I want to start this by saying that I haven't read this since my junior year of High School in 2005, so as of right now, it's been a good decade, so my memories of complete specifics are not as vivid as they once were, but overall, I will say the memories of the story have stuck with me.
I want to get right to the point. As a political novel selling an agenda, it likely will appeal to Objectivists and hardcore libertarians. I am neither, so that is one strike. Still, I've read plenty of books with political messages, not all I agree with, so I can easily overlook that. It's a dystopian novel. I'm fine with it. Equality is a guy who loves to tinker and he very much wants to be allowed to invent things. He builds himself up until the big day when he is told that the career he's most suited to is in fact a street sweeper. The people around him, he is convinced, do not recognize his genius.
Most readers, after following Equality's story for awhile, will probably be convinced that he is as mentally defective as the people he despises who work as sweepers with him. Equality by his nature rants and raves in his journal in a delusional nature and then sets his sights on a girl that catches his fancy, Liberty. They inexplicably fall in love at first sight, which is open to all kinds of alternate character interpretation. They run off into the hills and live happily ever after.
Since this novella is politically themed, I want to compare it side by side with its foil novella, the wonderful Animal Farm. Both are quick reads, both have a political message that deplores authoritarian collectivism. Animal Farm though, is clever where Anthem is humorless. The biggest difference though is who we're meant to empathize with. Orwell wants us to sympathize with the weakest characters. Rand does not. Anthem treats the weak (though kindly enough) characters with disdain.
In the end though, the story is just written in such an ham-handed fashion. There's no heart, no sympathy. No character growth (although Equality himself does change slightly, no one else is fleshed out at all). I found myself begging for the story just to end. Anthem's biggest weakness is not its politics, its weakness is Rand's writing itself.
Rand's Novella is Objectively Boring
I want to start this by saying that I haven't read this since my junior year of High School in 2005, so as of right now, it's been a good decade, so my memories of complete specifics are not as vivid as they once were, but overall, I will say the memories of the story have stuck with me.
I want to get right to the point. As a political novel selling an agenda, it likely will appeal to Objectivists and hardcore libertarians. I am neither, so that is one strike. Still, I've read plenty of books with political messages, not all I agree with, so I can easily overlook that. It's a dystopian novel. I'm fine with it. Equality is a guy who loves to tinker and he very much wants to be allowed to invent things. He builds himself up until the big day when he is told that the career he's most suited to is in fact a street sweeper. The people around him, he is convinced, do not recognize his genius.
Most readers, after following Equality's story for awhile, will probably be convinced that he is as mentally defective as the people he despises who work as sweepers with him. Equality by his nature rants and raves in his journal in a delusional nature and then sets his sights on a girl that catches his fancy, Liberty. They inexplicably fall in love at first sight, which is open to all kinds of alternate character interpretation. They run off into the hills and live happily ever after.
Since this novella is politically themed, I want to compare it side by side with its foil novella, the wonderful Animal Farm. Both are quick reads, both have a political message that deplores authoritarian collectivism. Animal Farm though, is clever where Anthem is humorless. The biggest difference though is who we're meant to empathize with. Orwell wants us to sympathize with the weakest characters. Rand does not. Anthem treats the weak (though kindly enough) characters with disdain.
In the end though, the story is just written in such an ham-handed fashion. There's no heart, no sympathy. No character growth (although Equality himself does change slightly, no one else is fleshed out at all). I found myself begging for the story just to end. Anthem's biggest weakness is not its politics, its weakness is Rand's writing itself.