Once when I was coming home late, I found myself stuck on a subway car with an angry drunk girl. She had very clearly just left a heated debate that she had not mentally checked out of and began to belligerently monologue aloud this bizarre helicopter argument of how everything she ever did was right and how everyone who ever disagreed with her was wrong. At some point amidst the verbal vomit she literally threw up--needless to say this was uncomfortable. This is the closest lived experience I've had that I could comparably equate to reading Ayn Rand's [b:Atlas Shrugged|662|Atlas Shrugged|Ayn Rand|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405868167l/662._SY75_.jpg|817219].

To sum up Atlas Shrugged, it is a tale that centers on wealthy industrialists trying to run their businesses while an increasingly totalitarian communist-esque government takes hold of the country. These "great thinkers" are likened to Greek mythological heroes. One of them, John Galt, becomes fed up with the "looters" and the "moochers" of the world exploiting his great mind, sucking his vitality dry, so he leads a strike of like-minded individuals to abscond from society. They "shrug" and the world falls to chaos.

It's a pretty bad book. I'll post the rest of a proper review at a later date; it's been more painful than cathartic to write this one...