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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, someone with guts, December 24, 2005
This review is from: Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand (Paperback)
I loved this book. I have always seen Rand as an unbearable narcissist and here is someone finally willing to see through the garbage and call it like it is. Very readable, thought provoking and an interesting peice of history. Ayn Rand cult followers will hate it.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Gentleman, August 12, 2007
This review is from: Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand (Paperback)
While I knew of the "affair"(s) and figured it was their own business, obviously AR and NB (and BB) decided otherwise, and let the world in on it. As far As NB's book goes, I decidely disliked the way in which he described and disparaged Barbara Branden, which, even if true, was no excuse for what he did. If Barbara did not find Nathan sexually attractive (understandably), it does not indicate a lack of character on her part. She found him intellectually appealing and unfortunately for her, went along with AR's and NB's b-s that he should represent her deepest values and therefore she should find him sexually irresistable. As for Nathan, if he can claim that about BB, then what does that say about him when he threw over AR for Patrecia? He knows better and he needs to be just a 'little' more honest about the taglines he throws about. And as for the references to the "Crosby's" helping them start the taped series of the lectures, the Crosby's also made it possible for him to re-establish himself in Los Angeles; if it had not been for them, and their support of him in a very difficult time (AR had banished him), he would not have found it so easy to begin another career. As the Los Angeles reps for NBI (Nathanel Branden Institute --- running lectures on tapes in the Los Angeles area), the Crosby's had a high visability in the Objectivist circle in L.A., and by refusing to cast stones at either AR or NB, allowed Nathan the freedom to address the students in the L.A. area and to provide them with his own version of what took place, without interference from AR or any of the New York group. The whole thing was pathetic --- and still is. Of the three of them, I believe Barbara Branden is the only one who came out of it with any semblance of dignity. As for AR, I will always be grateful to her for helping me find my way as a young woman (18 when I read The Fountainhead and had my breath taken away by the logic of everything --- 20 when I read Atlas and knew I could handle my life in the world). I always though Nathan was vain and full of himself --- and this book really showed it.
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3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A sadly mistitled book, October 8, 2007
This review is from: Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand (Paperback)
For a better title, how about "Garbage Day: My Years of Self-Delusion and Rationalization"? That does better justice to its contents. A pathetic, trashy book that epitomizes the predicament of the "unreliable narrator." Even Branden admits its unreliability: that's why he had to re-write it with a new, embarrassingly non-confrontational title. The hope, apparently, was to correct the more transparent errors in the first edition, and desperately to pretend that "judgment" was no longer at issue. But, alas, it is. It's hard to read this book with one's critical faculties "on" and not see that Nathaniel's critical faculties are "off" and have been since the 1960s. Best bet for the book: put it in the trash can, and leave it at the curb in the hopes that they'll haul it away. (Don't bother recycling it. The author has already done that.)
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