A young, self-hating gay man, I welcomed Rand's Puritanism and imagined I could use it to argue myself out of homosexuality. Finally, at age 29, after many failed and frustrating heterosexual relationships, I dumped Rand in the garbage and came out of the closet. But I recently found out I wasn't the only one wrestling with the effects of her ideas. Others have discovered that taking Rand's enthralling novels too seriously can have adverse effects, as Jeff Walker's recent book The Ayn Rand Cult proves. Walker's thought-provoking analysis of the damage caused by Rand's philosophy made me realize how close my obsession with her had come to ruining my life.
Literature is dangerous.
But so is life. And that, really, is what it's all about. Pink Panther appears every other week. Printer-friendly version Top.