Rating: 
Summary: The Fountainhead
Review: The Fountainhead does not need to be the basis of your life philosophy to be inspiring. I don't believe Ayn Rand meant Howard Roark to be someone you would meet on the street. He epitimised her goal in life, not her best friend or herself. The goal of her theories is to instill selfcenteredness in ones life. You can't be all you can be unless you pulled it from deep within yourself. I reread this book after many years and found myself assuming her ideas were a little extreme. I felt is was unlikely that society today wouldn't recognise genius when it presented itself. I then remembered how in the late 70's a young lady was selected to design a mounument. Her design was inspired and oh so simple. The design was blasted from all sides as being unamerican. The design was built anyway. This amazing piece of landscape architecture is the Vietnam War Memorial. I wonder what Ayn Rand thought at the time.
Rating:
Summary: A Book for Non-Conformists
Review: Ok, I'll admit it; I first picked up The Fountainhead because I needed to read it for a scholarship program. But, as I got further into the book, I realized that I really enjoyed it. This book is one of the most philosophical I have ever read; the reader really has to think about what Ayn Rand is really trying to say. Her message, among others, is: Don't conform. After reading The Fountainhead, I reassessed my life and I have now completely changed my goals. This book helped me to realize what I really wanted from life, not what society wants me to have. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: Yikes.
Review: Wow. Set aside the philosophical arguments. Please. Hands down, this novel was one of the best I've read. Not because of any literary prowess or commanding plot. This book really made me think. It is rare that one can sit down, for pleasure, read a book, for pleasure, and accidentally fumble upon a set of views that challenge those previously held. While The Fountainhead made me consider my ethics, it also altered them. I shall not delve into how. This is what the book is all about. This is why I give it such a high rating. Miss Rand succeeded in telling an idealistic story of the ideal man.
While he may not change us fully, Howard Roark makes us look in the mirror a tad more closely.
Rating:
Summary: these people don't get it
Review: Someone wrote this: "Inhuman. Novels are about stories, right? Characters, emotions, real people, right? No one ever told Ayn Rand." Your thoughts about the elements of literature explain why you gave it a four. This book (even more so with 'Atlas Shrugged') -is not- about Howard Roark or Dominique or selfishness or architecture or anything else in the plot. The plot is superficial, it's merely there to illustrate the larger point, the philosophy driving the characters' actions. So many said that "although it could never happen," but they're missing the point of the book. Why couldn't it happen? Ayn Rand stresses reason, and none is ever given. What you are supposed to take out of this book is the motivations and purpose for actions in life; not a fun read for the beach. One more thing: I don't understand why everyone is saying this book is targeted for high schoolers. 99% of high school-aged kids who read this book could never fully understand it, and really aren't in a position to exercise what they might learn. I don't agree with everything Ayn Rand says (especially her views of religion), and there are some holes in her philosophy, but what she wrote-- if the reader allows himself to really comtemplate it and not automatically reject it-- can be incredibly powerful and influential.
Rating:
Summary: A Momentous Book...
Review: ...as evidenced by the extreme polarization of reviews, if nothing else. I think it is Rand's best book. It is not as simplistic and long as "Atlas Shrugged" (which is a momentuos book, too). I have just re-read it at age 30, and liked it even more than 4 years ago. Contrary to what some 1 and 2 reviewers say, it does have artistic merit, but to enjoy it you need to accept the fact that it's incurably Romantic. It's rather black and white (even so, not as nearly as much as "Atlas Shrugged") and her heroes are people as they should be, not as they are. If you can only accept a character that has the same weaknesses as you do and can't deal with an idealistic character with no weaknesses, you will not like this book. I got from it the feeling and appreciation of the incredible beauty man is capable of creating and living, and the uplift you get from watching a strong person laugh in the face of adversity and winning. It's unreal? So what? You see what's possible and worth trying to attain. I think the best way to describe "The Fountainhead" is a quote from the book itself: "...a sense of joy. Not a placid joy. A difficult, demanding kind of joy. The kind that makes one feel as if it were an achievement to experience it. One looks and thinks: I'm a better person if I can feel that."
Rating: 
Summary: Almost a total failure
Review: Leaving aside for a moment the onerous philosophy that this book describes, this book is the work of a uniquely untalented writer. Rand's literary style is on a par with Jackie Collins: overheated melodrama, strong masculine hero, simpering female heroine (whose casual acceptance of her rape as Howard Roark's perogative as a man of ego is horrifyingly offensive), and lots...of...breathless...ellipses. All of which makes for a long, boring read. Philosophically, Rand's Objectivism has holes in it big enough to drive a Communist May Day Parade through. For example, if the ego is the most important aspect of a man's life, and altruism is one of the great negatives, what would she say about altruism for egotistical motives? I don't think Ted Turner is giving all that money to the United Nations simply for humanitarian purposes - otherwise, he would have been horrified at the magazine covers and long articles praising him. I read on the Ayn Rand institute's web site that she is looking for "men of intellect." Men of intellect would cringe at the oversimplifications rampant in "The Fountainhead," which might explain why so many high school students, whose intellect is still forming, like this book so much. The only reason that this book doesn't get a lower rating is that "We the Living" is so much worse. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, "The Fountainhead" is not a book to be dealt with lightly, but should be flung against a wall with great force.
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Summary: Let this book empower you
Review: The Fountainhead is not so much a book as a life experience. For all the times you were punished or criticized for following your own individual values, this book is your redemption. If you still cling to innocent, idealistic values, you will love Howard Roark and be grateful for his existence. If, however, you have given in and compromised your values to try to succeed on society's or others' terms, it is too late and you will probably only resent Howard Roark for representing what you could have been. For me this book has been the support I needed in tough times, and also the inspiration to seek out the best self that I could be. Take a chance and read it; you'll know immediately whether this book is the best or worst thing you've ever read
Rating: 
Summary: Young minds full of mush
Review: The Fountainhead is a fine novel. I loved the plot and I even enjoyed the characters (although they exhibit an amount of emotional repression that is extraordinary). The problem with The Fountainhead is that it is intended to seduce its target audience (high school and college age kids) to embrace right wing politics. Kids who read The Fountainhead have seldom ever read or have a clear understanding of politics, philosophy, and sociology. After reading The Fountainhead kids will come away parroting Ayn Rand's polemics. Kids who read The Fountainhead remind me of kids who used to study the works of Karl Marx in the 60s and 70s: they put down the book thinking they now have all the answers to life. Most kids abandon objectivism (like kids in the 60s and 70s abandoned socialism) after they experience life. But, oh, how annoying they can be until then! The book still wields a cult-like trance with the young which is why The Fountainhead will always remain (after the Bible) the book most kids claim changed their lives. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: You can only enjoy the view from a mountain if you climb it.
Review:
Reading this book is a lot like climbing a mountain.
It is difficult to begin and requires a lot of willpower to continue.
You consistently find yourself on the verge of quitting, but if you make it - WHAT A VIEW!!! Things look completely different from up here...
This book makes you think. I do not recommend reading this book for its literary or entertainment value. Better off with Stephen King.
Some of my friends stopped reading it because they thought the book has fascist undertones. Nothing could be farther from the truth - totalitarian regimes can only thrive in an environment where the singular has erased itself for the plural.
READ THIS BOOK!
Rating: 
Summary: Does it Take a Book this Long, Ayn?
Review: Understanding that Ayn Rand lived under Communism, I canaccept her radicalism. I would not, however, encourage anybody else towallow, or, perhaps more appropriately, exult in it. Perhaps the philosophical ideas presented in the work have some merit, but Rand's style makes this book into a literary atrocity. Rand takes seven hundred pages to build one theme, and to build it to lengths that might just drive a reader to insanity. It's a simple enough story; you have a hero, Howard Roark, the architect-genius who is, at his core, an artist who will not betray his artistic and individualistic credos (how swell), his romantic counterpart, a thin, knife-like woman (Rand sparing no time on subtlty) who, concurrently, seems to love Howard and want to destroy him. In the background revolve several characters who are, to varying degrees, sucked into evil through conformity. Not too bad. The problem? This book hits you like a hammer on the head.
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