Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life : The Companion Book (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: Ayn Rand, New York, Atlas Shrugged (more...)

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Basically, this is a souvenir booklet for the Academy Award^-nominated documentary film with the same title. Some souvenir booklet, though. The text is the film's verbal continuity, and the illustrations, which occupy much more page-space than the words, are still photographs and a few drawings from animation sequences in the film. The subject is the procapitalist novelist-philosopher whose mammoth romances The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged still, the script avers, sell tens of thousands of copies yearly. (Another astonishing claim here is that of a poll that found Atlas Shrugged the second most influential book in America.) The script, which transcribes much ungrammatical spontaneous speech whose meanings are clarified in the film by vocal tone and facial expression, is often vague. Visually, however, the book is most impressive. Randians worth their salt should swoon over this wonderful supplement to Barbara Branden's Passion of Ayn Rand (1987) and Chris Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (1995). Ray Olson

Product Description

Rand's life unfolds in images, dialogue, and music in this "loving--but not fawning--documentary look at this fascinating figure of the 20th-century intellectual life" ("The Washington Post"). 32 color photos. 125 halftones.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 191 pages
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith Publishers; 1st ed edition (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879058455
• ISBN-13: 978-0879058456
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #133,600 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beatiful portrait of a titan, April 4, 1999

By A Customer

"If a life can have a `theme song' - and I believe every worthwhile one has - mine is a religion, an obsession or a mania - or all of these - expressed in one word: Individualism."

Ayn Rand wrote those words in 1936, 10 years after escaping Soviet Russia, but several years before publishing The Fountainhead, her famous novel about an idealistic architect named Howard Roark. Though many Americans know her as an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, her primary goal as a philosopher was not political activism, but the development of a consistent philosophy of reason that she called Objectivism.

In Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, the companion book to the Academy Award nominated documentary of the same name, author Michael Paxton takes us on an intimate tour of the life of one of the 20th century's most controversial novelist-philosophers.

What is a "sense of life?" Ayn Rand defined it as: "...a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence." In Paxton's beautiful book, we see in vivid detail Ayn Rand's sense of life - and what a life it was.

Ayn (pronounced like "mine") Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in czarist Russia in 1905. She knew from the age of nine that she wanted to be a writer. By the time she reached adolescence, she realized that the only way she could be fully free to write was to escape Soviet Russia - a culture she had always despised for its mysticism, irrationalism and collectivism. At the same time, she was beginning to formulate her unique view of the world.

Though life in Soviet Russia was bleak, the novels of Victor Hugo and Viennese operettas such as Emmerich Kálmán's "The Gypsy Princess" gave her the emotional fuel to press forward with her goals. Paxton does a superb job of showing the development of Ayn Rand's character with vibrant descriptions, still photos and images from her life in Russia.

Once Ayn Rand escaped to the United States in 1926, she wasted no time pursuing her goal of becoming a writer. After a brief period with relatives in Chicago, she set out for Hollywood to seek work as a screenwriter for silent movies. Particularly charming is the story of how she met her future husband, Frank O'Connor, on the set of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings: "...during a scene where Christ carries the cross through the city of Jerusalem, Ayn watched carefully as Frank hit his marks on the first take. On the second take, she maneuvered herself to get in his way. He stepped on her foot and apologized. From that moment on, they didn't stop talking."

Paxton shows us the essentials of Ayn Rand's exciting and inspiring life - from her early struggles to write and publish her first novel We the Living to the monumental success of her towering bestseller Atlas Shrugged to her loving relationship with her husband. Paxton successfully integrates the content of the book with its theme. He does not focus on insignificant minutiae, rather he selects the crowning achievements of Ayn Rand's life and career.

Critics of the documentary and the book have argued that Paxton is not objective in his treatment of Ayn Rand because he does not give equal time to her detractors. In the preface, philosopher and longtime friend of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, addresses this issue:

"In an age like ours - when evil is deemed to be real and virtue a mere illusion, when feet of clay, real or invented, are regarded as the essence of `objective' biography, and any positive portrait is dismissed as `hagiography'... Michael Paxton has had the courage to say: `Ayn Rand is a value, and here is the proof.'"

If you have read Ayn Rand's novels and have wondered what kind of woman she was, Michael Paxton's lovely book will give you a rare glimpse of true heroism. Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life is a treasure trove of positive values in a culture desperately in need of them.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Discovery, November 8, 2001

By	Ken Kearney (Santa Cruz,CA) - See all my reviews

I had never heard of Ayn Rand till I spotted the DVD "A Sense of Life" in the local library the other day!!! I am a fan of documentary bios.,so wanted to take a look...film opened a new world to me...I had seen "The Fountainhead" with Cooper in the past..kind of a "soaper"...but this DVD brought a whole new perspective to me about a very interesting woman!!! I produce an access TV show where I live....I'm into film productions...found this a delight!!!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Byoo-tee-full! A real pick me up!, May 3, 1999

By A Customer

A gorgeous little book! Nice pictures, nice admiring tone for an eminently admirable person. Made me want to see the movie.

Should it be criticized for its ignoring or giving only a mere mention of Rand's faults and/or the worst moments of her life? Well, read the introduction. Paxton says right out that his purpose is not to tell all but "to express the summation of who Ayn Rand was as a person," as demonstrated by benevolent, joyful, heroic sense of life. So he has selectively focused on certain aspects of Rand's life but not others. Is this nonobjective of him? No, because every biographer must include some facts and omit others. Which facts are included depends on the author's purpose. In Paxton's case, he's wrong only if his view of the essence of Rand's life is wrong. If certain facts of Rand's life don't contribute to an understanding and appreciation of her sense of life, then, in Paxton's case, they are justifiably omitted. (It goes without saying, of course, that Paxton rejects the unbacked-by-evidence claims of Rand's ghoulishness by the Brandens, et al.)

Some people probably find fault with Paxton's purpose, but I don't know what to say to them other than that the purpose of MY life is enjoyment. I don't and shouldn't want to focus on the sad and disgusting little details when I don't have to.