Feared, Hated and Adored

“Feared, hated and adored” is what Kzinti cubs feel about their fathers (Kzin are intelligent carnivores invented by science fiction writer Larry Niven), and I can’t think of a better description of people’s attitude to Ayn Rand – though not usually in the one person!

I think we’re going to see a lot of that when the long-awaited movie of Ayn Rand’s masterwork Atlas Shrugged is released. I don’t know how closely the movie will follow the book, and certainly a lot must to be cut from a novel of that length even when the producers are wisely doing it as a trilogy. But the bits I’ve seen and what I’ve read about it do look promising.

I can almost hear the screams, part rage and part derision, from the Left side of politics (and the Right, for that matter) when this movie comes out in April. With any luck the cultural shockwaves will be even more entertaining than the movie.