Fountainhead

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Summary: It is breathtaking in it's endurance and impact.
Review: I randomly picked the book and first read it for a book report in the 11th grade. The concepts and principles in the book were mind opening and character forming to me at that time. Although I am not an Ayn Rand "disciple" so to speak, I do admire a good bit of her work and thoughts. The characters in the book became crystal clear to me and their traits and actions became eternally memorable throughout my early adulthood. I can still recall the enthusiasm with which I relayed character profiles and storylines to my classmates. After reading the book, it was indeed as if I had know the characters for years. I wished I could have told them about it the whole day. It is the only fiction book that has stayed with me from that time period. It has had a significant impact on my thoughts about--well, just my thoughts generally. Wow. I was elated to obtain my very own copy.

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Summary: BEWARE!!!IT MAY CHANGE YOUR LOOK AT LIFE IMMEDIATELY
Review: I don't believe that any of anybody's words may explain this book. I can only say that it is the summary of the thousands of years' war of existence of the "pure" and individual human intelligence and desire. It is so special because it gives you a full source of stimulus that are passage ways to various flights inside yourself and your perceptions of outer world. Don't ever read it if you are not ready for a very big challenge.

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Summary: I read the book when I was in college--35 years ago
Review: Although I don't remember the details of the book, I've always felt it somehow influenced my thinking over the years; I'm going to read it again to see how I did.

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Summary: You can enjoy the book even if you reject Rand's philosophy
Review: Of course I'm not opposed to Objectivism, so perhaps I shouldn't be the one to ask.

The book is great because of its depiction of the ideal man--Howard Roark, and the villain--Ellsworth Toohey.

I am hardly a full-fledged, card-carrying objectivist, but every day I make an effort to emulate Howard Roark and avoid becoming a Peter Keating.

I'd rather be an Ellsworth Toohey than a Peter Keating.

Rating:
Summary: A book for rationalists and individualists
Review: Why add a review to a list of more than 130 reviews? Just to point out the very fact that unnervingly many people are so deeply touched by this book that they have to share their thoughts of it with others. Not only that, if you scan the list of reviews, you'll find that most reviewers either gave the book a five star score, or one very small star.

This is to be expected. "The Fountainhead" is a book of ideas, and very black-and-white ideas at that. The book agitates against commonly accepted philosophies in our society, against the ideals of altruism, spirituality and humility as opposed to egotism, rationalism and pride. A lot of people loathe these ideas, while others find they loathe the society that extolls them.

Personally, I think this is one of the best books ever written. Part of that is that I think the prose and plot are magnificent (although I should add that these elements are very abstract and not everyone will like that). But what makes the book exceptional for me is the philosophy it expresses. The ideas Ayn Rand puts forth are ideas society tries to discourage because they are considered anti-social and therefore a-moral. Rand shows that, based on a philosophy which holds the rights of the individual as sacred, exactly the ideas which are generally considered to be social are a-moral.

Beware, however, that the book is constructed to convince you of Ayn Rand's ideas, not to fairly express ideas that oppose it. For instance, you will find that almost every character that is an incarnation of one of the ideas Rand abhors, is an uncritisizing, sad, weasely, snivelling little creature, while the heroes are invariably shining stars. It's not that Rand cannot defend her ideas objectively, it's just that she has left that for her non-fiction work.

If you are a rationalist, an individualist, or if you feel that society seems to award underachievement and punish productivity, you may very well find that "The Fountainhead" is one of the books you will close in your heart. If not, you should probably leave it alone.

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Summary: I read it all only because I was paid to read it.
Review: About 6 years ago, I read this book because someone with whom I was co-teaching a course put it on the reading list. I actually read it twice, the minumum number of times I read anything I teach. I would not have finished it even once if I had not been paid to read it. Don't get me wrong--over the previous 20+ years I had read most of Rand's non-fiction, and her play(s). I had used essays by her in classes I had taught. Her non-fiction I find mentally stimulating, partly because I strongly agree with some of her ideas, but definitely not with all; so it is a challenge to disentangle them. But reading her non-fiction first had warned me about her fiction--for Ayn Rand is her very own favorite authority to quote in her essays. These copious quotations from her novels had given me the idea that her fiction was non-humorous and greatly didactic. The Fountainhead proved that Rand quotes herself fairly--it's gossly didactic and has little intentional humour. It is, though, a good example of camp--probably the Hollywood influence on Rand--in the posturing of it main romantic pair. Dominique, who I gather is supposed to be an ideal female character, strikes dominatrix poses, but when it comes to the "right" man, she's an enthusiastic masochist. There's the notorious "rape" scene, but even more grotesque is her marriage to someone else for whom she feels no real attraction but who keeps in close contact with the "right" man, and most grotresque is the scene where she swooningly slashes herself--with shattered windshield glass, I believe. This Aryan-featured female turns out to be the right woman for the Aryan-featured hero, who is supposed to be an ideal man. (It's interesting that in a book set mostly in the 1930s and published during WWII, a Jewish author would choose to make her two ideal characters both physical types the Nazis would have approved of--surely Rand could have found beauty in variety.) Looks aside, one wonders if an ideal man wouldn't have loved someone less perverse that Dominique. Rand also does not play fair politically--in that the book does take on elements of the New Deal, but doesn't seem to acknowledge the Great Depression, so that the New Deal seems wholly perverse and arbitrary. The book does have some virtues. It describes non-organic things well. It describes work--especially work involving more than one person-- well. The long trial oration is a relief, because the ideas are presented openly and therefore Rand doesn't get so gummed up in the demands of matters like plot and character or in matters of irrational, incompletely examined sexual feelings. The main villian is very boring--Rand avoiding a flaw that writers such as Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens sometimes fell into, the flaw of making a story's main villian more interesting and compelling that the good or heroic characters. Unfortunately Rand' main villian has several subtantial scenes, which are excrutiatingly dull.

shakespeare, Milton

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Summary: I Was A Teen-age Objectivist
Review: Yes, I too was once an insufferable teen-age Objectivist. 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. I may have been better off not to have read it first as a teen-ager or I may have been worse off not to have; I can't quite decide. 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.

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Summary: superb
Review: this was an excellent book. it was very long but very worth the wait. it is a very deep book that made me think a lot. i really enjoyed it.

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Summary: Some quotes... a teaser!
Review: Rather than tell you about this wonderful book, I thought I'd show you with some quotes.

The following quote is about Peter Keating, a famous architect whose self-concept is dependent upon other people's opinion of him:

"There were no questions and no doubts when he stood on a platform over a sea of faces; the air was heavy, compact, saturated with a single solvent--admiration; there was no room for anything else. He was great; great as the number of people who told him so. He was right; right as the number of people who believed it. He looked at the faces, the eyes; he saw himself born in them, he saw himself being granted the gift of life. That was Peter Keating, that, the reflection in those staring pupils, and his body was only its reflection."

Part of Roark's courtroom speech:

"As poles of good and evil, [mankind] was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to be the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind."

More of Roark on altruism:

"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistence. But to make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism."

And now for some short ones:

"In order to say 'I love you,' one must first be able to say the 'I.' "

"I don't plan to build in order to have clients. I plan to have clients in order to build."

"You're casting pearls without getting even a porkchop in return."

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: It was good.
Review: Last week Isubmited a reveiw of this book that was two sentences long "It was good. I liked it." It was not printed. Why? Just because this book is long doesn't mean that the reviews have to be even longer in order to be meaningful or influencial. The Fountainhead is my favorite book. I have read it twice and I read nothing twice. I understood the book, however, most of the pontificating reviews I don't. They were long and unintelligable. The Fountainhead is not. It was good. I liked it.