Honest question: Is there any literary merit to Atlas Shrugged as a book, its message aside?

[edhopper]

27. Compare and contrast

"Who is John Galt?"
The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bum's face. The bum had said it simply,
without expression. But from the sunset far at the end of the street, yellow glints caught his eyes, and the
eyes looked straight at Eddie Willers, mocking and still—as if the question had been addressed to the
causeless uneasiness within him.
"Why did you say that?" asked Eddie Willers, his voice tense.
The bum leaned against the side of the doorway; a wedge of broken glass behind him reflected the metal
yellow of the sky.
"Why does it bother you?" he asked.
"It doesn't," snapped Eddie Willers.
He reached hastily into his pocket. The bum had stopped him and asked for a dime, then had gone on
talking, as if to kill that moment and postpone the problem of the next. Pleas for dimes were so frequent
in the streets these days that it was not necessary to listen to explanations, and he had no desire to hear
the details of this bum's particular despair.[/blockquote

or?

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth becasme pale pink in the red country and white in the gray country.