Literary propaganda calls for a deft hand. It helps, of course, to be on the side of the Good and Right, as George Orwell was when executing 1984 and Animal Farm. Such was the uniqueness of Orwell’s genius that his novels seem to us today less expositions of any narrow parochial political point of view and something more like the fables of Aesop: This is the way the world is.
The desire to propagate political views through literature brings out the worst in better writers and the unbearable in lesser ones. Strangely enough, though, while John Steinbeck was a better — much better — novelist than was Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged is a better — much better — novel than is The Grapes of Wrath. The Steinbeck of Of Mice and Men is a far better novelist than is the Steinbeck of The Grapes of Wrath, just as the Rand of The Fountainhead is much better than the Rand of Atlas Shrugged. Steinbeck was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath and a Nobel Prize for his general contributions to literary leftishness. Instead of receiving a Nobel Prize, Rand was made the central figure in an ersatz religion. The Joads earned Steinbeck a pot of money, and John Galt earned Rand a cult — that is justice more poetic than anything to be found in either novel.
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