Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #434621 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Sheer poetry
While this novella is set in a dark time and place in the not-so-distant future, it glows with such beauty that I come close to rapture whenever I re-read it.

It's hard to believe that Russian-born Ayn Rand was struggling with English not so much earlier. The poetic writing style is so exactly right for the story that it is inconceivable that is could have been written in any other way. The airiness of this style gave way, in later novels, to a disciplined, ponderous one.

The plot involving a young couple rebeling against socialistic conformity is so daring in the philosophical context of its time (and in the present) that many people will find it inspiring.

This is a youthful, confident Ayn Rand. The intransigence would appear later.

Avoid like the plague it is
I bought this on the strength of the Rush album 2112 which was supposedly inspired by this book. I am now ashamed to have liked the record. Dreadful neo-nazi claptrap with a plot that would have earned a primary school pupil an "f" for imagination.
The only reason I keep the book is to prove to anyone who mentions it in the Rush context just how bad it is. If you must have post apocalypse novels go for Russell Hobans "Ridley Walker" for the real intellectual deal. Political poison and literary trash. If minus stars were available this would get minus 5

The short version
If you have heard of Ayn Rand, but are not sure about reading "The Fountainhead," or "Atlas Shrugged," this is your starting point, and how fitting it is that this is her first book.

"Anthem" is much in the same vein as "1984," or "A Brave New World." It deals with a utopian society of the future that is more akin to the Dark Ages of Europe.

It is a fun read, and very short, under a hundred pages.