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Ayn Rand's Marginalia : Her Critical Comments on the Writings of over Twenty Authors

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I had read a number of the books before I read Miss Rand's comments on them. What struck me most was how dead on she was. I remember recoiling in horror at the same places in Hayek's _Road to Serfdom_ that Rand did. Ayn Rand's Marginalia is an excellent book. It brilliantly shows her mind at work as a _reader_. It serves as an wonderful companion to both her Journals and Letters books.

The source and title of this book belie too much, unfortunately. These comments are strictly a marginal reflection of Ayn Rand as philosopher and social commentator. The point seems to have been to demonstrate how cogently Rand could describe -- with an uninhibited pencil in hand under her reading lamp -- the unadmitted philosophic essentials of many other writers' works.

Where this falls short, and it should be obvious, is in these being her marginalia. This isn't sustained critical comment that comes to its own point of view. And as the editor admits, the preponderance of negative comments is to be expected, for why would anyone bother to constantly show agreement? Especially when such marginal notes were never intended for others' eyes?

Beyond this lack of critical distance is the frequent lack of even any attempt at a connected argument on her part. The major exceptions to this are found with Ludwig von Mises' influential economic treatise, "Human Action," and a philosophic textbook by her one-time friend and longtime libertarian activist John Hospers.

Although Rand's lengthy comments are often pithy and penetrating, her depth of analysis depends too often upon the quality of her literary targets. To tear apart the campaign writing of Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative" is almost laughably easy, and Rand has a free and spirited (though not at all denigrating) time with doing so. The analysis of Mises, by contrast, shows up her particular distinctions far more clearly, though it isn't her doing. It's due more to Mises making an intricate economic argument, rather than his engaging in propagandistic persuasion.

This last example, sadly, shows how one of Rand's own foibles tripped her up, for she becomes fixated on how Mises uses the concept of "subjective." His usage is closer to that of "personal judgment," apart from -- though not opposed to -- objective analysis or comparison to external fact. Rand persists, as she did elsewhere, ! in assuming that it is used as a synonym for "the arbitrary."

Such a shortcoming as a commentator is far less pronounced in Rand's own essays and polemics -- and *these* are cogent and often brilliant, in her collections of essays with titles ranging from "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" to "Philosophy: Who Needs It."

Where Rand is shown to fall short -- in an arena that she thought would remain private -- is in circling back on the errors of others who could not keep their own points as clear as she kept her own. She is putting her analytical stamp on the creations of others, here, but is following *their* leads as to what is important and what is not.

It'd be better by far to have had her concise eye placed upon others' writings, or on news events, with more sustained philosophic attention. Aside from her collected magazine/newsletter essays, in "The Ayn Rand Letter" and "The Ayn Rand Column," she created very little of such work. She did even less work comparing her own extensive philosophic integrations with those of others -- except, briefly, Immanuel Kant.

By dredging up these "Marginalia," one evident motive is to fill this gap and to promote Rand as more of a commentator than she was, and with more of a grasp of the culture around her than she possessed. It's an admirable attempt. But it fails to keep one's attention for the same reason that Peter Keating's architectural mishmashes failed to work in her novel "The Fountainhead": the reactive effort is against and bound up with others' work, not against the objective challenges of life.

Newcomers to Rand are advised to begin, after trying her masterful and provocative fiction, with any of the essay collections she created between 1964 and 1982.

This collection of marginal notes is only for those who have been thoroughly exposed to her viewpoint and choose to focus on her persona and strength of mind. It shows many sparks of both these parts of her life, but only by thei! r being chipped off of authors that rarely rise to her own level of luminous wordcraft.

Good book. Catch a glimpse of Ayn Rand's mind at work. Note her talent for reducing a page of philosopher speak down to a couple sentences and pick out their contradictions (sometimes within the same sentence!).

It is almost as if you are sitting right next to Ayn Rand as she critically read and evaluated. You can watch her home in on the essentials -- and often the essential nonsense -- in some important and influential books. The best part is that you can have this intimate, private view of such a great mind for the small price of this book.

What's next? _Ayn Rand's Laundry Lists_?

After her early fiction, her journals and her letters were published, one would have thought the vein of publishable Randian material had been tapped out. But no -- now we're treated to a volume of her _marginal notes_ in books written by _other_ people.

Really, why is this stuff being published? Her comments on Ludwig von Mises' _Human Action_ are strictly inept; she never managed to grasp what he meant by "subjectivism," and it's just not all that edifying to watch her call him names ("The damn _whim-worshipper_!"). And most of the other works included here are just not all that important.

Nor did Rand ever intend these trivial scribbles for publication. Yet despite warnings in _the book itself_ that these little marginal scrawls don't represent Rand's final and considered views on much of anything, I've actually seen Randroids hail her allegedly masterly "deconstruction" of Misesian subjectivism as though her nasty notes to herself on the matter actually constituted a responsible opinion.

Somebody needs to get a life.

I don't know what "cowards" that other reviewer has in mind, but there are several negative reviews here with the reviewers' names on them -- including an earlier one from me that has scrolled off the page. Maybe the anonymous reviewers just don't like getting spammed by angry Objectivists; me, I collect that stuff. The really choice examples I post to discussion lists so everybody can see them.

As for this volume itself, it's a collection of rather embarrassing marginal notes from some books that Rand attempted to read. Unfortunately she read them as though their authors were using terms with the meanings _she_ assigned them, and therefore often misunderstood them. (As I and other reviewers have noted, her misreading of Ludwig von Mises' "subjectivism" is a very good example.)

It _is_ possible to support this contention by argument and example. But this review board isn't a discussion list; reviewers here post fairly brief opinions, not lengthy, thoroughly argued essays. Objectivists who expect otherwise, and then criticize only the _negative_ reviewers for not giving all their reasons, are simply revealing their own biases.

Intellectual cowardice, indeed. I think that charge applies rather to Objectivists who respond only with insults when their guru is criticized. But please, keep those insults coming; sooner or later, _everyone_ will know just how centrally important reason and rationality are to Rand's devoted followers.

Ayn Rand was a thinker whose ideas ranged from the insightful to the ill informed. Occasionally she says something interesting and you think she had a unique ability to get to the heart of the matter. Other times, you shake your head and ask yourself how could someone be so misguided. I don't have a good explanation for why this is the case, but if you want to see Rand's mind *not* at work, her "marginalia" (comments she wrote in books she read) is the place to start.

Part of Rand's problem is that she is intent on misreading and misinterpreting what others write. She thinks she knows that an author means better than he does. At times, her misunderstandings border on the bizarre. For example, she comments on von Mises's work HUMAN ACTION. For page after page, Rand misconstrues what Mises said. (At one point she even "corrects" his definition of money. I'd like to see *her* 500 page treatise on monetary theory.) In one section, Mises discusses the Austrian concept of "the sovereignty of the consumer." This idea means that in a free market economy, businesses must produce and sell what consumers want if they are to stay in business. If consumers want dishwashers and porno mags instead of Beethoven CDs, then that's what will be produced. If you think about it, this is a powerful argument against socialism and government planning. The economy is already "planned" by consumers who vote with their dollars. Do government bureaucrats know better what consumers want? Yet Rand will have none of this. She goes into a tizzy about the term "sovereignty." It has "altruist-parasite implication[s]." It turns people into "slaves" of the "whims" of the consumer.

Even worse is Rand's misunderstanding of C.S. Lewis's work THE ABOLITION OF MAN. Lewis makes the point that planners use the power they have gained from science to dominate man. He concludes that any power won by man is also a power over man. Rand goes bonkers and comments "So when you cure men of . . . [diseases] - you make them weaker!!!" Uh, that wasn't exactly his point. She even accuses Lewis (an Anglican) of wanting science subservient to the Pope!

The most of obvious question is why would Ayn Rand's estate publish stuff which makes her look like something of a, well, loon? As the editor Robert Mayhew (a professor philosophy at Seton Hall) admits, Rand never imagined that her jottings would be published. Incredibly, Prof. Mayhew, while conceding the harshness of some of Rand's comments, says there isn't one case where what Rand said was "unfair." He even holds Rand's comment about C.S. Lewis that I quoted above as an example of her "matchless mind in action."

Have you ever read a book you had been told was a classic, only to discover that you are appalled by it? Here is a chance to compare notes with Ayn Rand on a number of works she read--many of them modern classics. It is illuminating not only in what she said, but which items stirred her to comment. Highly recommended; even better if you first read these selections for yourself.

I agree with other "negative" reviewers who regard this work as embarrassing. This book ends up making Rand look very bad indeed. In note after note, she seems determined to misunderstand, distort, even re-write what she is reading. If I were the executors of Rand's estate, I would have burned these notes. To publish them to the world is practically scandalous.

I was quite disappointed with this book. It really provides the reader with very little in the way of the tight, cutting analysis that one was used to from Rand. It leaves me wondering if one of the purposes of the Ayn Rand Institute is to provide work for otherwise-unemployable writers who nevertheless have shown complete fealty to Rand and/or Peikoff.