Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 20

atlas2Dagny Taggart: I’ve got to get to Utah, FAST, to talk to the man who is figuring out the Miracle Motor (a plot point ignored for 300 pages!), so I’m taking a train! Trains DEFINE fast!

Coachman: Get off the train, you bum!

Objectivist Bum: But I’m a CAPITALIST!

Dagny: He’s tall and thin, proof of his CAPITALISM!  Let him stay! Tell me a story!

Objectivist Bum: Communism sucks! I started the whole “who is John Galt” thing, too. It is important to show no credulity that out of hundreds of millions of Americans, you just happen to find one of the few people who really knows John Galt’s origin story! Remember, I’m a CAPITALIST, not a moocher saying what you want to hear to take advantage of you.

Dagny: WOW! Poor, down-on-your-luck CAPITALIST! Have a job, because I employ no critical thinking at all when someone is a CAPITALIST. Hey, the train is stopped? Why is that?

Former Employee of Taggart Transcontinental: The whole crew has vanished.

Dagny: Let’s go find a phone.  Phone-finding is very exciting in this action novel.

Former Employee: Sure!  Phone-finding is the best!  Have a cigarette with a dollar sign label while there are ten pages of us walking on railroad ties.

Dagny: You work for the people who are making people vanish. Hey, YOU JUST MADE MY CREW VANISH.

Former Employee: Yep.

Dagny: You suck. Finally, a phone. Train people, come get the train. Oh, look, an airport! And they just happen to have a fully functional airplane full of fuel! Yay! I can continue to my journey!

Former Employee: Bye!

Dagny: I’m in Utah, but the man I’m here to see has miraculously vanished!

Kit: Yeah, remember last chapter, when Eddie told Not-John Galt your personal and business information? You might want to check out the leaks in your company, Dagny.

Dagny: But even though he left three hours ago, I can chase his plane! He’s going back to Colorado, and vanishes into stones! I’ll follow him, because I’m out of fuel and . . . holy shit, is this book SCIENCE-FICTION? Because I just flew through a hologram that killed my engines! WHO IS JOHN GALT!

Kit: EVERYONE KNOWS WHO JOHN GALT IS BY NOW!Atlas2

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