Customer Reviews

The Pianist Who Liked Ayn Rand: A Novella and 13 Stories

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Where to begin?

I picked this book up in a local bargain bin thinking it might contain some contemporary, witty satire on Ayn Rand... woe is me. This book is full of cliche's, badly written metaphors, and generally uncreative material.

If you're a fan of Rand, avoid this book. If you're a critic of Rand, avoid this book. But if you're looking for cheap fuel for your furnace in the midst of these high gas prices, this is a great buy--only 59 cents for a used copy on Amazon!

I'm pretty sure that if Woody Allen were huge into classical music, and Hispanic, this is the book he would have written.

I think if I'd read any of these short stories or the novella on their own, I would have really loved it. However, when grouped together they felt a little flat. First of all, every story was about the same protagonist - yet he had a new character for each one. So the voice was identical to the story before, yet there was an entirely new background. It made it really confusing at times, especially when the guy always ended up with a leading lady that was basically the same character - yet different - every time as well.

I also had an issue with these stories not really being, well, stories. Not a single one of them had any sort of conclusion. Almost all of them started out with a huge infodump, then set up a problem . . . and stopped, sans resolution.

He also clearly could have benefited from an editor. There were many instances of poor word choices that a simple read through from an unbiased eye could have picked up on. Note, for example, the excessive use of the word 'almost' in this passage :

"Oh, damn, English class, I'd almost clean forgot," he muttered. The bike ride across campus felt almost exhilarating. There was almost no one on the paths as he coasted along.

Those issues aside, I did really enjoy the book. It was peppered with all kinds of tongue in check attacks against Rand and Objectivism in general.

My favorite was easily a story called History Reconsidered which was actually a satirical review of a fake book called, Hitler Reconstructed : An American Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Third Reich, and Finds More Than a Few Things to Recommend. It included great lines like, "Can anyone who killed 20,000,000 Soviets really be half bad?"

Overall : I'm glad I read it and I would recommend a story or two to a friend, however, I don't think it worked as a volume.

It is strange that the defense of Ayn Rand (noted elsewhere as a writer of "decent middle-brow novels" by Bell-Villada) seems to concern many reviewers more than the actual stories themselves.

Well, speaking as somebody who has actually read the stories, I found them fairly low-key. There are a number of obvious jabs - at Ayn Rand, at postmodern society, and at other American oddities - but the tone is more one of bemusement and satire than rancor and bitterness. There is a certain sense of cultural displacement running through the novels. In the first half of the collection, it's more explicitly related to being a "third culture kid". In the second half, the displacement (from which the pianist's liking of Ayn Rand ultimately springs) is more a consequence of modern society.

This isn't one of those books that makes you stop dead and rethink everything. But it does provide a good bit of food for thought, especially if you take time to delve deeper into the themes and ideas underlying the stories (notably "Problems of Postmodern Society", the one about the mustache dilemmas). It's light reading that sometimes ends up a little bit pessimistic.

There have been many attacks on Rand and her philosophy, some more coherent than others. The author is almost a caricature of a Rand hater. His Randists insist that someone must wear the dollar sign on his person before going to a meeting; the heroing wants to be raped. He completely misses all of Rand's points; this book is totally ridiculous. And the author's understanding of Rand's philosophy is better than his writing skills!!

Libertarian satires of Ayn Rand extend at least as far back as Jerome Tuccille's nonfiction IT USUALLY BEGINS WITH AYN RAND (1971). Such works appeal to libertarians' conflicted admiration for Rand; her books inspired many readers to trek down the intellectual path to libertarianism, yet Rand's authoritarian personal life was a Stalinist parody of her individualist philosophy (e.g., her living room "show trials" of acolytes who'd violated the Objectivist "party line").

Rand herself was in no way conflicted over libertarians, whom she called "a random collection of hippies of the right." In 1976, she enthusiastically supported Gerald Ford for president over both Reagan and Carter, never mind the LP's Roger MacBride. Nor did she share many a libertarians' self-deprecating humor, which she regarded as a form of "sanction of the victim." She'd reputedly said that "laughing at yourself is like spitting in your own face." Who would John Galt laugh at? Not himself, certainly.

But all this history is mostly unknown to "outsiders," who often confuse Rand's Objectivism with libertarianism. Thus it may surprise Gene H. Bell-Villada (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and, one presumes, a good "progressive") to learn that many libertarians will delight in his "The Pianist Who Liked Ayn Rand," a 63-page novella that also lends its title to his 13-piece collection.

The novella will resonate with libertarians. Many of us have seen, or read of, or heard of real-life versions of Bell-Villada's characters. (I had a high school classmate who turned "Randroid" for a few years.) In "The Pianist," a university music student studies Rand to impress an Objectivist coed. But despite mastering an ability to spout boilerplate Objectivism, his amorous advances fall short of the Roarkian aggression needed to impress the coed.

Most of Bell-Villada's protagonists are nerdy Latinos; bookish beta males with a love of classical music. In "The Prize" a Puerto Rican boy is obsessed with a classical music radio station. But when he finally finds the courage to call the station and win a classical recording, it turns out to be an LP -- and his family's record player only accepts 78s. In "The Customer" a lonely engineer spends every Saturday savoring The New Yorker--articles, advertising, and all. His admiration for an unseen model's legs inspires him to drive to the liquor store and see if he can find a display ad featuring that same model.

In Randian terms, Bell-Villada's stories are naturalistic rather than romantic. Brief sketches of ordinary people pursuing minor dreams, defeated by petty, random events. His stories are satirical, minimalist, and literary. The sort of "slices of life" favored by university presses. Heavy on character rather than plot.

THE PIANIST WHO LIKED AYN RAND may be out of print, but inexpensive used copies are available on Amazon.com. Some of the stories are better than others, but libertarians shouldn't care. "The Pianist Who Liked Ayn Rand" alone is worth the price.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. If you MUST read it, either steal it or get it at the library. You won't feel as ripped off as I do. The author is virulently anti-Rand. I am open minded, but I refuse to be brow beaten by dullards. Don't waste your time on this one.

These stories are best read in terms of what, in Australia, is called 'fictocriticism', a blend of fiction and reality that operates as entertainment, art, and exposition all at once, Bell-Villada, a renowned academic and literary critic as well as innovative fictionist, is adept at imagining character and situation--"Abortive Romance" is a really painful and moving tale, and is reminiscent of lawrence and Tolstoy in its portrayal of a relationship where there is an almost inherent conflict between aspirations for democratic conduct and hopes for erotic gratification. The music element is also interesting and adds an important formal counterpoint. And the entire issue of whether ultra-individualism is or is not fascism is one that is still pressing...indeed, Bell-VIllada was one of the few in the 1980s and 1990s to not take a de facto position of tolerance with respect to neoliberalism, to ask just what it was, how dangerous it was, whether it was metaphysically noxious or merely situationally do, and just through what cognitive modalities it worked. Ayn Rand has been somewhat taken off her pedestal recently due to recent biographical revelations, but as recently as ten years ago one got shocked responses from many people if one dared to question her status as least as important thinker if not, as those who have experienced her prose must concede, necessarily a great writer. Bell-Villada's wit, acerbity, and courage render him a steadfast guide to an era and an ideology whose self-rofessed rationales we simply did not sufficiently question.

In his very positive review of this book of mine, Thomas M. Sipos states that the volume is out of print. Not so! There are plenty of brand-new copies still left. As the author of THE PIANIST WHO LIKED AYN RAND, I want any interested parties to know this. That aside, my thanks to Mr. Sipos for his generous comments.