Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged

[nekosensei]

Ayn Rand really has no grasp of US geography does she? I've finished the first book of Atlas Shrugged and so far, I have learned that one can get to Denver from Cheyenne by heading west. That, and you have to go through mountains. If I remember correctly, there are no mountains east of Denver. She also seems to think that one has access to the sea in Wisconsin. Well...I guess if you want to consider Lake Michigan "a sea"...whatever.

Also, while I don't agree with her politics, I do have to mention that I kind of understand why she's writing the way she is. She grew up in Saint Petersburg during the Russian Revolution and her father's business was taken away from him by the Soviets. They ended up fleeing to the Crimea after that because of financial difficulties. If I were her, I would probably have a bug up my ass too...

Comments

[recursive.livejournal.com]

We The Living is supposedly semi-autobiographical, and The Fountainhead is a better novel than either, IMHO.

[judygs.livejournal.com]

Lake Michigan is an inland sea (http://www.inlandseas.org/).

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

Technically, it may be an inland sea, but most people refer to them as The Great Lakes. This is the first time I've seen in literature where it's been referred to as "a sea." Of course, then again, the author wasn't born in the United States and English isn't her native language. She emigrated from Russia.

[angharad76.livejournal.com]

A passage from the first page of Chicago-raised Nelson Algren's great prose-poem/essay City on the Make:


To the east were the moving waters as far as eye could follow. To the west a sea of grass as far as wind might reach.

*****

Till between the waters and the wind came the marked-down derelicts with the dollar signs for eyes.

Looking for any prairie portage at all that hadn't yet built a jail.

Beside any old secondhand sea.

[End Quote]

I love that book.

[angharad76.livejournal.com]

Having traveled through the area on a train, I can say that it starts getting hilly in western Nebraska. The mountains definitely begin east of Denver. But Denver definitely isn't west of Cheyenne.