Fountainhead

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Summary: intellectual and exemplary of highest ideals
Review: this book is a beauty, and uncompromising and unapologetic coomentary on man's potential and his hatred of it. her hero defies that to focus on his potential and realize it against all odds.

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Summary: BAD
Review: this book made no sense it was the worst book I have ever read in my entire life.

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Summary: I Was A Teen-age Objectivist
Review: Well, not quite, but as the "Playboy" Ayn Rand interview explains, the ideas of Ayn Rand exert a strong hold on the minds of intelligent adolescents because intelligent adolescents are especially open to compelling new ideas. It is very difficult to read Ayn Rand and remain impervious to her Weltanschauung, and teen-agers are particularly susceptible. In any case, this is a well-written, imaginative, and cleverly plotted novel. Yes, some of the prose is flawed, but none of it is "purple", as a reviewer below has suggested. It is certainly significantly different from any other novel I've ever encountered. I hold it in high regard but recommend it guardedly.

(I also recommend, for musicians, "Pentatonic Scales for the Jazz Rock Keyboardist" by Jeff Burns.)

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Summary: Godawful boring
Review: Had I read this book as a teenager instead of as an adult, I might have had a higher opinion of it. Still, I doubt it. Howard Roark is Rand's "ideal man"? He is so utterly self-absorbed other people don't exist to him. Psychiatrists have a term for such a person--it's called a psychopath. And he is without humor. And rape as love? Rand didn't have much understanding of human nature. All the problems in the world are not caused by her "altruistic" philosophies. They caused more by narcissistic scapegoating, which is what Rand did with her "second-handers." And all the terrible characteristics Rand claimed her second-handers had--well, folks, those were Rand's own characteristics that she projected on them. Check out her life--she was a envious, hateful, narcissistic, power-obsessed woman. Pleas don't try and live your life according to Rand's beliefs. She was not a philosopher, but a philodoxer.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book -- But Not Perfect
Review: I think the Fountainhead is inspiring and capable of actually changing one's entire attitude towards life. However, it can also be a bit damaging in that it makes unrealistic demands of its "converts." One thing that really bothers me: Ayn Rand seems to believe that repressing all emotion, even the deepest pain, is "heroic" while allowing emotion to show is a sign of "weakness." Howard Roark seems to be completely untouched, emotionally, by the setbacks and attacks he suffers. To me, this seems inhuman, but the message in the book is clear: He's superior to those of us who spinelessly exhibit emotion. In fact, in Atlas Shrugged, one of the good guys is actually physically tortured and barely exhibits discomfort! Does this mean that to be a true "hero" of your life you - almost literally - must not feel pain?

I still think this is one of the greatest books ever and it influenced me deeply in a lot of positive ways. However, be alert for the flaws. Ayn Rand and her philosophy were not quite perfect. I spent a few years after the first time I read her works believing that if I got "too emotional" over a situation, or preferred a folk song to a symphony, that I had serious character defects.

Still and all, I'm glad after all these years people are still reading and being inspired by her works.

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Summary: Dear Ayn Rand
Review: For a long time I've often wondered why I felt so at odds with people and how they interact with life and other people. Everything from religion, to entertainment. I'm surprised to learn that perhaps you were athiest. I'm not. I certainly acknowledge that YHWH is. This obviously has become palpable for you now. I would like to thank you. I'm sure that your work was part of the plan to enlighten our age.

The Fountainhead was an answer, that we are not in control. We have only to nourish and become what we are to become. Whether as you describe the second-handers or originators, equally play an important part in the evolution of man.

I've found such spiritual soundness in this work, that although you perhaps didn't believe. It is everpresent in your work.

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Summary: Too black and white
Review: The Fountainhead had always been compulsory reading during our highschool years. I, however, only read it this month, 17 years after graduating from highschool. The themes of the book are well-taken, and considering the era in which they were first published, were probably considered quite revolutionary and racey. Themes of "individualism", "counter-facism", "censorship" and "mind-control" are still pertinent today and that is probably why the book still has appeal today.

I felt though that such themes were presented too much in a black and white manner--with not much room for grey. The characters were either over-zealous, adamant, idealists or spineless louses. Toohey with his evangilism, Dominique with her self-sacrifices, Rourk with his inability to budge, and Keating with his manipulations. In the end--"good conquers evil" (what a fairy-tale ending).

All in all a good read and keeps you thinking.

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Summary: it will change your life
Review: Did you ever have doubts about who you are? Read this

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Summary: The Perfect Man in a World of Collective Ignorence
Review: The Fountainhead was Ayn Rand's first of two powerful fiction works. The other being Atlas Shrugged. She tells a story about a man who lived his life for the embetterment of himself and his ideals. A great man. This book is life changing, no question about that. You will love every participle of her work or hate Ayn Rand's very existance. I believe it will be the prior than the latter.

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Summary: Difficult to be objective about objectivism or Jesse Ventura
Review: Ayn Ventura by Jerry Ryan

The intuitional scrambling of my scholarship makes for some strange bedfellows. I've just finished reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Simultaneously the crystallization of Jesse Ventura as a political candidate has begun. When Jesse was a wrestler for the WWF and the WCW, the essential idea behind grappling was that of a carnival act pitting good guys (baby faces) against bad guys (heels). The good guys were at one end of the moral spectrum and the bad guys at the other. A newcomer could be defined immediately by his interaction with the established order. If a newcomer used questionable tactics to defeat a baby face, then he became a heel. A newcomer who used the same questionable techniques to defeat or even lose to an identified heel became a baby face. Life was simple then. Not simple really, but objective. Black and white. Objectivity, taken to the nth degree, becomes Objectivism, the philosophy that Rand created and used throughout her writing. Ayn Rand once told Alvin Toffler: "I most emphatically advocate a black and white view of the world. What is meant by the expression black and white? It means good and evil. Before you can identify anything as gray, as middle of the road, you have to know what is black and what is white, because gray is merely a mixture of the two. And when you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil" Much of Jesse Ventura's perceived allure comes from his willingness to "speak his mind". In general, Jesse's mind remains a carnival of baby faces and heels; a non-intellectual version of objectivism. So Jesse speaks his mind to Playboy and a tempest in a teapot starts about his demeaning views of religion. Ayn Rand also rejected religion because both of religion's fundamental premises; a) an all powerful being and b) acceptance of that being's existence through faith rather than logic are rejected by objectivism. Rand once explained her position thusly. "First, there are no reasons to believe in God, there is no proof of the belief, second, that the concept of God is insulting and degrading to man- it implies that highest possible is not to be reached by man, that he is an inferior being who can only worship an ideal he can never achieve". Ventura contrasts and distances himeslf with other politicians, once again because of his willingess to clearly speak his mind in spite of political ramifications. Ventura holds great contempt for politicians whose philosphy is disguised with weasel words. Ventura seeks only to be understood not necessarilly to be embraced. Rand contrasted and distanced herself from other novelists of her time. She told a Newsweek reviewer, "one cannot write about life without discussing philosophy. Most novelists today try to be as vague as possible in order to be misunderstood by the greatest number of people. I want to be understood, so I present my philosophy openly and consciously. Ventura is a reform candidate which means he is not accepted by Democrats nor Republicans nor liberals nor conservatives. He is an entertainer although his medium of entertainment is not accepted whole heartedly by other entertainers. He is an athlete whose sport is not accepted by other athletes. His sport is, in fact, defined as sports/entertainment with nods towards the lowest common denominator of each. Likewise,Rand was either ignored or denounced by the critics of her time. The literary community considered her an outsider. She was exiled by philosophers. Glowered at by liberals and swallowed hard over by conservatives. Both Jesse and Ayn have had made for teevee movies made about them in the past year. If Ayn Rand were alive today and if Jesse was looking for a female to round out his ticket... hmmm let's see. I'm sure they would oppose George W Bush whose "gray" compassionate conservatism would be viewed as anarchy and W himself as an irrational hoodlum playing at politics without philosophy or consistency. They would also oppose Ralph Nader, the ecology movement and women's liberation. Of course Rand, feeling too often misquoted would never appear on the Sunday talk shows unless she could be interviewed alone without editing and without being confronted with quotations from her enemies. Those qualifications sound like a perfect match for theLarry King show. She would not be bringing her saxophone nor discussing her underwear. Jesse, on the other hand, would soak up all of the other media invitations and whereas Rand would refuse debate, Jesse would welcome it...after all his confrontational oratory skills skills have been polished under the tutelage of Vince McMahon and Mean Gene Okerland. And the economy? Allen Greenspan is a graduate of Nathaniel Branden's Institute formerly located in New York City. Branden's institute became in the sixties the headquarters for Objectivism and studied "The Fountainhead" as other institutes study the Bible. Of course this campaign will never happen because Ayn Rand died in 1982. Rand's death reminds me of one of my favorite bits of 60's graffiti. Crossed out on hundreds of restroom walls across America was the quotation "God is dead" signed "Nietschze" and underneath that quotation, was this correction "No, Nietschze is dead" signed "God".