Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book
Review: You can tell what I thought of this book by how many stars I gave it. So this review is written more to the people who gave it one star. It seems to me that the people who don't like this book need to reread it and pay attention to the characters such as Toohey and Keating and see if perhaps they relate to these people. To say this book can get boring is a fair statement. Any book that's 700+ pages gets boring in places. To say it's evil is plain stupidity. The people who despise this book and Rand's ideas are scary, to say the least. Altruism is a very scary thing. This book is great because it conveys the virtue of being yourself. It's not about one man rebelling against society. If you read it, you'd notice that he doesn't care about society enough to rebel. It's about society's desire to crush greatness because the public knows that it's something that they cannot reach. This is truely a great book, as are all of her books.
Rating: 
Summary: Apparently I'm an outsider
Review: I just don't think this book lives up to all the hype. Besides the philosophy of Ayn Rand, I just thought it was a boring story, with characters that weren't particularly interesting. There was nothing that really compelled me to keep reading this book. Yes there were times when The Fountainhead did start to pick up, but then it quickly slowed down back to boring. Dominique's love for Roark is ridiculous as is the love making (glorified rape), not to mention crude and tasteless. I'm not a feminist, but even I thought Dominique's character was demeaning. All this combined with the clichés similar to cheap pulp fiction, made reading the remaining three hundred or so pages a huge task. So instead of finishing The Fountainhead, I picked up a good book instead. Two stars, because it wasn't horrible. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I like, (...)
Rating:
Summary: People who criticize this book don't get it
Review: Since every positive aspect of this book has been written about by the hundreds of others who reviewed it, my review will be in response to its critics. The one "flaw" that I read in the review over and over again was that "it wouldn't work in real life." This is true, to a point. If one is to accept that the world is how it is generally perceived, and to live one's life in accordance with this perception, then yes, I suppose the book is flawed. But, the point of the book, which I believe its critics miss, is that the world is how you make it. If you choose to believe that Objectivism is fatally flawed and can never work, then Objectivism is fatally flawed and can never work. But, if one is to live one's life completely within the bounds of the philosophy, you would be surprised at how often it does indeed work. So, bottomline: read the book, take its lessons to your heart, live your life by them, and you will succeed in what you are going for. But, if you carry the defeatist attitude that it is impossible to do so, guess what, it will be.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Story
Review: This is a very powerful story. Ayn Rand explored good and evil like no one else. This book explores a great many characters. She goes from Roark, the idealistic good, and Wynand, the man that should have been good, through Keating, the weak, and Toohey, the evil. Ayn Rand demonstrates the evil so thoroughly one is left in despair that good might survive. This is a wonderful and original story. No one else has written like Rand.
Rating:
Summary: I understand women better now.
Review: It took me a long freakin time to read this book, but it has really changed my life and stuff. I now know that women, even if they are strong on the outside, like to fantasize about having themselves forced upon by rock quarry workers or similar blue-collar professions, like construction, or dog catching. I feel like I've been WAY too nice to women. Thanks, Ayn Rand!
Rating: 
Summary: Thought-provoking read
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite books! It is really a unique book in that Rand not only develops theoretical yet realistic storylines and characters but also creates this completely unique philosphy. It allows the readers to really question true human intentions and goals. With all this, it is still a really enjoyable read! The only reason I gave it 4 stars is that it can become tiresome because it is so long.
Rating:
Summary: "To thine own self be true"
Review: A disclaimer first: Howard Roark is not my ideal man and Dominique Francon is not my ideal woman. Roark is a ... and Dominique is self-destructive. If I met these two in real life, I wouldn't want to be too close. There is, however, greatness within the both of them. It's not that Roark has a vision he kills himself towards; he simply knows what is true within him and works that as his guiding principle. Dominique, for all of her masochistic self-thwarting, is almost uncomprehensibly tragic. She shares Roark's commitment to truth to one's self but is so shaken and disgusted by the lies and compromises of the real world that she takes it as her duty to punish everyone for it- most of all herself. In my opinion, the book is really about her, as she is the one who needs to come to the realization that she can live in the world according to her own principles even if they are at odds with everything else. Gail Wynand, Ellsworth Toohey and Peter Keating all cut memorable figures as the tragic, powerful man, the Machiavellian villain and the dupe. As anti-ideal as Howard and Dominique are, these three make are even less appealing alternatives. Ultimately, this book is a great tool to help one figure out who is a real person and who is a poser.
Rating:
Summary: Definatly Worth Five stars
Review: All right the first time I read this book I hated it. I loathed every stone that Ann Rand had ever walked on and this continued for some time. Thinking about it and eventualy reading again I realized why I hated the book. It was not something in its pages it was something in me. I laugh when I think about it now that this book which I so hated could have been such a fulcrum to change my view of the world. Any book that forces you to view the world with different eyes is worth 5 stars many times over.
Rating:
Summary: One small voice, mine.
Review: Read just about any four or five star customer review and you have a fine summary of this book. It is not necessary for me to repeat what has already been said. I myself would like to talk about the individual characters which keep me rereading this book as much as the philosophy does. Roark, Keating, Toohey (shudder), Dominique, etc., all represent facets of humanity, good and evil. But characters like Keating and Wynand are more complex than the characters in Atlas Shrugged. Yes, they are Randian archetypes but they have taught me much about human nature. Keating, had he a little more backbone, might have actually been able to make something of himself. Unlike the villains of AS, he was somewhat sympathetic. He was in love with Catherine, a woman who may not have possessed the glamor and poise of Dominique but who was right for him simply because they were happy when they were together. Fool that he was, he instead opted for what he thought he was supposed to, just as he chose architecture over his true calling, painting. His story is a lesson for all of us. To detractors of the book who call it contemptuous of people I say you don't HAVE to be this way. Don't be a Peter Keating. It is up to you. Ellsworth Toohey is a villain for the ages, somebody you just love to hate. I won't even describe him as a man. I relish the creepy, slimy feeling I get rereading the passages about him. Every patronizing, smarmy sentence that comes out of his mouth is designed to make one cringe. The fact that he DOESN'T seek out wealth, or even happiness, makes him all the worse. It is through him and this book that I learned what is evil: holding society and "the greater good" over the individual. Now, whenever I read or watch the news, I am acutely aware of the malice in people who would say they are trying to protect society when their actions result in harm to an individual, or worse, equate society with an individual as I recently heard from a prominent proponent of the death penalty. Again, he is a lesson to all of us: beware the Ellsworth Tooheys of the world. They are out there. Rand wrote Roark as the ideal man. He certainly is that. I could never expect to be as he is but I firmly believe that he is something to strive for. He had the courage of his convictions. He did not care what other people thought, except those whose opinions mattered to him, such as his mentor, Cameron. Such is the lesson I learned from him. If I find myself jealous or resentful of somebody, I asked myself what my weakness is because fear of one's own shortcomings is from whence hatred and jealousy arise. If it is difficult to relate to a man who does not even see you, as he is frequently described, consider for a moment why it is important for him to see you and why you feel your own worth is based on how others see you. Then consider the friends that he makes in the book, competent and intelligent people who feel about the world as he does. And finally consider what true friendship is. It is not alms to be doled out in the name of compassion. It is respect and love for those whom we enjoy having around us. Dominique Francon is a strange bird (Rand said that Dominique was her in a bad mood). Her motivations are complex but when I think about them, they make sense to me. I see her as somebody who has so much contempt for the world that she doesn't think it deserves a man like Roark (or a woman like her). Hence the reason she works against Roark, not to deprive Roark of a living but to deprive the world of Roark. Clarifying the reasons behind her actions also clarifies that controversial rape scene. It is the ideal man saying to the ideal but obstinate woman that the world cannot destroy him. They spar violently to show how strong they are. Gail Wynand is less interesting to me but an intriguing character nonethless, the man who could have been. He had the drive and the intelligence but, like Dominique, too much contempt. His contempt for humanity at least was purer and cleaner than Toohey's love for humanity. I wonder if, had his childhood not been so brutal, he might have gone a different direction. But then I think that had Roark had a brutal childhood, he still would have come out the same. Such is Wynand's weakness. A sad waste, really. Atlas Shrugged is THE definitive Rand book. I myself certainly feel this way. Nevertheless, The Fountainhead has virtues that one does not find in that mighty tome. As in AS the characters are largely archetypes but interesting in different ways. Even though Atlas Shrugged is several hundred pages longer than The Fountainhead, it also feels more streamlined. The characters are more complex in the latter (except, admittedly, for Roark), maybe because where Atlas Shrugged deals in the steel and railroad industries, The Fountainhead deals in the more aestetic field of architecture which, incidentally, Rand describes beautifully.
Rating:
Summary: a big undertaking - but worth it....
Review: This book is truly a great one, but you really have to attentive and persistent to "get" it all and get through it. I especially had trouble staying focused for the first 200 pages (paperback). One the book does take off, it is a rewarding ride, a thought-provoking journey through a time in America when things were vastly different (but - in so many ways the same?). Especially interesting is some of dialogue surrounding freedom of the individual vs. the perceived primacy of the masses, enhanced even more so given the backdrop of our events of 9/11/01 in the USA (GBA!!!!). Some of the dialogue is downright eerie in this context, and it almost seems that you could peel some of it out and use it as an editorial without it seeming anachronistic at all. Overall, a great read, and absolutely worth it if you can spare the time.
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