Many events happen, most notably, Conway’s refusal to sell his rails to Taggart (albeit best price) and Dr. Simon Prichett’s threat to Rearden: that the State Science Institute would spread crap about him if he doesn’t sell his metal over. The two classes are juxtaposed, and we find that the traditional exploiter is actually the exploited.

Nakaima Oh also points out that Conway is the only guy who’s left out of the Gulch. Why? According to Nakaima, “He’s good but maybe not good enough?” I pointed out that it might have to do with publicity and bad social networking; his indictment was in a private meeting of top railroad officials, rather than as a public event. Perhaps Galt just did not know of him and what he’s done.

Rand’s technique for characterization is also of note. Personality is summarized by adages; an example would be Nealy: “Muscles, that’s all that’s required.”

I asked the group why they thought Rearden would not sell his Metal to the government, and the whole big deal about governmental funds being evil. “Rearden believes that his product is good enough that it’d beat the gov/SSI no matter what shiat they say about it.” One perspective on the anti-government issue may be that government-run operations are generally considered wasteful, and we don’t know which Rearden-like character the government conned to amass that wealth (not to mention that the wealth is worthless in the sense that the government can issue blank checks on their own random whim).

Official discussion transcript of chapter: http:// inacentaur.com/transcripts/2007-08-08.html
Official day’s discussion: http://slchatr.com/group/asc/sliterary/longhouse/2007-08-08

Summary: Rearden’s Wedding Anniversary is a microcosm of the world, filled with the same Randian-parasitic “intellectuals”; Rearen’s reaction to Dagny’s trade of the bracelet reflects that he’s still given his sanction of the victim.

Chatlog of the day: http://slchatr.com/group/asc/sliterary/longhouse/2007-08-07

Summary: When she finds out the curious fact that the San Sebastian mines had been worthless, Dagny, in fury, demands a meeting with Francisco. Before they meet in the novel’s current timeline, she recounts their past together, and their past romance, and his sudden departure. Back to the present timeline, Francisco and Dagny meet and have a conversation, where Francisco admits that his superficially depraved action is actually a tribute to his venerable ancestor, Senor Sebastian d’Anconia.

Amazingly, somewhere in all that, Rand manages to firmly embody her Theory of Sex, (which was the tag ad in the group chats sent off before the event).

Blundergroin Snoats brought up an immediate assertion to that: “In Atlas Shrugged, characters are sexually attracted to those who embody their values. Characters who have ’base’ values are attracted to those that embody their ‘base’ values. Characters who lack clear purpose find sex devoid of meaning. Characters with ‘higher’ values respond sexually to those who embody them.”

But, we are only on chapter 5, and have yet to see how the characters of “baser value” are attracted to each other. It’s amusing to note the immediate follow-up’s from Nakima Oh, “No, no. she really is saying they have better sex”, and Jordana McMahon, “Important people have better sex.”

But, I think it really has to do with focus, “In general, she believes that those with purpose and motive will reach it.” (Purpose and motive being pleasure and desire for pleasure.)

I asked the group what they thought of how, in her youth, Dagny would do anything Frisco asked of her, and how she enjoyed it when he slapped her. It’s a form of hero worship in her complete act of submission to Frisco. And also, the “mutual pain” Frisco deals her after Dagny brings up the fact that she mused getting straight D’s for everyone at school to like her, shows that he cares for her. (The proverbial slap is kind of like a Randian first kiss. ;-P)

The girls all brought up assertions that you should think for yourself. Eshi Otawara stated, “because in your head you have to live with yourself and your own decisions, otherwise you are a stupid puppet that lets self be controlled by other people’s agenda.” (I didn’t bring up the question of whether they’d be willing to walk around in the world’s ugliest coat daily for a year just because the feel like it.)

Ultimately, I’d say that Frisco was angry because of Dagny’s goal. That she would sacrifice her academic record for the sake of fleeting popularity. It’s kind of like jumping off a cliff just because all your friends are doing it, but in the Randian sense: giving value away as a sacrifice to nothing.

Next, I brought up the Tennis game. Aptly, though bluntly, summarized by Jordana, “Yes, you have beaten me and now you are worthy to have sex with me.” Although, Frisco did let Dagny win by breaking down into laughter—his great amusement that she would try so hard just to beat him.

ToryLynn Writer brought up an interesting alternative perspective, where Frisco, who does nothing without reason, talked the Mexican Government into nationalization just to screw Jim, and put Dagny (who had opposed the action) in a place of power. I pointed out that Frisco is also losing, albeit less than Taggart Transcontinental, and can afford to lose. Also, Frisco isn’t petty enough to do all this just for it, but he probably has a grander scale that this catastrophe is merely a part of. ToryLynn suggested that Frisco would marry Dagny and thus combine their wealth. Interesting long term goal, but I had to give away the hint that the semi-spoiler that the romance between Frisco and Dagny is totally over. (Nevertheless, Atlas Shrugged is actually an epic romance, with the complete package of mystery and philosophy.)

I digressed mentioning the fact that Frisco’s nom de guerre back as an illegal child laborer was “Frank.” This is, curiously, the name of Rand’s husband.

Official discussion transcript of chapter: http:// inacentaur.com/transcripts/2007-08-06.html

Official day’s discussion: http://slchatr.com/group/asc/sliterary/longhouse/2007-08-06

Post your quotes for chapter 5 in comments…

Post your quotes via comments for Chapter 4: The Immovable Movers.

A couple of new faces showed up to today’s discussion.

As Harman Mayo pointed out, this chapter is mostly a bridge chapter, spawning off events that will later blossom or explode in upcoming chapters.  But, once again, we get a good idea of how the chapter title summarizes the chapter. Noumenal Seesaw brought up the point that the top and bottom are flipped to portray the “moral inversion” in the society/world of Atlas Shrugged. Several of us noted the difference between the top and the bottom, and how both the scenery and the mood/inhabitants seems to help flip the top and the bottom.

Official Transcripts: [ 1a | 1b | 2a | 2b ]

Ongoing Transcript: http://slchatr.com/group/sliterary/longhouse/

Quotes thread for The Top and the Bottom… Post your fave quotes below as comments to the thread!

Quotes Thread. (Post your quotes from chapter 2 via comments!)

Tonight’s discussion featured a different reading of Hank Rearden, the producer-hero’s, motive. (I moved the start time on the inworld event notices to 8 PM, and I guess that caused a bit of confusion. People dropped in and out, and the ten donut-chairs set up for yesterday were never filled :-(.)

Lauren Weyland came in and directly identified the topic of focus that Snow Woodget mentioned yesterday, “Words were a lens to focus one’s mind.” Rand’s heroes are the ones who have both ability and the capability to focus; thus, unlike the everymen and villains, they always know what to do. In Chapter 2, however, Hank Rearden is described, several times, to be unable to understand on his family’s motive — always attempting to attribute a benevolent cause for their actions, even when he has to warp his logic to do so. We’d find out more about the effects later.

Harman Mayo brought up an interesting perspective where Hank is seen to be “powered by” pain — from the ore mines he worked hard to own to, now, his family, which he attempts to placate despite their ill-treatment of him. Hank feels drained by his family, but he does not let himself understand why (and what they’re doing to him). Instead, he’d rather avoid (psycho)analysis, and think of happier things — his work, for example. Once again, this relates to the idea of evasion and being able focus on one’s current problems. [Eventually, we will find that evasion has (eventual) dire consequences.]

Jordana McMahon brought up an interesting question, “Why doesn’t he just ditch his family?” My own answer to that, at this point in the novel, is that Rearden believes that his family is attempting their best to be nice to him; again, this is his re-warping his perception of reality to interpret everything they do in a benevolent light. Rearden isn’t being naive, per se. He just cannot accept the possibility that his family would want to harm or hurt him, and would attempt to believe in anything else other than that (fact or not).

His desire to reaffirm his own belief of a benevolent world belittles his confusion at the way his family and Larkin acts, “His exhaustion had gone while he talked about his business. He felt a sudden spurt of rebellion, a need to recapture and defiantly to reassert his own view of existence… which now seemed threatened in some nameless manner.”

Official chat transcripts are here, broken up into 4 parts: (1a | 1b | 2a | 2b).