Young men should read certain books. They should read certain books because they are part of becoming a well educated and critical thinker. They should also read certain books because, when they are older, should they try to pick them up, having not been exposed to them in their youth, they will find that the moment has passed and they are no long capable of appreciating it.

Catcher in the Rye is an obvious example. Salinger’s novel has much to sustain the older reader, but true love, in this case, depends on a certain youth.

Lawrence Durrell’s Justine (as opposed the Marquis de Sade’s) is another. The lush language is ironically overwrought, but the initial love I felt for it emerged from the sensuous language. I love it now for other reasons (though I have found the succeeding volumes of the Alexandria Quartet to progressively disappoint in most ways), but would not had the first stirrings of love not emerged as a young man.

All of this goes towards a sort of backhanded apologia for one of the most deservedly derided writers of the twentieth century – one whose pernicious influence keeps reappearing. I am speaking of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

The characters are static bits of cardboard, mouthpieces for straw men, forced ideologies, and generally for round pegs and square holes.

But, I can also see how a young man (I don’t pretend to speak for or understand young women) could fall under its spell.

Especially The Fountainhead. Underneath the poorly wrought Austrian school of economics is a story about an artist striving to achieve his vision. Of course, underneath the story of a struggling artist is a steaming pile of crap. So it’s the heartwarming story of a struggling artist sandwiched between crappy writing and the right wing political economies of pre-war Germans.

The attraction of Atlas Shrugged is more difficult for me to comprehend. The failure of so many to see through the cut out figures and shameless straw men of the novel represents a general failure of critical thinking, but… I can see a young man, who sees himself as destined or desiring more from life, pulling out of the novel a vision of lone idealism – the sort that is very attractive to an alienated youth.