Dystopia

The 1930's and 1940's, with depression sandwiched between war, rumor of war, and war again, were fertile ground for dystopic visions. The rise of sinister incarnations in Communism and Facism provided a collectivist theme for those visions. Ayn Rand's Anthem had the same collectivist inspired theme as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984, and a publication date between them, but can't otherwise bear comparison to Huxley's richly prophetic vision or Orwell's nightmare masterpiece.

Anthem is a slight fairy tale, set in a grey future where the ultimate villain is the first person plural pronoun. Where technology has been set to sinister purpose in 1984 and become relentlessly dehumanizing in BNW, in Anthem it has nearly disappeared. Not to worry though: the hero, working alone (in an abandoned sewer) in his spare time, outdoes those ubiquitous local housewifes of the internet ad who earn a fortune with their computers. In a few short months he rediscovers that which took Coulomb, Volta, Galvani, Ampere, Faraday, Franklin and Edison a few centuries of collaborative effort - enough electromagnetism to make a generator and an electric light.

I shouldn't ruin the suspense by mentioning that there isn't any suspense, or that our hero overcomes every slight difficulty he encounters as effortlessly as he conquered the physics of electromagnetism. This is a fairly tale, but not even one in which the hero needs any particular wit to triumph. Accident or personal decision is enough for any worthy objective he can conceive to become reality. (Unworthy objectives, like doing something altruistic, are just as summarily punished.)

Anthem lacks the usual badges of literary merit. Characterization is utterly missing except for the hero, who is drawn without a trace of subtlety. Plot is minimal. Evocation of place and setting is, well:

It is dark here in the forest. The leaves rustle over our head against the last gold of the sky. The moss is soft and warm.

I guess they had a different kind of moss in that forest from any I ever slept on.

Nevertheless, Anthem has managed to achieve some influence in the world. How can I explain it? Rand is not a terrible writer, just a very limited one, and she is certain that she has an urgent message to convey. Its simple mindedness could be a virtue for its target audience. Just wish and let it happen. Blame every inconvenience in your life on others. Escape the oppression of the expectations of parent, teacher, church and state. Rand does seem to have a genius for resentment.

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