Ayn Rand's Anthem

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Ayn Rand's Anthem

Title:

Ayn Rand's Anthem

Alternate title:

Anthem

Author:

Santino, Charles, author.

Rand, Ayn.

Staton, Joe, illustrator.

Summary:

A graphic novel adaptation of Ayn Rand's story in which a man in a future world defies the ideals of collectivism, makes his own decisions and personal choices, seeks knowledge, and ultimately becomes a target for death.

Audience:

Adult Follett Library Resources

Physical Description:

132 p. : chiefly ill. ; 23 cm.

Genre:

Science fiction comics.

Dystopian fiction.

Graphic novels.

Comics (Graphic works)

Personal Subject:

Rand, Ayn-Adaptations.

Subject Term:

Man-woman relationships -- Comic books, strips, etc.

Men -- Psychology -- Comic books, strips, etc. -- Fiction.

Individuality -- Comic books, strips, etc. -- Fiction.

Author(s):

Rand, Ayn.

Staton, Joe,

Publisher:

New American Library,

Publication Date:

2011

ISBN:

9780451232175

Publication Information:

New York : New American Library, c2011.

Call Number:

741.5 SANTINO

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607002539792	Adult Nonfiction	741.5 SANTINO	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

The controversial classic work of one individual's will versus the subjugation of society-now available as a compelling graphic novel.

In all that was left of humanity there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He, Equality 7-2521, would place his life in jeopardy. For his knowledge was regarded as a treacherous blasphemy. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word..."I".

Author Notes

Ayn Rand, 1905 - 1982 Novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was born Alice Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. She graduated with highest honors in history from the University of Petrograd in 1924, and she came to the United States in 1926 with dreams of becoming a screenwriter. In 1929, she married actor Charles "Frank" O'Connor.

After arriving in Hollywood, Rand was spotted by Cecil B. DeMille standing at the gate of his studio and gave her a job as an extra in King of Kings. She also worked as a script reader and a wardrobe girl and, in 1932, she sold Red Pawn to Universal Studios. In the 1950's, she returned to New York City where she hosted a Saturday night group she called "the collective." It was also during this time that Rand received a fan letter from a young man, Nathaniel Branden. She was impressed with his letter, and she wrote him back. Her correspondence with him eventually led to an affair that lasted over a decade. He became her chief spokesperson and codified the principles of her novels into a strict philosophical system (objectivism) and founded an institute bearing his name. Their affair ended in 1968 when Branden got involved with another one of Rand's disciples.

According to Rand, people are inherently selfish and act only out of personal interest making a selfish act, a rational one. It is from this belief that her characters play out their lives. Rand's first novel was "We the Living" (1936) and was followed by "Anthem" (1938), "The Fountainhead" (1943), and "Atlas Shrugged" (1957). All four of her novels made the top ten of the controversial list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century.

On March 6, 1982, Ayn Rand died in her New York City apartment.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In a future where misguided egalitarianism has reduced a once-vibrant civilization to a handful of doctrinaire serfs living in the rubble of what once was, Equality 7-2521 rejects the mindless collectivism of his people to embrace individuality. His curiosity about the mysteries of the past is anathema to those selected to rule; Equality's rejection of his assigned menial role is if anything an even greater affront to his master. Forced by the lesser men around him to flee, Equality and his lover, Liberty 5-3000, find refuge in a conveniently preserved chalet, free to rediscover eternal truths suppressed by their totalitarian forefathers. Adapted from Rand's 1938 novella, Staton's art is oddly crude for such a veteran artist, but oddly well suited for Rand's clumsy, hectoring story. The product of a time when authoritarian regimes seemed destined to prevail, written by a refugee from the Russian revolution, Anthem might have been a valuable reminder of what happens when ideology trumps humanitarian concerns, but sadly, Rand was not up to the task; Santino and Staton do what they can with this dismal tribute to egotism, but the result is still a hard slog. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review

In a letter to Walt Disney, the controversial, radically individualist Rand (The Fountainhead; Atlas Shrugged) wrote that if a film were made of her dystopian parable Anthem (1938, revised 1946), she would prefer it to be done "in stylized drawings, rather than with living actors." She gets her wish, sort of, in this graphic adaptation. In a future society so collectivist that its language has no first-person singular pronoun and so primitive that it only recently began using candles, street sweeper Equality 7-2521 begins sneaking away at night to pursue his forbidden scientific ambitions and discovers not only an ancient technological secret but also the value of independence. With the girl Liberty 5-3000, he also discovers love. VERDICT Santino relates the story in the present tense, robbing some of its mythic feel. Staton's unvarying three-panel page layouts fail to emphasize the story's more dramatic moments, and his cartoony style (with monochrome art rendered in uninked, sometimes sketchy pencils) fails to match Rand's fierce and poetic language. This short Anthem is hardly forbidding as a literary work-readers should stick with the original.-S.R. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.