Atlas Shrugged, by Ayan Rand

Hurray! Finally, I've finished reading this novel! Yes, for not-so voracious reader like me, it was an arduous task to read this 1700 paged novel with microscopic typesetting! It's a philosophical novel portraying what would become of world if all the rationality was destroyed from it and the world was left to be run by the moochers (read ____ing power-hungry parasitic politicians). Everyone trying to earn, not by his effort or ability, but by mere needs; claiming ownership on fruits of others' hard work just on the basis of his needs. Trying to claim that it's the extent of need that decides who gets what, and not the capacity of a person to produce or his caliber.Ayan Rand goes to the extent of saving that without rationality the purpose of a man's life is to become an abject Zombie who serves the purpose he doesn't know. And I tell you, she does a pretty good job here. If you are labeled "Selfish" when you feed your son with milk while the neighbouring child is starving, then YES! You better be selfish! Well, I'm not supporting selfishness, but Ayan gives us a look into different kind of selfishness, of the type I just mentioned above. Had it been in my capacity, I would have this novel as "Code of Moral Conduct".
After reading second novel by this Ayan (first being Fountainhead) I have come to believe that she is BEST at describing human gestures of any kind. So much so, that an animator can EXACTLY model it without any difficulty of any sort. Yes, the length of novel can be attributed to this characteristic of hers: The description spans 2/3 paragraphs where something as simple as "And he grinned" would have sufficed! If you don't like circumlocution, you better keep your hands off her novels.
This novel is NOT for those who:

- despise elaborate descriptions

- hate philosophy

- hate slow paced novels

- love to take novels as a sedative to bed

But this is a CANDY for anyone who likes philosophy.

Divided in 3 sections, first section sets the stage where rationality keeps vanishing from the world, second shows how a few rationalists people manage to survive in such a world and the last one ... well, not supposed to tell you that, I don't want this to be a spoiler to prospective readers. So get your hands on this novel and read through it!