calendar hinted at by its existence. However, it was impossible to find this phrase. Eddie walked, still trying to fill with meaning what was still stuck in his mind as an empty silhouette. The shapes resisted words, but did not want to disappear. He turned around. A white rectangle towered above the roof, announcing with unquestionable determination: September 2.

Eddie Wheelers looked down the street at a vegetable cart parked outside the red brick house. He saw a pile of bright golden carrots and fresh green onions. A clean white curtain fluttered from the open window. The bus carefully turned the corner, obeying a skillful hand. Wheelers was surprised by the returning feeling of confidence and the strange, inexplicable desire to protect this world from the oppressive emptiness of the sky.

Having reached Fifth Avenue, he began to look at store windows. He didn't need anything, he didn't want to buy anything; but he liked displays of goods, any goods made by people and intended for people. It's always nice to see a thriving street; No more than a quarter of the shops here were closed, and only their dark windows were empty.

Without knowing why, he remembered the oak tree. Nothing here resembled this tree, but he remembered the summer days spent at the Taggert estate. Most of his childhood had been spent in the company of the Taggert children, and now he worked for their corporation, just as his grandfather and father had worked for the Taggert grandfather and father.

A huge oak tree stood on a hill overlooking the Hudson, located in a secluded corner of the estate. At the age of seven, Eddie Wheelers loved to come to this tree. It had already stood here for hundreds of years, and it seemed to the boy that it would always be like this. The roots of the oak tree dug into the hill like a hand grasping the earth, and it seemed to Eddie that even if the giant grabbed the tree by the top, he would still not be able to tear it out, but would only shake the hill, and with it all the earth that hung on the roots tree like a ball on a string. He felt safe near this oak tree: the tree could not be fraught with a threat, it embodied the greatest, from the boy’s point of view, symbol of strength.

But one night lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw the tree the next morning. The oak broke in half, and he looked inside the trunk as if into the mouth of a black tunnel. The barrel turned out to be empty; the core had rotted a long time ago, only fine gray dust remained inside, which was carried away by the breath of a light breeze. Life was gone, and the form it left behind could not exist on its own.

He later learned that children must be protected from shocks: from contact with death, pain or fear. Now it could no longer hurt him; he experienced his measure of horror and despair, looking into the black hole in the middle of the trunk. What happened was like an incredible betrayal - all the more terrible because he could not understand what exactly it was. And it was not about him, not about his faith, he knew that; it was about something completely different. He stood for a while without making a sound, and then went back to the house. Neither then nor after did he tell anyone about this.

Eddie Wheelers shook his head as the rusty sound of a traffic light switch stopped him at the edge of the sidewalk. He was angry with himself. Today he had no reason to remember this oak tree. The old story no longer meant anything to him except a slight touch of sadness, but somewhere inside, droplets of pain, hastily sliding as if along a window pane, left a trace in the form of a question mark.

He didn't want anything sad to be associated with his childhood memories; he loved everything connected with his childhood: each of the previous days was filled with calm and dazzling sunlight. It seemed to him that several rays of this light were still reaching the present: however, rather, not rays, but distant lights, sometimes with their reflections illuminating his work, his lonely apartment, the quiet and measured march of days.

Eddie remembered one summer day when he was ten years old. Then, in a forest clearing, his beloved childhood friend told him about what they would do when they grew up. Her words were more blinding than the sun. He listened to her with admiration and surprise, and when she asked what he would like to do, he answered without hesitation:

– What exactly? – she asked.

He replied:

- Don't know. We have to find out. But not only what you talked about - about your business, about how to make a living. Well, like winning a battle, saving people from a fire, or climbing to the top of a mountain.

- For what? – she asked, and he answered:

– Last Sunday the priest said that we should always look for the best in ourselves. What do you think could be the best thing about us?

- Don't know.

- We have to find out.

She didn’t answer because she was looking into the distance, along the railroad track.

Eddie Wheelers smiled. He uttered these words - “something right” - 22 years ago, and since then they have remained an axiom for him. Other questions dimmed in his memory: he was too busy to ask them. However, he considered it indisputable that you should do what you think is right; he was never able to understand why people could act differently, although he knew that this is exactly what they did. Everything seemed to him both simple and incomprehensible: simple in the sense that everything should be right, and incomprehensible because it did not work out that way. Thinking about this, he approached the huge building. Taggert Transcontinental".

It was the tallest and proudest on the entire street. Eddie Wheelers always smiled when he looked at him. In the long rows of windows, not a single one was broken, unlike the neighboring houses. The contours of the building, rising upward, crashed into the sky. The building seemed to tower over the years, timeless. It will always be here, Eddie Wheelers thought.

Every time you enter a corporation "Taggert", he felt relieved and safe. Competence and order reigned here. The polished marble floor sparkled. The matte rectangular lamp shades emitted a pleasant, even light. On the other side of the glass panels sat girls at typewriters, their fingers drumming on the keys creating the sound of a moving train in the room. And like an answering echo, from time to time a faint thrill ran through the walls of the building, rising from below, from the tunnels of the huge station, from where trains departed across the continent and where they completed their return journey, as it had been for generations. “From ocean to ocean” - this was the proud slogan “ Taggert Transcontinental", far more brilliant and sacred than any of the biblical commandments! “Ocean to ocean, and forever and ever,” thought Eddie Wheelers, rethinking these words as he walked along the immaculate corridors to the office of James Taggert, the president of “ Taggert Transcontinental".

James Taggert was sitting at the table. He seemed to be a man already approaching fifty years of age; it seemed that, having passed the period of youth, he had entered adulthood straight from youth. He had a small capricious mouth, a high balding forehead, which was covered with thin hairs. There was a kind of lethargy and relaxation in his posture, contrary to the contours of a tall, slender body, the elegance of which required the confidence of an aristocrat, but was transformed into the clumsiness of a hillbilly. He had a soft, pale face and faded, clouded eyes, whose gaze leisurely wandered around, moving from object to object, without stopping at them. He looked tired and sick. He was thirty-nine years old.

He looked back with irritation at the sound of the door opening.

“Don’t tear me away, don’t tear me away, don’t tear me away,” said James Taggert.

Eddie Wheelers walked straight to the table.

“This is important, Jim,” he said without raising his voice.

- Well, okay, okay, what do you have there?

Eddie Wheelers looked at the map hanging on the office wall. Under the glass, her colors seemed faded; interesting to know how many presidents of the company " Taggert" sat under it and for how many years. Railways " Taggert Transcontinental"- the network of red lines that covered the colorless flesh of the country from New York to San Francisco resembled a system of blood vessels. Once upon a time, blood was injected into the main artery, and from the excess it began to scatter throughout the country, branching into random streams. One of the red carpets Taggert Transcontinental", the Rio Norte line, made its way from Cheyenne in Wyoming to El Paso in Texas. A new branch had recently been added, and the red streak was heading south beyond El Paso, but Eddie Wheelers turned quickly away when his eyes touched that point.

Looking at James Taggert, he said, “Trouble on the Rio Norte line. New crash."

Taggert's gaze dropped down to the edge of the table.

– Accidents on railways happen every day. Was it worth bothering me over such trifles?

“You know what I'm talking about, Jim. Rio Norte is falling apart before our eyes. The branch has become dilapidated. The whole line.

- We will build new paths.

Eddie Wheelers continued as if he had not heard the answer:

– The line is doomed, there is no point in running trains on it. People refuse to ride in them.

– In my opinion, there is not a single railway in the whole country, several branches of which would not operate at a loss. We're not the only ones here. This is the state the state is in - temporarily, I believe.

Eddie didn't say a word. Just looked. Taggert never liked Eddie Wheelers' habit of looking people straight in the eye. Eddie's large blue eyes looked questioningly from under his blond bangs, an unremarkable appearance except for sincere attention and undisguised bewilderment.

-What do you need? – Taggert snapped.

“I want to tell you what I must, because sooner or later you will find out the truth anyway.”

- That we have a new accident?

– That we cannot leave Rio Norte to its fate.

James Taggert rarely raised his head; looking at people, he simply raised his heavy eyelids and looked up from under his brows.

– Who is going to close the Rio Norte line? – he asked. - Nobody thought about this. It's a shame you say that. It's a pity.

“But we’ve been breaking the schedule for six months now.” We don't even have a flight without some kind of breakdown, big or small. We're losing all the shippers, one by one. How much longer can we hold out?

- You're a pessimist, Eddie. You lack faith. And this undermines the spirit of the company.

“Are you saying that nothing will be done regarding the Rio Norte line?”

- I didn't say that. As soon as we lay a new track...

- Jim, there won't be a new track. – Taggert’s eyebrows slowly crawled up. “I just returned from the office.” Associated Steel". I spoke to Orren Boyle.

- And what did he say?

“He talked for an hour and a half, but never gave me a direct and clear answer.

- Why did you bother him? In my opinion, the first batch of rails should arrive only next month.

“She should have come three months ago.”

- Unforeseen circumstances. Absolutely independent of Orren.

– And the first delivery date was set six months earlier. Jim, we're waiting for these rails from " Associated Steel" already thirteen months.

- And what do you want from me? I can't interfere with Orren Boyle's affairs.

“I want you to understand that you can’t wait any longer.”

- And what did my sister say?

- She will return only tomorrow.

- So what do you think I should do?

- It's up to you.

After a moment's hesitation, Eddie calmly said:

- Okay, Jim. I won't mention this company.

- Orren is my friend. – Taggert did not hear the answer. “And I’m offended by your position.” Orren Boyle will supply us with these rails as soon as possible. And as long as he cannot do this, no one has the right to blame us.

- Jim! What are you talking about? Don't you understand that the Rio Norte line is crumbling, whether we are accused of it or not?

“They will certainly start accusing us, even without “ Phoenix-Durango". “He noticed Eddie’s face tense. “No one had ever complained about the Rio Norte line until the company came on the scene.” Phoenix-Durango".

– « Phoenix-Durango" works just fine.

– Imagine such small fry as “ Phoenix-Durango", competes with " Taggert Transcontinental"! Just ten years ago this company was a rural branch.

“Now they own almost all of the freight traffic in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.” – Taggert did not answer. - Jim, we can't lose Colorado. This is our last hope. And not only ours. If we don’t get our act together, we’ll give in.” Phoenix-Durango" all major shippers in the state. We already lost the Wyatt oil fields.

“I don’t understand why everyone is talking about the Wyatt oil fields.”

- Because Ellis Wyatt is a miracle...

- To hell with Ellis Wyatt!

“Do these oil fields,” Eddie suddenly thought, “have something in common with the blood vessels drawn on the map? And was it not by chance that once upon a time a red stream " Taggert Transcontinental" crossed the whole country, accomplishing the impossible?” He imagined wells releasing streams of oil, spreading like black rivers across the continent almost faster than trains.” Phoenix-Durango". This deposit occupied a rocky patch in the Colorado mountains and had long been considered exhausted and abandoned. Ellis Wyatt's father knew how to squeeze a modest income out of choking wells until the end of his days. And now it’s as if someone injected adrenaline into the very heart of the mountain, and it began to beat in a new way, driving black blood. Of course, blood, Eddie Willers thought, because blood nourishes, gives life, and oil did that. Wyatt Oil". It gave new life to the desert slopes, gave the area, previously unmarked on any map, new cities, new power plants, new factories. “New factories at the very time when the income from transporting the products of all previously famous enterprises was gradually declining year after year; rich new deposits, while one after another the well pumps of the known deposits stopped; a new industrial state where everyone expected to find only a few cows and a vegetable garden planted with beets. One man did it, and in just eight years,” Eddie Willers reflected, recalling the incredible stories he had read in school textbooks and which he did not really trust, stories about people who lived during the formation of this country. He would like to meet Ellis Wyatt. This man was often talked about, but few met him, since he rarely came to New York. It's like he's thirty-three years old and has a violent temper. He discovered some way to revive depleted oil fields, which is what he has been doing to this day.

“Ellis Wyatt is a greedy bastard who is not interested in anything but money,” said James Taggert. – In my opinion, there are more important things to do in life than making money.

-What are you talking about, Jim? What does this have to do with...

“Besides, he let us down twice.” We have served the Wyatt oil fields very well for many years. Under old Wyatt himself, we sent out tank trains once a week.

“These are not those times, Jim.” " Phoenix-Durango" sends two tank trains from there every day, and they run on schedule.

- If he would let us keep up with him...

“He can't waste his time.”

– What is he expecting? So that we abandon all other senders, sacrifice the interests of the entire country and provide him with all our trains?

- Why on earth? He doesn't expect anything. Just works with " Phoenix-Durango".

“In my opinion, he is an unprincipled, unscrupulous scoundrel.” I see him as an irresponsible, clearly overrated upstart. – Such a flash of emotion in James Taggert’s lifeless voice seemed even unnatural. “And I’m not at all sure that his oil developments are such a good thing.” In my opinion, he threw the economy of an entire country out of balance. No one expected Colorado to become an industrial state. Is it possible to be sure of anything or plan ahead if everything changes so quickly?

- Great God, Jim! He…

- Yes, I know, I know: he makes money. But it seems to me that this is not how a person’s benefit to society should be measured. And as for his oil, he would have crawled to us and waited his turn along with other shippers, without demanding anything more than his fair share of transportation, if not for “ Phoenix - Durango".

Something was pressing on his chest and temples, Eddie Wheelers thought, probably because of the effort he was making to restrain himself. He decided to find out everything once and for all; and the need for this was so acute that it simply could not remain beyond the understanding of Taggert, if only he, Eddie, could convincingly present the facts. That's why he tried so hard, but again he clearly failed, as in most of their arguments: it always seemed that they were talking about different things.

- Jim, what are you talking about? What difference does it make whether they blame us or not if the road is falling apart anyway?

A barely noticeable cold smile appeared on Taggert's face.

“That’s so sweet, Eddie,” he said. “How your devotion touches me.” Taggert Transcontinental". Look, if you are not careful, you will inevitably turn into the most resigned serf or slave.

“I’ve already become one, Jim.”

“But let me ask then, do you have the right to discuss such issues with me?”

- I don’t have it.

- Why don’t you remember that similar questions Are they decided at the level of department heads? Why don't you turn to colleagues who solve such problems? Or not cry on my precious sister's shoulder?

“Tell you what, Jim, I know that my position does not give me the right to discuss these issues with you. But I don't understand what's happening. I don't know what your in-house advisors are telling you or why they can't keep you properly informed, so I tried to do it myself.

“I value our childhood friendship, Eddie, but do you really think that it allows you to come into my office without being called, of your own free will?” You have a certain status, but don't forget that the president " Taggert Transcontinental» still me.

So the attempt failed. Eddie Wheelers looked at him habitually, even somehow indifferently, and asked:

“So you’re not going to do anything to save the Rio Norte?”

– I didn’t say that. I didn't say that at all. Taggert stared at the map, at the red stripe south of El Paso. – As soon as the San Sebastian mines start working and our Mexican branch begins to pay off...

- Let's not talk about it, Jim.

Taggert turned sharply, surprised by Eddie's unexpectedly harsh tone.

-What's the matter?

- You know. Your sister said...

- To hell with my sister! - James Taggert exclaimed.

Eddie Wheelers didn't move. And he didn’t answer. He stood and looked straight ahead, not seeing anyone in this office, no longer noticing James Taggert.

After a moment he bowed and left.

Employees " Taggert Transcontinental" They were already turning off the lamps, preparing to go home after the end of the working day. Only Pop Harper, the head clerk, was still sitting at his desk, turning the levers of a half-disassembled typewriter. According to the general opinion of the company's employees, Pop Harper was born in this corner of the office, at this very desk, and has no intention of leaving it. He had been chief clerk to his father, James Taggert.

Pop Harper looked up from his typewriter and looked at Eddie Wheelers, who came out of the President's office. The wise and unhurried look seemed to hint that he knew that Eddie's visit to this part of the building meant trouble on one of the branches, as well as the fact that this visit was fruitless. But Pop Harper was completely indifferent to all of the above. Eddie Wheelers saw the same cynical indifference in the eyes of the tramp at the street corner.

- Tell me, Eddie, where can I buy woolen underwear now? – Pop asked. “I searched the whole city, but couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said, stopping. - But why do you me are you asking about this?

- And I ask everyone. Maybe at least someone will tell.

Eddie looked warily at Harper's gray hair and wrinkled, indifferent face.

“It’s cold in this shop,” said Pop Harper. - And in winter it will be even colder.

- What are you doing? Eddie asked, pointing to the parts of the typewriter.

“The damned thing broke again.” It’s useless to send it in for repairs; last time it took three months. So I decided to fix it myself. Not for long, of course...

His hand lay on the keys.

- It's time for you to go to the dump, old man. Your days are numbered.

Eddie winced. It was this phrase that he tried to remember: “ Your days are numbered". However, he forgot why.

“No use, Eddie,” Pop Harper said.

-What's useless?

- All. Anything.

-What are you talking about, Pop?

I'm not going to apply for a new typewriter. New ones are stamped from tin. And when the old ones die, the end of typewritten texts will come. There was an accident in the subway today; the brakes didn't work. Go home, Eddie, turn on the radio and listen to some good music. Forget about business, boy. Your trouble is that you never had a hobby. At my house, someone stole all the light bulbs from the stairs again. And my chest hurts. This morning I couldn’t buy cough drops: the pharmacy on our corner went bankrupt last week. And the railway company Texas Western" went broke last month. Yesterday the Queensboro Bridge was closed for repairs. What am I talking about? Who is John Galt anyway?

* * *

She sat on the train near the window, throwing her head back and putting one leg on the empty seat opposite. The speed of movement made the window frame tremble, behind which hung a dark void, and only the lanterns from time to time drew bright stripes on the glass.

The grace of her legs and the elegance of her high-heeled shoes seemed out of place in the dusty train carriage and strangely did not harmonize with her appearance. A baggy, once expensive coat made of camel hair wrapped her slender body. The collar of the coat was raised to the brim of the hat turned down. A bob of brown hair almost touched her shoulders. The face seemed composed of broken lines, with a clearly defined, sensual mouth. Her lips were pressed tightly together. She sat with her hands in her pockets, and there was something unnatural in her posture, as if she was unhappy with her immobility, and something unfeminine, as if she did not feel her own body.

She sat and listened to music. It was a symphony of victory. The sounds soared upward, they narrated the ascent and were its embodiment, the essence and form of upward movement. This music personified those actions and thoughts of a person, the meaning of which was ascension. It was an explosion of sound that burst from the shelter and poured out in all directions. The delight of gaining freedom was combined with an intense desire for a goal. The sound overcame space, leaving nothing in it except the happiness of an uncontrollable impulse. Only a faint echo whispered about the former imprisonment of sounds, but this music lived with joyful surprise before the discovery: there is no ugliness, no pain, no and never has been. The song of the Great Liberation sounded.

Just for a few moments, while the music lasts, you can surrender to it completely - forget everything and allow yourself to be immersed in the sensations: come on, release the brakes - this is it.

Somewhere at the edge of consciousness, behind the music, the wheels of the train were clattering. They beat out a steady rhythm, emphasizing every fourth beat, as if expressing a conscious goal. She could relax because she could hear the wheels. She listened to the symphony, thinking: this is why the wheels should turn, this is where they are taking us.

She had never heard this symphony before, but she knew that Richard Halley had written it. She recognized both this stormy power and the extraordinary intensity of the sound. She recognized his style: it was a pure and complex melody - at a time when no one else was writing melodies... She sat looking at the ceiling of the carriage, but did not see him, because she had forgotten where she was. She didn't know if she was hearing the full symphony orchestra or just the theme; perhaps the orchestration sounded only in her head.

It seemed to her that preliminary echoes of this theme could be discerned in all the works of Richard Halley, created over the many years of his quest, right up to the day when the burden of fame suddenly fell upon him, which destroyed him. “This,” she thought, listening to the symphony, “was the goal of his struggle.” She remembered the half-hints of his music that foreshadowed these phrases, fragments of melodies that began this theme, but were not transformed into it; when Richard Halley wrote this, he... She sat up straight. So when did Richard Halley write this music?

And at that same moment, she realized where she was, and for the first time noticed where the sound was coming from.

A few steps away, at the end of the car, a young blond conductor was adjusting the air conditioner, whistling the theme of the symphony. She realized that he had been whistling for a long time and that was exactly what she heard.

Not believing herself, she listened for a while before she decided to ask:

- Please tell me what are you whistling?

The young man turned to her. Meeting his direct gaze, she saw an open, energetic smile, as if he were exchanging glances with a friend. She liked his face: the tense and hard lines had nothing in common with the relaxed muscles that denied any conformity to form, which she was so used to seeing on people's faces.

“Halley's concert,” he answered with a smile.

- Which?

After letting the moment drag on, she finally spoke slowly and very carefully.

– Richard Halley wrote only four concertos.

The smile on the young man's face disappeared. It was as if he was jerked back to reality, just like she had been a few moments ago. It was as if a shutter had clicked, and a face was left in front of her, expressionless, indifferent and empty.

Year of book publication: 1957

Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is one of the writer's most famous works. The writer with Russian roots has been working on this work for more than one year. She wrote one of the key speeches in the book for two years. According to surveys of Americans in 1991, this novel was in second place after “” among books that changed a person’s life. The work has been translated into many languages of the world and even filmed in 2011, but not very successfully.

The plot of the novel "Atlas Shrugged" briefly

In Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged, you can read about the events unfolding in the United States. As a result of total corruption and monopolization of markets, business and production are falling. The vice-president of the railway company, Dagny Taggart, is trying to correct this. She sees total reconstruction and the opening of new promising directions as one of the ways out of the company’s catastrophic situation. She chooses steel magnate Hank Rearden as an ally, who has invented a new metal that can significantly extend the life of railroad tracks. But along the way, they constantly face resistance from government officials and lobbyists from Washington.

One of the resisting parties is Dagny's brother, James Taggart, who is the president of their company. He is sure that it is necessary to rely on the necessary connections. They can bring much greater profits than investments in production. Throughout the book, the main characters struggle with trying to recreate a planned economy in the United States. It is killing the country's industry, but no one wants to take action and bear responsibility. As a result, the most talented industrialists, engineers and scientists simply give up everything and disappear in an unknown direction. As it turns out later, they flee to Atlantis, which is lost in one of the remote valleys. Here they live according to economic laws, which allows them to develop production and express their talents. Atlantis is led by John Galt. Soon this valley becomes known to all US citizens. This causes a wave of indignation and the president, in order not to lose power, decides to kidnap and blackmail Gault. But his comrades free him and Gault plans to return to the world with them.

As for the reviews of Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged,” they are contradictory and their main differences are the perception of the book. Some readers were so impressed by the book that they are ready to rank it among the works that changed their lives. At the same time, there are many who consider individualism and selfishness, cited in the book, to be the main troubles of humanity. The result of this acceptance or non-acceptance of the ideas of the book were reviews. As for the literary component of the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, everything is much simpler here. The images of the main characters turned out to be capacious, although too unrealistic. They are black and white without shades, and in this work this is especially striking. The plot is quite dynamic and fascinating, which allows the book to be read even by those who are not enthusiastic about the ideas presented in it. As a result, we can say that Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged” is definitely worth reading despite its length. After all, even if you do not accept the writer’s ideas, this book is the best example of the idea of reasonable egoism.

The book “Atlas Shrugged” on the Top books website

Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is becoming increasingly popular to read. This allowed the work to take a high place in ours. At the same time, interest in the novel is quite stable. Therefore, it is likely that we will see this book by Ayn Rand more than once on our site.

Writer's real name Ayn Rand— Rosembaum Alice. And she has Russian roots. She was born in St. Petersburg on February 2, 1905. Her father was a chemical goods dealer. She was a gifted, willful and very self-confident child. Alice very quickly became the intellectual pride of the family.

She began to write very early and create her own world of illusions, which was more interesting than the reality around her. For the first time, at the age of 9, she decided for herself that she would be a writer.

According to the Library of Congress, the works of Ayn Rand, especially "Atlas Shrugged", took second place in the rankings of the most read books and books that most influenced the life position of Americans. Many famous people in America are admirers of her work.

Ayn Rand believed that it was simply impossible to develop her philosophical positions in the life of one generation of humanity. Ayn Rand is recognized by American critics, but at the same time she was and remains a Russian thinker. She was an artist of words, a philosopher who went beyond the established schools, a social critic and a person whose ideas were directed against the traditional antimonies of Western thought.

"Atlas Shrugged"- the main work of the writer. It has been translated into many languages and has greatly influenced the lives of several generations. The writer uniquely combines fantasy and realism, dystopia and utopia, grotesque and romantic heroism. The author presents the eternal “damned questions” in a new way and gives the reader his own answers - paradoxical, controversial and poignant.

What exactly is this book about?

Plot of the book "Atlas Shrugged" This is how socialists come to power in the United States and the government establishes “equal opportunities.” It considers it fair to make the untalented rich at the expense of the talented. There is persecution of business, this leads to the destruction of the economy. And talented people and excellent entrepreneurs simply disappear mysteriously. The main characters of the novel are the vice-president of the railway company, Dagny Taggert, and the head of the steel production, Hank Rearden. They try in vain to fight the overwhelming events. Society falls into apathy and chaos, instead of living and prospering.

Novel structure "Atlas Shrugged" is that it consists of three books:

Book 1. Non-resistance.

In this part, the author introduces readers to the main characters who are trying to fight their antipodes - incompetent government officials. The story begins with the question - who is John Galt? Throughout the novel, the characters will search for the answer to this question.

Book 2. Either/or.

In the second part of the novel, the author gives a social forecast. A situation has arisen where the government has decided to pursue “equal opportunity,” but in the end everyone ends up a loser. The government imposes bans on the development of production and lobbies the interests of the “right” people. This is what begins to destroy society. The story is dynamic thanks to the complex intertwining of the destinies of the main characters, love conflicts and the mystery associated with the misunderstanding, who is John Galt?

Book 3. A is A

In the third part, Ayn Rand debunks the misconceptions of those who fight for fraternity and equality. The actions of officials who hypocritically call on citizens to self-sacrifice, but at the same time limit the freedom of entrepreneurs, lead to the collapse of the country's economy.

In the plot financial and political intrigues are intertwined, and a hymn to a new ethics breaks through them. The hero of modern times, inventor John Galt, who unites the “morals of reasonable egoism” with just one phrase: “I will never live for another person and I will never ask another person to live for me.”

This book truly changes your worldview. It creates a different vision of the world and answers questions about the meaning of life and entrepreneurship.

This work was on the New York Times bestseller lists within three days of its launch and remained there for 21 weeks.

This novel is the most significant in the author’s life; it took 12 years to write it.

The book is published in several formats.

The most convenient is the three-volume version. This version includes three hardcover books on white paper. All three books are sealed in film. This novel is also available in a single softcover volume. In this design, the paper is greyish. And there is a third option - gift. The three volumes are collected in one book, the book has a hard cover and a brown fabric cover with foil stamping. The paper in this edition is white.

And below I share with you a video review of "Atlas Shrugged":

Quotes from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

The human mind is the main instrument of his survival. Life is given to man, survival is not. The body is given to man, food is not. He was given a brain, but not a mind.

Walk away without looking back from anyone who tells you that money is evil. These words are the bell of a leper, the clang of a bandit's weapon. Since people have lived on earth, money has been their means of communication, and only the muzzle of a machine gun can replace it as such a means.

If the pleasure of one is bought by the suffering of another, it is better to refuse the transaction altogether. When one wins and the other loses, it is not a deal, but a fraud. You don't do things like that, Hank. Don't do this in your personal life either.

Preface

How can we implement our brains, or one step forward - two steps forward?

(a few words about a very modern book)

Dear reader, this is our lot—to live in an era of change. At the same time, everyone understands that these are changes not only in our destinies, in the history of our Fatherland, but also in consciousness. Whether we like it or not, for most of us, reorientation of consciousness becomes the key to survival. And again, everyone is faced with the “damned questions” that so tormented the classics of Russian literature: “What to do?”, “Who is to blame?”, “Am I an insignificant creature or...”

We have every reason to consider the totality of the work of Ayn Rand, the author of the novel “Atlas Shrugged,” as one of the most colossal (both in volume and in terms of the scale of impact on minds) and non-trivial attempts in our century to give a comprehensive answer to these now so relevant questions. Despite the fact that for five years we have been trying to the best of our ability to acquaint the reader with the works of this exceptionally original writer (her first novel “We Are the Living” was published in Russian in 1993, and “The Source”, which brought her world fame, in 1995) , her name is almost unknown in our country. But Ayn Rand comes from Russia, from St. Petersburg. The daughter of a mediocre St. Petersburg pharmacist, who in her early youth tasted the delights of revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian life, managed, despite her dubious social background and anti-Bolshevik views, to graduate from what had already become Leningrad University and work as a tour guide in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Integral and purposeful, absolutely uncompromising and prone to moral maximalism, she turned out to be paradoxically close to the poster type of commissar popularized by socialist realism. However, her views and ideals were the opposite of communist ones. Given this combination, she was no stranger to Soviet Russia, and she understood it perfectly. In 1926, she miraculously managed to escape, first to Latvia, and then to the USA, where she found a second home and long-term literary (and not only literary) fame.

Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's most monumental novel in concept and scope, translated into dozens of languages and published in tens of millions of copies. The location is America. But this is a conditional America: basic comfort is gradually becoming a luxury for a select few; Crisis zones are multiplying and growing, where people are dying of hunger; in other places, the richest harvest is rotting because it cannot be exported; surviving and newly born entrepreneurs enrich themselves not through production, but through connections that allow them to receive government subsidies and benefits; the last talented and intelligent people disappear to no one knows where; and the government is fighting these “temporary difficulties” by establishing new committees and commissions with undefined functions and unlimited power, issuing delusional decrees, the execution of which is achieved through bribery, blackmail, and even direct violence against those who are still capable of producing something...

Dystopia? Yes, but a special kind of dystopia. Rand depicts a world in which a creative person (whether an engineer, a banker, a philosopher or a carpenter), whose mind and talent served as the only source of all goods known to mankind, material and spiritual, is brought to the brink of complete extermination and is forced to enter into a fight with those whom has been a benefactor for many centuries. Atlanteans - some earlier, others later - refuse to hold the world on their shoulders.

What to do, how to create a new, truly human world in which every unique person would like to live? This is the question Ayn Rand poses. What do we need to understand in order to feel like Atlanteans? That you cannot live a borrowed life, borrowed values. That you can and should change yourself, but never change yourself. That it is impossible to live for others or demand that others live for you. That a person was created for happiness, but one cannot be happy, neither guided by other people’s ideas about happiness, nor at the expense of the misfortune of others, nor at the expense of undeserved benefits. You need to be responsible for your actions and their consequences. You cannot oppose morality and life, spiritual and material. The vaunted altruism ultimately invariably turns into a weapon for the enslavement of man by man and only multiplies violence and suffering. But it is not enough to accept these principles, you must live in accordance with them, and this is not easy. Maybe you have a desire to sharply condemn the selfish, godless, inhumane position of the author and her “normative” heroes?

Well, the reaction is quite understandable. However, it is worth considering the origins of such a reaction. Isn’t it because it’s scary to leave the tutelage of the Father (who is either in heaven, or in the Kremlin, or next door in the Mausoleum), to finally recognize oneself as an adult and independent, to take responsibility for the most important decisions in life? ? I really want to argue with the philosopher Ayn Rand, the Russian founder of American objectivism, but it is not so easy to refute her impressive logic. So how can you create a world in which you don’t hate to live? Think. Sami. Regardless of authorities.

We will be very grateful for your opinion about the book and the problems posed in it and for your feedback - even critical.

D. V. Kostygin

PART ONE. WITHOUT CONTRADITIONS

Chapter 1. Theme

-Who is John Galt?

The tramp's question sounded sluggish and inexpressive. In the deepening twilight it was impossible to see his face, but the dim rays of the setting sun, flying from the depths of the street, illuminated the hopelessly mocking eyes looking straight at Eddie Willers - as if the question was asked not to him personally, but to that inexplicable anxiety that lurked in his soul .

The tramp stood leaning against the door frame, the yellow, metallic sky reflected in the shard of glass behind him.

- Why does this bother you? – he asked.

“Not at all,” Eddie Villers snapped. “He hastily put his hand in his pocket. The tramp stopped him and, asking for ten cents, began to talk further, as if trying to fill one awkward moment and delay the approach of another. Begging on the street had become commonplace lately, so there was no need to listen to any explanations, and Eddie had no desire to listen to how exactly this tramp had come to such a life.

- Here, go buy yourself a cup of coffee. – Eddie held out the coin towards the faceless shadow.

“Thank you, sir,” said the tramp in an indifferent tone. He leaned forward, and Eddie looked at his wrinkled, weather-beaten face, on which the stamp of fatigue and cynical indifference was frozen. The tramp had the eyes of an intelligent man.

Eddie Willers went further, trying to understand why, with the onset of dusk, he was always seized by some inexplicable, causeless fear. No, not even fear, he had nothing to fear, just an irresistible vague anxiety, causeless and inexplicable. He had long been accustomed to this strange feeling, but could not find an explanation for it; and yet the tramp spoke to him as if he knew that this feeling haunted him, as if he believed that it should arise in everyone, moreover, as if he knew why it was so.

Eddie Willers squared his shoulders, trying to get his thoughts in order. “It’s time to end this,” he thought; he began to imagine all sorts of nonsense. Had this feeling always haunted him? He was thirty-two years old. He strained his memory, trying to remember. No, of course, not always, but he forgot when he first felt it. This feeling arose suddenly, without any reason, but recently much more often than ever. “It’s all because of the twilight,” Eddie thought, “I can’t stand it.”

In the thickening darkness, the clouds in the sky and the outlines of buildings became barely visible, taking on a brownish tint, just as paints on ancient canvases fade over the years. Long streaks of dirt, sliding from the roofs of high-rise buildings, stretched down the fragile, soot-covered walls. A crack ten stories long stretched along the wall of one of the skyscrapers, looking like lightning frozen at the moment of a flash. Above the roofs, something crooked and with jagged edges was wedged into the sky. It was half of the spire, colored with the scarlet glow of the sunset - the gilding from the second half had long since peeled off.

This light was reminiscent of a huge, vague apprehension of something unknown, coming from nowhere, the reflections of a fire, not raging, but dying out, which was too late to extinguish.

“No,” thought Eddie Willers, “the city looks completely normal, there is nothing sinister in its appearance.”

He turned the corner. High above the sidewalk, in a narrow gap between the dark silhouettes of two buildings, as if in the opening of a slightly open door, he saw a giant calendar display.

The board was installed last year on the roof of one of the houses by order of the mayor of New York, so that the inhabitants of the city could, by raising their heads, tell what day and month it was, as easily as they could tell what time it was by looking at their watches; and now a white rectangle towered over the city, showing passers-by the month and date. In the rusty glow of sunset, the board announced: September second.

Eddie Willers turned away. He never liked this calendar. He could not understand why a strange uneasiness took possession of him when he saw him. This feeling had something in common with the feeling of anxiety that haunted him; it was of the same quality.

It suddenly seemed to him that somewhere he had heard a phrase, a kind of saying, which conveyed what this calendar seemed to express. But he forgot it and walked down the street, trying to remember these few words that had stuck in his mind, like an image devoid of any content, which he could neither fill with meaning nor get out of his head. He looked back.

A white rectangle towered over the roofs of the houses, saying with adamant categoricity: the second of September.

Eddie Willers looked down the street at the greengrocer's pushcart parked on the porch of the red brick house. He saw a bunch of golden carrots and fresh green onions, a neat white curtain fluttering in the open window, and a bus dashing around the corner. He noted with surprise that his confidence and calm had returned, and at the same time he suddenly felt an inexplicable desire for all this to be somehow protected, hidden from the looming empty sky.

He walked along Fifth Avenue, not taking his eyes off the shop windows. He had no intention of buying anything, he simply liked to look at the displays of goods - countless goods made by man and intended for man. He admired the lively and prosperous street, where, despite the late hour, life was seething, and only a few closed shops looked lonely into the street with dark, empty windows.

Eddie didn't know why he suddenly remembered the oak tree. There was nothing around that could trigger this memory. But the oak tree and the summer holidays spent at Mr. Taggart's estate came back to his mind. Eddie had spent most of his childhood with the Taggart children, and now he worked for them, just as his father and grandfather had worked for their father and grandfather.

A huge oak tree grew on a hill near the Hudson in a secluded corner of the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, who was seven years old at the time, loved to run off to look at it.

The oak had been there for centuries, and Eddie thought it would be there forever. The roots, deeply embedded in the ground, gripped the hill with a death grip, and it seemed to Eddie that if the giant grabbed the oak tree by the top and pulled with all his strength, he would not be able to uproot it, but would only tear the hill from its place, and with it the whole earth, and she will hang on the roots of the tree, like a ball on a string. Standing by this oak tree, he felt completely safe; in his mind it was something unchangeable, something that was not threatened by anything. The oak was for him the greatest symbol of strength.

One night the oak tree was struck by lightning. Eddie saw him the next morning. The oak tree lay on the ground, split in half, and at the sight of its mutilated trunk, Eddie thought he was looking at the entrance to a huge dark tunnel. The core of the oak had long since rotted, turning into small gray dust that scattered at the slightest breath of wind. The life-giving force left the body of the tree, and what was left of it could no longer exist on its own.

Many years later, Eddie learned that children need to be protected from shocks in every possible way, that they should learn as late as possible what death, pain and fear are. But something else burned his soul: he experienced his first shock when he stood motionless, looking at the black hole gaping in the trunk of a tree felled by lightning. It was a terrible deception, made even more terrible because Eddie could not understand what it was. He knew that it was not him or his faith that had been deceived, but something else, but he did not understand what exactly.

He stood next to the oak tree, without saying a word, and returned to the house. He never told anyone about this, not that day or later.

Eddie shook his head in annoyance and stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, noticing that the traffic light switched to red with a rusty metal grind. He was angry with himself. And why did he suddenly remember this oak tree today? The oak no longer meant anything to him, from this memory there was only a faint aftertaste of sadness and - somewhere deep in his soul - a drop of pain, which quickly disappeared, as droplets of rain disappear, rolling down the window glass, leaving a trace reminiscent of a question mark .

His childhood memories were very dear to him, and he did not want to overshadow them with sadness. In his memory, every day of his childhood seemed to be flooded with bright, even sunlight; it seemed to him as if several rays of sunshine, not even rays, but points of light, flying from those distant days, at times gave a special charm to his work, brightened up the loneliness of his bachelor’s apartment and enlivened the monotonous monotony of his life.

Eddie remembered one summer day when he was nine years old. He stood in the middle of a clearing in the forest with his childhood best friend, and she was telling him what they would do when they grew up. She spoke excitedly, and her words were as mercilessly dazzling as sunlight. He listened to her with rapt amazement and, when she asked what he would like to do when he grew up, he answered without hesitation:

- I don't know. We must find out for ourselves. It’s not easy, as you say, to do business and make a living. Winning battles, saving people from fires, conquering mountain peaks - something like that.

- Why?

– Last Sunday at the sermon the priest said that we should strive for the best in us. What do you think is the best thing about us?

- I don't know.

- We have to find out.

She didn't answer. She looked towards the railway track stretching into the distance.

Eddie Willers smiled. Twenty years ago he said: “Only what is right.” Since then, he has never doubted the truth of these words. There were simply no other questions for him; he was too busy to ask them to himself. It still seemed obvious and crystal clear to him that a person should do only what is right, and he still did not understand how people could do otherwise; I just realized that they do this. It still seemed simple and incomprehensible to him: simple because everything in the world should be correct, and incomprehensible because it was not so. He knew that wasn't true. Thinking about this, Eddie turned the corner and approached the huge Taggart Transcontinental building.

The company building towered proudly over the entire street. Eddie always smiled when he looked at him. Unlike the houses that stood next door, the glass in all the windows, stretching in long rows, was intact; the contours of the building, soaring upward, crashed into the overhanging sky; the building seemed to tower over the years, timeless, and Eddie thought it would stand there forever.

Eddie always felt a sense of relief and confidence when he walked into Taggart Transcontinental. The building was the embodiment of power and strength. The marble floors of its corridors looked like huge mirrors. Matte, rectangular lamps generously flooded the space with bright light. Behind the glass walls of the offices, girls sat in rows at typewriters, and the crackle of the keyboard resembled the clatter of the wheels of a speeding train. Like an answering echo, faint tremors occasionally ran through the walls, rising from the underground tunnels of the huge railway terminal located directly below the company building, from where trains left year after year to travel to the other side of the continent, cross it and return.

Taggart Transcontinental; from ocean to ocean - the great motto of his childhood, much more vivid and sacred than any of the biblical commandments. From ocean to ocean, from Atlantic to Pacific, forever, Eddie thought enthusiastically, as if he had just realized the real meaning of this motto, passing through the sparkling clean corridors; A few minutes later he entered the holy of holies - the office of James Taggart, president of the Taggart Transcontinental Company.

James Taggart was sitting at the table. He looked about fifty years old. When looking at him, one got the impression that he, having passed the period of youth, entered adulthood straight from his youth. He had a small, capricious MOUTH, and sparse hairs clung to his balding forehead. There was a kind of looseness and sloppiness in his posture, completely out of harmony with the elegant lines of his tall, slender body, as if intended for a proud and laid-back aristocrat, but inherited by a slacker boor. He had a pale, doughy face and dull, watery, droopy eyes. His gaze slowly wandered around, moving from object to object with a constant expression of dissatisfaction, as if everything he saw got on his nerves. He looked tired and a very stubborn man. He was thirty-nine years old.

At the sound of the door opening, he raised his head in irritation:

“I’m busy, busy, busy...” Eddie Willers approached the table.

“This is important, Jim,” he said without raising his voice.

- Okay, okay, what do you have there?

Eddie looked at the map hanging under glass on the office wall. The colors on it had long since faded and faded, and Eddie couldn’t help but wonder how many company presidents she had seen in her lifetime and how long each of them had held this post. The Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, a network of red lines on a map that crisscrossed the faded body of the country from New York to San Francisco, resembled a system of blood vessels. It seemed as if once upon a time the blood rushed along the main artery, but under its own pressure it randomly spread in different directions. One of the red lines snaked its way between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and El Paso, Texas. It was the Rio Norte line, one of the Taggart Transcontinental lines. New lines have recently been added to it, and the red stripe has moved further south from El Paso. Eddie Willers quickly turned away when his gaze reached that point. He looked at Taggart and said:

“I came about Rio Norte.” “He noticed Taggart slowly turn his gaze to the edge of the table. “There was a crash there again.”

Ayn Rand

Atlas straightened his shoulders.

Preface

How can we implement our brains, or one step forward - two steps forward?

(a few words about a very modern book)

We will be very grateful for your opinion about the book and the problems posed in it and for your feedback - even critical.

D. V. Kostygin

PART ONE

WITHOUT CONTRADITIONS

Chapter 1. Theme

-Who is John Galt?