Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [117]
“The social welfare” is the motto behind which the bureaucrats and lobbyists grab for privilege and power. Under this banner, and as a diplomatic favor, James arranges for the railroad to build a spur into a barren stretch of the socialist state of Mexico. This proves financially disastrous. As a countermeasure, Dagny announces plans for her own new spur line, which she sardonically names the “John Galt Line,” to run through the nation’s last stronghold of free enterprise, the booming state of Colorado. Raw materials being impossible to come by, she calls on her colleague, a tough, self-made steel magnate named Hank Rearden, to sell her large quantities of his new invention, Rearden Metal, so that she can build the track. Rearden Metal is a superhard alloy that the “looters and moochers” in Washington (Rand’s unforgettable phrase) have been trying to impound on behalf of a government-backed steel cartel that hasn’t produced anything in years.
Dagny and Rearden miraculously complete the John Galt Line in record time. Hurtling through the Rocky Mountains on the line’s first run, with Dagny at the throttle and her friend Rearden beside her, and with crowds of Coloradoans cheering at each stop, the two trailblazers realize that their admiration for each other has turned to molten desire. This sets the stage for another of Rand’s power-driven sex scenes. Having completed their run, the two are gazing at a field of oil derricks from a balcony in the Colorado moonlight when Rearden first embraces her. The embrace is “like an act of hatred, like the cutting blow of a lash encircling her body,” Rand writes. Yet Dagny is conscious of surrendering something of far greater import than her body. Leading her into his guest room, Rearden throws her on the bed while she thinks, “Whatever pride of person I hold … that is what I offer you for the pleasure of your body.” Rearden, married to a monstrously cold and delightfully spiteful villainess named Lillian, at first despises both Dagny and himself for their animal lust. Gradually, he comes to understand the philosophical necessity of their sexual appetite for each other. This is especially true after Francisco d’Anconia, a courtly South American copper-mining heir who was once Dagny’s friend but now presents himself in the guise of a debauched international playboy, incongruously explains that sexual desire in a rational man is an expression of his highest values. Soon Rearden learns that years before, Francisco was also Dagny’s lover. But Rand makes it clear that neither man is Dagny’s ideal man.
Among its many strengths, Atlas Shrugged is a uniquely intricate thriller, with a dozen hair-raising, idea-driven subplots radiating from the main story line, reinforcing its characters and themes. Dagny and Rearden, two of the last titans remaining at the helm of their businesses, play the part of the novel’s philosophical detectives. Why does the stately, omnitalented Francisco, the chosen son of a proud aristocratic family, boast of being a dissolute playboy and yet speak like a sage? Why are “the men of the mind,” as Francisco calls his fellow industrialists, disappearing? Who is the copper-haired stranger seen talking solemnly to each of the titans before he disappears? And what is going wrong with the world? In order to find out, the pair of heroes—like the brainy French anthropologist in The Mysterious Valley—must reconcile contradictory information at every step. About his own seemingly divided identity, Francisco says to Dagny, “I’ll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of [your premises] is wrong.”
The John Galt Line proves a commercial success, and Dagny and Rearden celebrate with a cross-country driving vacation. But the national landscape is not a pleasant sight. It has lapsed into a series of barren farms and desiccated towns, some of