The Fountainhead

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, Inspiring masterpiece - flawed philosophy
Review: The best value "The Fountainhead" offers is ENORMOUS courage in a man's struggle to achieve his values. There is hardly any other novel which so forcefully projects the beauty & glory of 2 great values: integrity, & independence.
"Fountainhead..." is a greater, more impacting novel than "Atlas...", though it does not share the epic & visionary elements, & the breath-taking scope of the latter.
The plus-point is characterization, more realistic situations, & more tenable ideas.
Though one may disagree with Rand's ideas regarding selfishness & selflessness - on her terms, from her specific, individual perspective - she is right.
For example, while people like Toohey DO exist - while people do exist, who try to destroy man's sense of self, his sense of his own magnificence, of self-reverence & thus kill his spirit, so that they can rule the mindless & spiritless - while such monsters have existed, & still do - I certainly don't accept Rand's idea that "altruism" or "humanitarianism" or "selflessness" have, by definition, or in history, anything to do with such men.
To kill people in the name of Yahweh, or Christ, or Allah, or "justice" or "love of mankind" certainly does not condemn the Bible or Koran, or have anything to do with justice & love.
What is more, Rand betrays her own philosophy of life in this novel. Those aspects of her vision that are truly sublime & exalting, which have an effect of expanding one's consciousness - which thrill a person with a sense of uplift - those very aspects which are NOT LOGICALLY a part of her philosophy of Objectivism - those very aspects make "Fountainhead..." an unparalled emotional-spiritual tour-de-force.
To read "The Fountainhead" is to be born again - to become something more than what one already is - to find something beautiful within.
It compels a man to a point where he yearns to realize within himself a certain grandeur, & make himself worthy of his own wonderment & joyous contemplation.

Characterization is Fountainhead's best aspect, - unlike the more consciously abstract, philosophical representations of "Atlas...", Henry Cameron, Dominique, Wyanand, Roark's friends etc. come across as POSSIBLE characters - through which Ayn Rand beautifully projects values, conflicts & errors in thinking which all of us share - sometime or the other - in life (often, throughout our lives).
The shattering of a half-known, half-realized dream; the torturous struggle of the mangled soul to retain its dignity & integrity; the sense of bewilderment & defeat when a pure soul confronts an apparently malevolent universe; the weakness of the fundamentally noble that cracks under strain...all these make Fountainhead's characters so full of life, vividness, poignancy & emotional power, that I'd readily uphold it as one of the most powerful novels I've ever read.
Though "Atlas..." too has forceful, passionate & inspiring, characters, they are more deliberate & unconvincing - they are more squeezed into carefully defined molds meant to convey a psychologically destructive & untenable philosophy.
On the other hand, the men & women who people "Fountainhead..." are more CONVINCING - they do not come across as contrived abstractions in a novel - they seem to be of flesh & blood.
And Rand has achieved this though they too are conceived as "philosophical abstractions".
They are essentialized, & yet startlingly REAL.
Here, as a writer who integrated philosophy & psychology in characterization, surpassingly, Rand stands as an equal of another awesome giant - Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Roark is, however, quite unconvincing - a little too artificial - but he is nevertheless GREAT.
Unfortunately, while I may view him as a good fictional, ideal hero (albeit somewhat dull & stiff) - I CANNOT accept him as an example to be achieved in "real life" - for, psychologically, I don't think such a man can be possible.
He is too colorless - too indifferent to the world around him - too self-absorbed to be true & credible - as if he cannot identify with anything in the universe beyond himself, & does not care to.
To see the ALL beyond oneself, as an integral part of one's identity is NOT to lose one's self, or self-sufficiency or self-reliance.
Though myself a complete recluse, I'll say that, to connect to people, to be a part of the tears & joys, the chaos & turbulence of the life that teems around us, is NOT to lose one's individuality, independence & integrity.
THIS, Roark lacks seriously.
But, his indestructible self-respect, integrity & sense of independence, - his serenity & immeasurable moral strength - make him immortal - unforgettable - worthy of a salute from the best in us.

In conclusion, Fountainhead is a MUST READ. The poetry & passion of the novel swept me away. Rand's sense of hero-worship is ecstatic, religious.
Unfortunately, Rand makes a mess of philosophy - she simply isn't profound enough, or true, or interesting, when it comes to philosophizing.
I'd caution the reader not to accept every definition or idea of Rand, but grasp the broader abstraction, which is often true.
Don't equate Toohey with "altruism" or something like that - but grasp that Toohey IS HATEFUL, with all his altruistic masquerading.
Rand seems to be unconsciously biased, & hasty, when it comes to a philosophic appraisal of history, or the world as such - and this makes extraction of the truly valuable from the erroneous in Fountainhead quite difficult.
But rare are those titans who have equalled her in her projection of overwhelming pain & overwhelming joy - in her celebration of genius, of the grandeur of the human spirit, & of the ultimate benevolence of the universe.


Rating:
Summary: The Ego is Not Your Friend
Review: Bismillahir Rahman ir Rahim

Rand's books appeal to the loneliness and hurt that hide in the hearts of people, especially youth. She speaks to our fears of powerlessness and vulnerability, but the remedies she offers are poisions that only exacerbate our problems. It is the opposite of a spiritual path, which teaches respect, compassion and humility. People want to be loved and we want our love to be accepted and valued, and this sort of book gives the illusion of security through a defensive position that promises to keep us safe from pain if we'll agree to say "I don't need you and I don't need anybody!" but the fact is that the opposite is true and such an attitude, if believed sincerely, actually prevents us from taking the steps we need toward healing and hapiness. Our deepest longing is to be together, interconnected, enjoying the spiritual contact that pierces our isolation and releases us from the prison of our ego. Rand says in this book that "man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress" but one could legitimately ask, progress toward what? Suicide? This book is full of clever tricks and traps and it may be better to never have come in contact with it -- but those of us who do, must learn in the end that we are surrounded by a network of love and support. We are not alone. *** Recommended instead of The Fountainhead: *The Book of Secrets* by Osho.

Rating:
Summary: Read Atlas Shrugged instead
Review: I read this book after completing Atlas Shrugged. I started the Fountainhead keeping in mind that since it was written earlier in Ayn Rand's career than Atlas that it probably was going to be less refined, and perhaps less articulate in its philosophies. I was correct. Atlas Shrugged in my opinion is brilliant, and it has assumed a position on the top of my favorite books list. However, Fountainhead i felt was rather boring in comparison, and far less powerful. None of the characters possessed any real charisma that made characters in Atlas Shrugged such as Francisco D'anconia and Hank Rearden so memorable. Fountainhead also lacks any truly poignant scenes, resulting in a mesh of seemingly meaningless events making up the story. Roark's speech at the end in the court case is the only moment that is comparable to the radiant brilliance of Atlas Shrugged, and for the most part is the only piece worth re-reading in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Fast paced, tight and thought-provoking
Review: Whether you agree with the ideas Rand presents or think she is one with the devil, "The Fountainhead" is a powerful and moving book that I highly recommend. Although it is long, it is very tightly written. There are no unnecessary scenes, no irrelevant characters and no ad nauseum descriptions of sunsets and waterfalls.

There are several reasons I love this book, none having to do with the controversial philosophies of the author. The first is the amazing characterization. There were several people in the book that could have been drawn directly from people in my life: the social worker who works more out of self-righteousness than pure altruism, the over-blown academic who can read meaning and symbolism in trip, the professional who cares more about where his work takes him than the quality of the work itself. Rand doesn't draw these as flat characters. Instead we actually see their flaws and motivations in all there beauty and terror.

I also love the idealism of Roark. Several previous reviews have termed him "egotistical" with a "superiority complex", but that isn't how I see him at all. Would a professional who meets those descriptions lower himself to working as a common laborer at a quarry? Roark doesn't care if his work is good or not, let along that it is superior. All that matters is that it pleases him. He might work a menial job, but he wouldn't debase himself to produce anything but the kind of art that pleases him, whatever anyone else says about its quality.

The insight of the book into the power of the press and the country's growing socialization is another drawing point. I crack up whenever I read the Banner's editorial on parenthood in modern times. It describes how parents need to be just as loving toward and concerned about other children as they are of their own. It reads remarkably like Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village". In an age where talentless performers are at the top of the chart because of the right buzz, I can understand the idea that he who controls the media, controls the tastes of the masses.

A common criticism of "The Fountainhead" is the rape of Dominique by the hero. Like so much of the book, it is not something that can be understood if you only view it in a vacuum. Roark and Dominique have an almost transcendental bond. Throughout the book they start in the middle of conversations and understand each other as if they were one. Their violent first sexual encounter is not indicative of Roark's character or of their relationship.

There are some simplistic parts of the book: all capitalists are good, all socialists are bad, wanting to help people and do good is described as an excuse, not a noble motive. Still, there are so much good in this beautiful book that I consider it one that everyone should read.

Rating:
Summary: How to read The Fountainhead without tearing your hair out
Review: There's no question that The Fountainhead presents some fascinating ideas. But the book is also infuriatingly inept: it's written in a tired melodramatic style, the characters are unbelievable (especially the love interest, Dominique), and worst of all it is way, way, WAY too long. This last fault is particularly unfortunate because many of the book's most interesting passages come in the final 200 pages.

Having forced myself to wade through the entire thing, I have a recommendation for future readers. I suggest that you begin by reading the speech made by the book's hero, Howard Roark, to the jury in a climactic trial scene. (It takes up about 8 pages in Chapter 18 of Part 4.) Although the speech is put in Roark's mouth, it's clearly unfiltered Rand, and it lays out her philosophy and the book's point. The rest of the novel is simply an illustration of that speech. Once you've read the speech, you can go back and speed through the rest of the book, seeing how Rand envisioned her ideas in practice.

The 2005 Centennial Edition of The Fountainhead contains as an appendix a useful small selection of Rand's notes for the novel (showing, for example, what she saw each character as representing). A second appendix provides an introduction to Rand's belief system (Objectivism), but Roark's speech covers much of the same ground more entertainingly.

It should also be pointed out that the Centennial Edition is missing lines of text in at least two places (one being the end of Chapter 11 in Part 1). I guess it's a sign of Rand's repetitiveness that even the copy editors -- folks who are paid to be bored -- stopped paying attention after a while.

Rating:
Summary: Her Best Book
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I had been meaning to read it for some time, and in the barracks I was staying in (I am a reservist called back to active duty in the army) I found it in a locker. I immediately read it and liked it so much I purchased several of Rand's other books.

The premise of the story is one man's unwillingness to compromise his work for the tastes of the general public. He would not conform, and he would not waver in his beliefs, regardless of the personal and professional set backs they caused him. He was an architect and created buildings of a type that had never been seen before. The "masses" didn't know how to take the radical new design and they waited for the critics to tell them what to think. What results from this is actually the more interesting story, that of the antagonist Ellsworth Toohey, a very cunning, dignified man who undertook as his mission in life controlling the thought of the people.

Unlike Atlas Shrugged, the characters here have a considerable amount of depth and complexities. Rand dedicates ample space defining the characters and giving you an insight into previous life changing events, which is something she neglected to do in Atlas Shrugged. No character is pure of either defects or attributes. This makes for very intriguing story.

One draw back, as outlined by previous reviewers, is the unlikely conversations held between the characters, or "speeches" as one reviewer put it. But, as in all of Rand's fiction writing, the story is a mere means to the end, and in this case the end is a homage to the power and creativity of the individual. There may be a way to have expressed it in witty banter between characters, but I am not sure it would exhibit Rand's points more clearly.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable book, both for the philosophies it expounded and for the story itself.


Rating:
Summary: It would make sense, if its architecture did.
Review: There are two problems with this book: its architecture and its main character. I'll start with the second.

The hero of The Fountainhead is autistic. Rand's description him proves this in abundance, even if this was not her intention. He is in the room but not in the room, he looks at you but not at you, he is committed to the projects in his mind but has no clue what goes on in the minds of others or what clients could possibly want. Look up autism, read this book, then tell me I'm wrong.

Back to the first problem. The model of architecture in this book has proven itself unreliable over time, as Stewart Brand notes in How Buildings Learn. Modernist buildings leak, handle the weather terribly, and are generally hated by their occupants. Since, in theory, the artist began with his own idea of the function of the building rather than its actual, daily uses, this is no surprise. Since the celebrated idea in The Fountainhead is an autistic inability to understand the client and building dwellers, Roark's buildings would undoubtedly suffer the same fate as all other modernist buildings. Frank Lloyd Wright, the model for Roark, built flat-roofed houses in the snowy midwest, for example. Brilliant! Such buildings, though admired on the outside, are despised by the people who occupy them and the maintenance teams that take care of them. As Brand notes, though, over time, "function melts form." Thank God. Thank God architectural time time itself has proven Rand's thesis on autistic, modernist genuis untenable!

A final problem should be noted. The model of humanity in The Fountainhead isn't really all that rare. An uncommunicative, emotionally enclosed engineer? Wow. How novel. Sound like any husbands you know, Silicon Valley?

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Summary: Ramblings on Ayn Rand's Works
Review: FountainHead and Atlas Shrugged are two books, especially the former, that have gained the status of Modern Classics. The thoughts expressed below are, well, my general thoughts on the two most popular works of Ayn Rand.

After I finished reading FountainHead, the character that impressed me the most was Gail Wynand, the next being the iconoclast Ellsworth Toohey. I found the final monologue, if monologue is the word I am looking for, of Toohey to Peter Keating and the defense of Roark(for those who have not read the book, Howard Roark happens to be the Hero of Fountain Head) in the climax the most impressive parts of the book. It is definitely a book that is a must read for any bibliophile worth his salt. In fact, each of the characters sketched out by the writer in Fountain Head have something definite and unique. In stark contrast to this, Atlas Shrugged has most of the characters, the Heroes of the book, very similar to one another and after the point to be put across is put across, the theme repeats itself again and again and the writer tends to get excessively didactic. I must, at this point, confess that the 90-odd page radio speech by John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged, took a lot out of me, leaving me practically a spent force by the time I finished the Chapter ''This is John Galt speaking''. The sheer size of the book Atlas Shrugged is very intimidating. Anyway, I managed to read that, spreading it over a period of nearly four months.

Ayn Rand happens to be one of the most compelling and influential writers I have ever read. Though it is highly difficult to rise up to the standards set in her philosophies they definitely influence the reader immensely. The philosophy she professes though hard to live up to and emulate definitely sets standards to the way an ideal man has to live. I do not presently remember, but a writer or critic once pointed out that after reading Fountain Head, one would feel that the rest of the writers through the generations have written their works while sitting on the potty or something to that effect. Though I would say that saying so is going a bit too far, it definitely gives an idea as to how powerful Ayn Rand's writings are.

Delving for a while on the cover illustration of FountainHead, I have this little theory of mine that it shows the picture of the Titan Prometheus from Greek Mythology, stealing fire from Gods, which, as the legend goes, he gifts to mankind and for doing so Zeus punishes him by chaining him to a rock and leaving eagles (another version says it is vultures) to gnaw at him. The illustration in a way, I think, encompasses, or is symbolizes the word I really am looking for, the idea of the Creator, the first to go on an un-laid path only to get pilloried, inviting the world to point the finger of disdain and scorn, the idea Roark so convincingly presents in his defense.

In Ayn Rand's own words, the philosophy of objectivism sums up to this:
''My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.'' In a nutshell, one sees the Earth in the eyes of Ayn Rand as a place where there is no room for those wallowing in mediocrity. Well, that, if you practically look at, sends most of us packing to the outer space with a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; but then, that is neither here nor there. The nearest antonym to ego, according to her, is altruism. Her theories severely pan the concept of Collectivism and glorify Individualism and the Virtue of Selfishness. In this context, it doesn't need a rocket scientist to understand her views on Soviet Communism vis-a-vis American Capitalism. It would be of interest to psychologists to know that the writer was a Russian immigrant to the United States.

The Ayn Rand Stereotype:
Ever observed? All her heroes have to possess lean frames with athletic builds and angular faces (Hank Rearden, Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt, Howard Roark). All the bad guys should be fat with flabby masses of flesh falling off their bodies (Peter Keating, James Taggart, Ellsworth Toohey et. al.). All her heroines (Dagny Taggart, Dominque Francon) have to invariably sleep with all her heroes. Of course, in pointing out the last observation, i don't mean to say that Dagny Taggart from Atlas shrugged goes out all the way to sleep with Howard Roark who appears in FountainHead.

PS: Err... possibly this review is more comprehensible for those who have read Ayn Rand's works.

Rating:
Summary: The prose is simply brilliant, as for the philosophy....
Review: Even if you are wary of Ayn Rand's black and white portrayl of the world (i.e. her insistence on equating capitalism with good and socialism with evil) the Fountainhead can be a genuinely inspirational and moving book. While it is written in the style of the great Romanticists, with some of the character's dialogue being outright laughable, it made certain aspects of Rand's philosphy less convulated and more appealing. Although I think it was only her skilled style of writing which allowed me get past the horrific rape scene and the long winded speeches of the main characters.
As a final note, I agree with one the other reviewers on here, about how this book actually made him more religious. I've always felt that I had a rational understanding of my religion, and perhaps it is not too ironic that an atheist rationalist like Ms. Rand provided me with an even deeper appreciation of it. Read this book, you'll certainly get something worthwile out of it.