The author does not understand socialism.
Comment from the American publishers Macmillan when they turned down Miss Rand's manuscript of Anthem for publication. Unfortunately, Macmillan didn't realise that many people didn't understand socialism either yet could manage to read. Hence, the book sold over 2 million copies. It has been described as a parable narrated in a biblical style. One presumes 'biblical' is a euphemism for 'shallow & simple', and any parable that Miss Rand was trying to tell was ruined in the telling of it.
The essential plot of Anthem is an (unoriginal) socialist dystopia, where one man who is a supposed genius is assigned to a lifelong career as a street sweeper. He secretly falls in love with a woman, and makes discoveries of his own accord, which are both illegal. He tries to show some scholars his discoveries but they are not interested, and he is forced to escape from this nightmarish state. In the forest, he is joined by the woman, and they both realise how happy they are now.
Dear Kitty, This is our diary. You may not know what we mean by 'we' but in a freak grammatical catastrophe, the singular pronoun is now extinct. We are called Equality 7-2521 and live a few centuries after the Great Rebirth, before which there were the Unmentionable Times (20th century CE), in which men were supposedly evil.
We had a disturbed childhood - and though we wanted to be a Scholar, we ended up as a Street Sweeper. Oh well.
Wow, we've got a crush on Liberty 5-3000. Even though we've never had the imagination to give names to anything, we think we'll call them the 'Golden One' from now (it was a tough choice between that and 'Blonde Bimbo') and maybe stalk them as they work in the fields next to the street I clean.
They spoke to us today...we think they love us too! We wish we could be with them in the House of Mating! We also had a search for that missing pronoun but it was futile. We saw a man being burned for saying the Unspeakable Word. We heard them scream something like "But I'm innocent...er, I mean...damn, um, we mean we're innocent" as he burned.
We just discovered something new today in our secret lab. Today, we cut open a frog's leg (we stole it from the plate of Pierre 9-34842) and connected it to a metal wire and the leg jerked! In an amazing leap of genius, we then made our own chemical battery the next day. Before you can say "Eureka" we then discovered that lightning was due to this mysterious power too. Surely it will only be a few more years before we will be making light sabres and warp drives too.
We are doing well in our dates with the Golden One by the field. They were much impressed by our chat-up technique of calling them 'Our dearest one'. Watch this space...
Just like we predicted, we managed to discover the lightbulb today! We'll show it at the next meeting of the World Scholars in a month. We just realised something...what do we look like? We've never seen ourselves before, not even in reflections in water or glass...um...though we're not sure why. Maybe we are a vampire.
Uh oh, we got caught, it's a month since we last wrote...they noticed we were missing from the theatre whilst we were in the tunnel writing out a few theories on relativity and quantum mechanics, and took us to the Council of the Home. We did not tell them where we had been and so we were sent to be punished. We got lashed a few times in some cell by two big guys, whilst some pervert Judges leered at us. The World Scholars Convention is tomorrow, and we'll escape this place and gatecrash it...
We went to the meeting. Collective 0-0009 (Quadruple O 9 to his secret service friends) was in charge, along with his motley crew of Fraternity 9-3452, Democracy 4-6998, Unanimity 7-3304, International 1-5537, Solidarity 8-1164, Alliance 6-7349, Harmony 9-2642, and Similarity 5-0306. They were jealous of our discovery and tried to destroy it. We ran away out of the hall into the Uncharted Forest.
We liked the forest. We felt hungry and spotted a bird up on a branch. Naturally we hit it with a well-aimed pebble and dinner was served. Also we finally did see our face in the river! Wow...we are so irresistibly beautiful (and maybe just a little vain).
The Golden One came to join us today! They praised us and inflated our ego a bit more. Luckily our right hand could rest now too. The Golden One told us that they loved us - until then we thought they just came into the forest to get some birds for dinner too.
Today we found a house. We decided to squat in it.
WOW! I discovered the word 'I' in an ancient manuscript I found in the house. I presume this is the singular pronoun I have been searching for all this time, even though I had only found it between 'H' and 'J' in a manuscript called 'Learn Your ABCs'.
I have decided to call myself 'Prometheus' and my woman is going to be called 'Gaea'. We would also choose a wacky Greek surname, but our kids may be embarrassed in school later. For now I think I'll set up a fortress here and start an Objectivist cult. I'll go and get some recruits from the city, and maybe some rifles and guns too, and then wait for the Feds (ok, the city guys) to come and fight. Maybe I should have called myself 'David Koresh'...
