I agree, Rothbard is gracious, and he does write very lucidly. This may have been before Rand began to attack their school, and/ or perhaps before Murray became an anarchist.

Vinay, thanks for the link. Rothbard writes well, the letter is remarkably gracious when considering there were disputes at least between their respective followers, and it makes many excellent points. I feel tempted to quote at length but instead highly recommend for reading.

I think we can rank stories on a scale of romanticism. Good to know Pinnacle is romantic. IT's not whether the struggle succeeds or not, but whether it has a chance of success, so that the protagonist does not set out to become a martyr, e.g. Kira in We The Living, and Hypatia in Agora, the movie.

http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_4/21_4_... He calls it the greatest book ever written.

Per se, heroism is NOT a necessary component of romanticism (neither are pro-capitalism/ objectivist values). What matters is that there are values held by individuals hell-bent on pursuing them. In a sense, Harold Robbins (the 4th highest selling novelist of all time, ahead of Suzanne Collins, JFK Rowling, Jeffrey Archer etc. etc.) wrote in a romanticist way. But none of his characters are morally upstanding. They are almost all grey. Except of course 79 Park Avenue (also made into a movie I believe), which has quite a heroic twist in the story. Romanticism is volitionism. You trying to get a math degree is romanticist. Heroism, or trying the highly improbable, is necessary component of dramatic conflict. It makes the story more interesting. Just getting a math degree may sound like a boring story, but throw in this--a female 16-year old prodigy trying to get this degree in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Hello, now we can make this interesting.

Pinnacle is definitely romantic. But an epic novel is about history. I found Durand's life happy in the end.

My protaganist achieves his values, makes a difference, and predicts the consequences of a social, political, and philosophical deterioration he fights but cannot stop. However TGP is the first of a trilogy, and at the end of the trilogy, the protaganists clearly achieve their values. I just have to write the next 2 books.
By the way, for those who are interested, the link on Amazon to The Golden Pinnacle is:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Golden-Pinnacl...
The link to the Kindle page is:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Golden-Pinnacl...
Several members of the Gulch have read it and liked it very much.

Aristotle said resolution is cathartic. He was right. Anyone see "No Country for Old Men" and felt cheated at the end?

Strictly speaking, for a story to be romanticist, it need not espouse objectivist values (e.g. Victor Hugo's novels). But the plot must progress consequentially, not randomly, and as a result of the characters actively pursuing their wants, conveying clearly a sense that their desires are achievable. Demonstrating consequentialism is rendered unnecessarily harder in non-linear story telling like Pulp Fiction,, because consequences occur linearly.

Rothbard makes many of the same points about Romantic literature that Ayn Rand did in The Romantic Manifesto. I believe that only Romantic literature is enjoyable, can dramatize important philosophical, political, and cultural issues, and will have any enduring value. As I was growing up, I could not understand why so much of what I was forced to read as "literature" was so boring. I also could not understand why so much of what was superficially interesting--best sellers--had nothing to say about anything important.
When I started writing fiction, my number one goal was to right the kind of stories I would want to read--interesting with something important to say. That, I realized after my first encounters with Ayn Rand and her philosophy of writing, necessarily meant Romanticism. After reading Rand I understand why "important" books were dull and "interesting" books were trivial.
The Golden Pinnacle is a Romantic novel. Readers can judge for themselves whether it is interesting and has something important to say; in other words whether my goal in writing it has been realized. The one argument I have with Rothbard is the requirement that a Romantic novel have a happy ending, but that may be more definitional than anything else. If by happy ending it is meant that the hero's commitment to his values are intact at the end of the novel, then I have no problem with the happy ending requirement. If, on the other hand, happy ending means that everything comes up roses for the hero at the end, I disagree. The hero in The Golden Pinnacle, Daniel Durand, never wavers in his commitment to freedom and liberty, but the end of his life marks a period when the U.S. is changing for the worse and everything does not come up roses for him and his family.

The conflict set up at the start of the story MUST be resolved with a finality. Otherwise it is lazy writing. It need not be resolved with the good guys winning, the bad side might win (in a sense), e.g. We The Living. Nevertheless, a more efficacious sense-of-life is conveyed when the protagonists achieve their values, or at least manage to make a difference, and achieve some of their values.

Sam Shepard-

And don't get me started on Pulitzer-prize winning JM Coetzee.

Very interesting. I hope to hear more in June

Here's my list of detached reading. Joyce, Updike, Wolfe.
I'm sorry, this kind of human spirit is not to be celebrated-nor the writers for wasting precious energy on these characters.
don't get me started on Steinbeck

Murray's comments echo what Rand says in "The Romantic Manifesto" and what she is quoted as saying in "The Art of Fiction". There is, however, another trend--Rand may be despised by the Hollywood Left, but Aristotle has snob value in Hollywood.
http://www.screentakes.com/the-uses-and-...

Thanks that was very interesting. Things have not changed much. Three of my favorite examples (movies) that fit Rothbard's critique are 1) Pulp Fiction, 2) Fargo, and 3) Leaving Las Vegas.

In writing POJ our goal was to present heroes in the form of inventors that exist everywhere in a free society, while simultaneously showing the pervasiveness of evil among people in a coercive society. Evidence for this I believe is found in the Milgram Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_exp..., at least on the side of evil.