Ayn Rand, Intellectual Heroine

In all its gratingly arch, sarcastic name-calling, Andrew Stuttaford’s review of Jeff Britting’s book, “Ayn Rand” [“A Strangely Important Figure,” Arts & Letters, January 26, 2005] strangely fails to quote anything more than a single sentence from her work, recommending that we readers just judge that sentence.

I and countless others have found that the experience of reading Ms. Rand’s (entire) novels was literally life changing. These books engrossingly present an inspiring vision of life and man as they can and ought to be; fiction, as Aristotle held it, should be, “Romantic” literature at its best.

Ms. Rand’s philosophy, a worldview more comprehensive than that of all but a few philosophers in history, started from the great Aristotle and (politically) amplified the ideals of our Founding Fathers; it was eminently an American “philosophy for living on this Earth,” as she described it.

If you want to be inspired and “empowered” simultaneously – see for yourself. And if that makes you curious about Ayn Rand personally, Mr. Britting’s new book “Ayn Rand” is an excellent short introduction to her life, as is “Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life,” the Academy Award-nominated film that Michael Paxton and he made. But whatever you do – don’t miss those novels.

ROBERT GETMAN
Manhattan

Hedge Fund Reporting Helpful

With all the unfortunate press mistakes having been made at CBS and the New York Times, there is a bright spot at The New York Sun in Elizabeth Peek’s business coverage of hedge funds and financial re search [“Assessing the Impact of Independent Research,” Business, January 19, 2005]. Hats off to the Sun and Ms. Peek.

GREGORY J. MUTH
Manhattan

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