Ayn Rand and the World She Made

Anne Heller's work, talent, insight and dedication have resulted in a book I could hardly put down. She has tackled a very complex subject. It's been three days since I finished it and realize that it may take months to digest it. The book is so huge I can only write impressions and thoughts. The first thing to pop out at me relates to Frank Lloyd Wright. Early on, Rand used him as and ideal whose outsider life and creativity became the model for Howard Roark. After visiting Taliesin she commented that Wright did not pay his assistants, but did she realize that his "Fellowship" was a collectivist operation? Wright's 3rd wife, Olgivanna, who like Rand was a Russian émigré, developed this cult-like following on his behalf. Wright's fellowship engrossed the full lives and careers of its closest followers who designed buildings, planted crops and did construction and maintenance work for their "Fellowship". Fellowship, The: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship. He and his lifestyle were the antithesis of Howard Roark. The next impressions are about Rand's family. What of Frank O'Connor? Was this love? Friendship? Fear? Awe? Inertia? 50's values? The Chicago relatives are not re-imbursed for their help in Rand's resettlement in the US (neither are those left behind in Russia). Is this a cognitive demonstration of selfishness or a representation of Rand, herself, for which she built an elaborate philosophy to justify? What should be made of the sister from Russia whose comparative contentment with her life essentially mocks Rand's life work? I was surprised at the involvement of Alan Greenspan. I knew his name was associated with Rand, but a lot of people went to the lectures. I didn't know how plugged in he was and how long he stayed with it. Aside from the above associations which may or may not be micro-issues, I'm digesting the person of Rand herself. First, you have to consider her tremendous accomplishments. She wrote and debated in a second language. She achieved fame as an intellectual totally defying entrenched stereotypes of and expectations for both women and immigrants. She developed her following, not as Olgivanna Wright did through her husband nor economic necessity (the Wrights "needed" their followers, Rand, essentially didn't), but on her own independent power. There is the issue of the role of her philosophy in her own life. Did she walk her talk? How did selfishness work out for her? The strength she speaks of was not there when she needed it. She behaved worse than most when her romantic world shattered world and health waned. It makes Bertha Krantz's observation about fear a logical explanation for this person who can't seem to handle even small dissent or criticism. Anne Heller has done a tremendous job with this book. I highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in Ayn Rand.

This is an excellent biography that goes into great depth explaining Ayn Rand's life and, through frequent citation of her written works, explores the ideas and motivations behind her actions. Heller is, for lack of a better word, an 'objective' reviewer. She reveals Rand at her greatest and at her worst (which, it turns out, is very human). As Rand would say, Heller "never fakes reality." If anyone comes out looking bad in this book, it isn't Rand herself but the "Randians" who surround her and become, essentially, a cult. She didn't intend to start a religion, but weaker people - none of whom share anything characteristics with the heroes from her book - flocked to her, eager to be told what to do and not just how to think but what to think. Even in her darkest moments - left by her much younger boyfriend and (perplexingly) baffled as to why, high on drugs, and missing a lunge, she is still able to produce some of her greatest work - her speeches to West Point, at Ford Hall, the Donohue show, and her final speech in New Orleans. Ignore our reviews. Just read the first chapter here online and if that doesn't pull you in, don't buy the book.

** "Atlas Shrugged" is Ayn Rand's doomsday novel of heroes, villains, love triangles and politics - set against a backdrop of an American economy in collapse, e.g., gifted innovators disappear, industries merge and close, millions of people are thrown out of work - while the federal government tries to help by issuing "greater good" directives which push the United States closer to socialism. ** Sound familiar? ** So who was Ayn Rand and why is she still relevant today? ** In my view, what's most impressive - and what makes "Ayn Rand and the World She Made" feel like a book that will never go out of print - is author Anne C. Heller's even-handed (and easy-to-read) summaries of Rand's complex ideologies about American individualism, capitalism and democracy - along with synopses of ALL of Rand's books and lectures - explained in ways that are sometimes more lucid than Rand's original works. ** In addition, Ms. Heller's book has a story-telling momentum that's unusual compared to other biographies. With the help of researchers digging through archives in Russia and throughout the United States, the author brings Ayn Rand's childhood and adult years excitingly to life - making more clear to mainstream readers why Rand's experiences were critically important to understanding how her ideas against socialism and collectivism were formed - and how she refined them over time. Ms. Heller further illustrates how Rand integrated these ideas into all of her novels, particularly "The Fountainhead" (1943) and "Atlas Shrugged" (1957) - and how she subsequently became world famous - while carrying a torch of stubborn dismissiveness toward her detractors, all the way to her death in 1982. ** "Ayn Rand and the World She Made" reads more credibly than all previous treatments of Rand's life to date - because author Heller approaches Rand as a critical admirer - and not as a blind-faith fan. Her ability to make Rand's ideas come alive - illustrates her respect and admiration for Rand's intellect. This "closed the sale" for me as a reader - and wipes out criticisms I've read from some of Rand's followers obsessively parsing every word in this book. Even Cliffs Notes versions of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" feel somewhat tainted by being written by authors possessing an over-eager zealotry of her ideas. Not once did I feel Ms. Heller was presenting Rand as being anything more than a tremendously intelligent, charismatic and charming figure - who could also be frighteningly eccentric, petty and cruel. ** Most reviews have been favorable. But while reading a few negative reviews, I detected an undercurrent of resistance to Ms. Heller's work from people, 1) who believe themselves to be more intellectually gifted than Heller to discuss Rand's life and work (hence are perhaps too biased), 2) who are horrified that lurid and less-than-flattering material about Rand's life is included (despite being too compelling to be ignored), 3) who are upset t

Ayn Rand died twenty seven years ago, and yet her novels and ideas remain as widely distributed, controversial, and inspiring today as they were when they were first written. Both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged continue to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year, and when The Modern Library asked readers to name the best books of the 20th Century, all four of Rand's novels ended up in the top ten. So, who was this Ayn Rand, and how did she go from being a young girl in St. Petersburg, Russia to become a woman who continues to influence political debate in the United States nearly three decades after she died ? That's the question that Anne C. Heller sets out to answer in Ayn Rand and the World She Made, and she does an excellent job of shedding light on the life and times of a woman who kept much of his personal history private. While many of the details of Rand's life and career are already familiar to those who know her work, Heller does bring to light many new details regarding Rand's life before she came to the United States, specifically the hellish existence that her family was put through in the years immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution. Rand's father, for example, was a successful pharmacist who saw his business confiscated and his property taken by the state, an action which raised the anger and indignation of the young Alissa Rosenbaum which can be traced to her later writing and her defense of capitalism. There are other interesting tidbits from Rand's days in Russia that Heller, who spent much time researching archives and interviewing family members in the former Soviet Union, managed to uncover. For example, one of the few close friends she had during those days was Olga Nabokov, the sister of another famed expatriate Russian writer, Vladimir Nabokov and daughter of one of the high-ranking officials in the Russian Provisional Government that was ultimately overthrown in the October 1917 Revolution. Like the Nabokov family, Rand's family fled St. Petersburg in the early days of the Revolution but, instead of fleeing Russia, they returned to St. Petersburg and Rand endured several hellish years under Communist rule. It wasn't until 1926 that Rand was finally able to escape to a new life in America. Overall, Heller does an excellent job of tracing the life -- the good, the bad, and the sometimes very ugly -- of Rand's life. On some level, it comes across as a sad tale of a woman who, in the beginning, was enthused by the power of ideas and individual liberty who, in the end, closed herself off in the echo chamber that was 1960's-style Objectivism. The consequences, for Rand, for others, and for Objectivism itself were disastrous in more was than one, but Heller does a fabulous job of showing how, and why, this happened. It seems clear, for example, that Rand reacted badly to even the mildest forms of criticism and, with limited exceptions such as Ludwig von Mises and Alan Greenspan, tolerated almost no disagreement

Ayn Rand died in 1982. For such an important and influential person there has surprisingly been only one full-length biography, that published by Barbara Branden in 1986 entitled The Passion of Ayn Rand. Branden's biography, written by a one-time follower who had a falling out with her, had the strengths and weaknesses inherent in such a work. In addition, it is based mostly on the recollections of Branden and the numerous people she interviewed (including interviews with Rand in the 60s). Branden also did not have access to Rand's papers and so was unable to check her and other recollections with documents. Anne Heller, in this magnificent new biography, has now written the definitive life of Ayn Rand. Though the Ayn Rand Archives denied her access to Rand's papers and other material, she did have the benefit of the large amount of archival material published after 1986, such as Rand's journals and letters. She also accessed archival material in Russia and other libraries. She interviewed Barbara and Nathaniel Branden at length, as well as other surviving acquaintances of Rand, most whom are quite elderly. She also utilized material produced by Rand partisans at the Ayn Rand Institute (including a forthcoming oral history of Rand entitled 100 Voices). The result is a biography that is "objective" in the best sense of the word. As Heller shows, Rand slowly began creating her own "world." Rand's subsequent account of her early life (for example claiming that she graduated with "highest honors" in philosophy when her classes were pass/fail) and her supposed struggles to get The Fountainhead published are subject to scrutiny. Rand wasn't the first author to lie about her past, but Rand's using this to create an interior world and a cult to support it is truly stunning. (As Heller notes, while Rand didn't start out wanting a cult, she certainly didn't object to it.) By the time her movement was in full swing, Rand probably didn't know where she ended and the heroes in her books began. At the same time, Heller's book is not a psychological melodrama. It is mostly a "nuts and bolts" account of Rand's life, with only occasional summaries of Rand's character. She tells the many examples of kindness that Rand displayed as well as her frequent cruelty. Better than anyone before, she captures the "two Rands," even if, at the end, neither Heller nor the reader knows quite what to make of this brilliant and eccentric person. To me the most telling account was that of Rand's secretary Barbara Weiss. Rand, she said, was the most repressed fearful person she had ever met. At the same time Weiss decided to leave after fifteen years of devoted service concluding that Rand did in fact know the harm she was causing other people, including her husband. She was a "killer of people" Weiss said. Those who believe that Rand's only character flaw was occasionally blowing her top will no doubt find Ayn Rand and the World She Made far from satisfyi