Ayn Rand Chapter 10: The Goal of my Writing I've skipped Chapter 9, an introduction to Victor Hugo's "Ninety-Three", until I read that novel myself -- possibly next year..
She begins Chapter 10 by declaring "The motive and purpose of my writing is the projection of an ideal man" Fine Could not such a motive also be attributed to Homer and Valmiki? And didn't they write some pretty good stories?. Although we might note that the goals pursued by their ideal men were rather domestic: Odysseus wants to return home, and Rama wants to get his wife back, and I would have no interest in such a story set in our contemporary world. Do you? I also have no problem reading stories about people who are deeply flawed (although, I do want them to be demonstrably smart) So, as with the rest of "Romantic Manifesto", I'm not going to sign on. Rand writes that "Misery, disease, evil, all the negatives of human existence, are proper subjects of study in life, for the purpose of understanding and correcting them - but they are not proper subjects of contemplation for contemplation's sake. In art, and in literature, these negatives are worth re-creating only in relation to some positive, as a foil, as a contrast, as a means of stressing the positive - but not as an end in themselves" And I would say that the foil, in a good story about bad people, is the story itself, and the sensitive, powerful mind of the storyteller. But still -- I think Rand does have a point regarding the disparagement of beauty and idealism in our contemporary artworld. The possibility of a finding a non-ironic painting of a happy, healthy, beautiful person in a museum of contemporary art is just about zero. And I would join Rand in saying that such an omission is a moral failure. ____________________________________________________________ Click here to find the perfect banking opportunity! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxXwVxYtiywRUzH1KsYC8o9tl RXt3bn41dKoyX2pCD6vJpHFqGNBa4/
