Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The comments to that post are like a gold mine of unintentional comedy. Here's one Rand fan:

• Rand is not "preachy, pedantic," or "long winded." Nothing of her theme is not also found in her plot, in the logic of the events of her story. This is a rare thing to find in any literature. Her purpose was not propaganda or instruction, but contemplation and enjoyment. For a great many readers, her novels are exciting fun. She is also the most economical writer and the tightest novelist you can find. Her characters are much richer than Dickens's and far more pleasant to contemplate than most of Nabokov's. They behave more "believably" than many people I've actually known in reality - and, the heroes, far more logically. The same outcomes from the behaviors involved are to be found in both reality and Rand's work.

She is the Alpha and the Omega, apparently.

The following a propos exchange was in this Sunday's S.F. Chronicle:

• Dear Mick LaSalle: I was intrigued to find "Flashdance" on your list of movies with great endings: Our heroine, who has never studied ballet, is admitted to a classical ballet company on the basis of an audition that combines a gymnastic floor exercise with break dancing. Never happen!
  Nancy Lambert, Pinole
  
  Dear Nancy Lambert: That's just one more reason it's a great ending. If life were like the movies, movies wouldn't be necessary.