The Fountainhead

Rating:
Summary: Roarks rejections
Review: I feel that in this book Roark had many rejections, but he stood strong on his beliefs.

Rating:
Summary: PART of a philosophical education
Review: It's a great book in the sense that it really gets you thinking. It will also make you unsatisfied with most traditional fiction best sellers. Her philosophy does provide an easy way to explain how a person could be satisfied with a egocentric life. However, when you finish reading this book ask yourself the same question that the book makes you ask about your current way of life: "Why?" Everyone may have a different answer, but by asking yourself you may become a more enlightened.

I've been told that Plato's Republic makes a good follow up to this book. Also Tao Buddhism.

-a humble second-hander turning things around.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting argument.
Review: I could, if I so desired, refute every statement against Ms. Rand as a novelist, philosopher, or human being. I could, if I thought it would profit anyone at all, rabidly defend the merits of her characters and their morals. Rather, I should simply like to point out that any novel capable of creating so much controversy and debate, even in a limited forum such as this, must be worth SOMETHING as a literary and philosophical work. Rather than foist my own high opinion of Rand's work on any prospective readers, I urge anyone with even a vague interest in this book to purchase it, read it, and then join the debate.

Rating:
Summary: THE FOUNTAINHEAD - Lovers and Legend
Review: This book is almost un-critiqueable due to its uniqueness and the awe with which it is held by the late Miss Rand's more devoted followers. But I'll try! The plot spans the years 1922 to about 1938 and traces the career arc of two rival architects, Howard Roark and Peter Keating. Roark's approach to design and function in architecture is roughly based on Frank Lloyd Wright's; Keating is a meretricious copyist incapable of an original idea whose main function seems to be to look good in a tuxedo while entertaining clients. Roark's fatal flaw is that he accepts no client changes to his architectural plans - none whatsoever, not even the most conservative Greek column on the ground floor of a bank building. Of Roark and Keating, whom do you think has the more successful career? By the late-1920s Keating has become the toast of Manhattan while Roark is reduced to poverty. Yet it is Roark to whom Keating slinks when he has trouble designing an ultramodern skyscraper for a prestigious competition. Roark is allegedly the egomaniacal one, yet he helps Keating without asking for recognition or payment of any kind.

Things get even more perverse on the love front. Not to give too much of the plot away, but a sensous, emotionally distant woman who is just Roark's type takes up with exactly the kind of men who hurt Roark the most. It's utterly appalling and yet, in Rand's equation, somehow convincingly human, which makes it all the more appalling. The path to heroism in an Ayn Rand novel is never easy.

There's a lot more going on, including a sleazy gazillionaire publisher with the seeds of greatness, an urbane man of letters who should have been murdered in the crib, and a public housing project that didn't survive to see the light of day. But probably the most salient feature of THE FOUNTAINHEAD is that it is a philosophical novel about the nature of human progress, how it is achieved, by whom and at what cost. (Lucky for us, the speechifying is relayed mostly through dialog and doesn't clutter the plot.)

So is THE FOUNTAINHEAD a good book? I'm not sure that Miss Rand would agree with the tenets of "vox populi, vox dei," but suffice it to say that the book hasn't been out of print since it was first published in 1943 and the New American Library still derives a significant amount of its income from Rand's writings. Read this book, and if you like it go on to the more challenging ATLAS SHRUGGED. You don't have to adopt any kind of political agenda to enjoy THE FOUNTAINHEAD.

Rating:
Summary: Loony tunes by a schizoid
Review: I stayed awake for 24 hours to finish The Fountainhead and will agree - it's one of the most powerful novels written in the 20th century. (And I speak as an Oxford MA Hons in English Lit, if that's worth anything, which I doubt.)

However, Rand was a deeply mixed up gal. She worships rapists. (*All* the heroes in her novels are rapists - look carefully!)

She'd have swooned at Saddam Hussain's feet. (He is, after all, by her definitions a man of integrity, naked strength and moral courage - true to himself. Just as a hyena is true to itself.)

Rand's favourite characters are, as has been said elsewhere, psychopaths.

Her female protagonists in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are, frankly, insane. Just as, I suspect, Rand was.

Look more closely at her 'philosophy', expressed in her non-fiction works, and it disintegrates into a babble of circular logic.

Rating:
Summary: Awe-inspiring but unrealistic
Review: Amazing how most reviews either award five or one star. Its been five years since I read The Fountainhead as a senior in high school. Like many other impressionable youths, I was lured hook-line-and-sinker into her simplistic world of Roarks and Keatings. Of course, her philosophy, in its uncompromising form, is unworkable (indeed undesirable) in the real world. But that by no means suggests that we should discard it entirely. Rand has a lot to say about the strength and nobility of the human spirit and the independence of the human mind. The world would be a better (and more interesting) place were more people to follow some of her initiatives. Of course, her novel was meant as thinly-veiled philosophical propaganda. For that very reason, it is presented as black-and-white, like a checklist of rules for a happy life. To follow her philosophy blindly would be silly and immature. Philosophy exists only in the human mind. When one tries to apply it to real life, the smart person will always do so with a grain of salt.

When it comes down to it, Rand wrote an important book, developed original characters, and a told strong, compelling story. Whether or not one agrees with her philosophy, these are good enough reasons to award it at least four stars.

Rating:
Summary: thank you
Review: An incredible book for many reasons. As a purely literary piece, Rand integrates all the aspects of a novel(plot, theme, characters, and style) brilliantly. Not one aspect is compromised for the other. The characters are perfectly created and consistent within themselves and in their interaction and action. The plot is comprised of the actions and value-judgements of the complex characters and their value-conflicts. The theme is infinitely compelling, shedding light on the potential evils of altruism in its battle to suppress individual creativity, assertion, and quality of life. A must read for anyone in the modern/post-modern age who values their basic right to create accordin to their own terms.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Excellent draft on Objectivism. A modern day BIBLE for people who believe in themselves and have a mission in life. Mark Twain was right when he rebelled against the institutional part of studies.Overall a must read for all those who are on the verge of starting a career or choosing an area for study.

Rating:
Summary: High School Read
Review: I just finished The FountainHead for my A.P. English class and it was an amazing book. Howard's struggle made me love him and how easy Peter got everything angered me. I hated Ellsworth and his abuse of the power he had. It's a great book to read for a high school student because it teaches not to follow the herd and to think on your own, something few students do. Even though Howard had it rough, it payed off in the end for him. It also taught not to give in no matter how hard it seems and to stand up for what you believe in.

Rating:
Summary: Better than anything you may ever have read
Review: Somebody tell Howard Roark to go get a job where he can earn a steady living and have some "security" in his life, will you? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA........

Those might be the words that a second hander would utter. And yes, I do suppose that along with that very same second hander there are many many others who, if presented with howard's creative, inventive works, would rationalise/attribute the outcome of such a great man to something other than INDIVIDUAL EFFORT. The second handers, upon viewing a great building, would say either that it is not beautiful, simply because it is not of the ORDINARY (exceptional, by definition, is not of the ordinary) or would rationalize-away the greatness of the individual accomplishment of the person who designed it simply because a second hander realising and acknowledging such ability would be faced with the terrifying TRUTH of his own personal philosophy. At once, the second hander would have to acknowledge who he is and re-structure his life goals along the lines of individual accomplishment (which is NO EASY task in modern american society). Or, the second hander would follow the very same course of reasoning/rationalization which led him to his present state of group supported existence and shy away in terror from the possibility of individual greatness and accomplishment and attempt to secure himself among his "groupies" by saying something such as the first sentence of this review. And, possibly, as has been the case for several decades now, the second hander would find some feeling of security just so long as his tax-funded subsidy which he calls a pay check keeps on rolling in.

If you have ever wondered just who produces that subsidy... and what would happen if such rare, select men were to simply walk-out on society, read another of Rand's great novels "atlas shrugged".