The Fountainhead

I bought this as a gift for my beloved husband. It’s one of his favorites and he was so pleased with this edition I found. It really is a beautiful cover. Would highly recommend! I look forward to reading it myself.

It is extremely timely and its worth a read. One of my favorite parts of the book was at the very beginning. The hero of the book, Howard Roark, has been expelled from an architecture school because he refused to create drafts of anachronistic structures, e.g. colonial style homes, and instead turned in drafts of modern designs that were the product of his own mind. The dean of the school offers him a second chance, and Roark says that he isnt interested in staying. The dean demands that he explain himself, and the following dialogue occurs: Roark: I want to be an architect, not an archaeologist. I see no purpose in doing Renaissance villas. Why learn to design them, when Ill never build them? The Dean: My dear boy, the great style of the Renaissance is far from dead. Houses of that style are being erected every day! Roark: They are. And they will be. But not by me. The Dean: Do you mean to tell me that youre thinking seriously of building -that- way (referencing his drafts), when and -if- youre an architect? Roark: Yes. The Dean: My dear fellow, who will let you? Roark: Thats not the point. The point is, who will stop me? To summarize, the philosophy laid out in the book is that you should be authentic and creative. Some of the highlights: take responsibility for your own interests, wants, and needs; Never lie, including to yourself; dont seek power over others; never say or do things just to please others; dont use other peoples ideas if you have the capacity to create your own, and if you dont have the capacity then give proper credit where it is due; never demand something of others unless you are willing to offer something of commensurate value in return; and dont pretend that you can be more creative or industrious through a committee, as ultimately creative output occurs as the level of the individual. This was actually the second time picking up this book. The first was about a year ago and I was reading it because I had heard it was the inferior to Atlas Shrugged. Fearing that I would read Atlas Shrugged and hate it and thus never even bother reading the Fountainhead, I thought I should tackle it first. After reading the dialogue outlined above, I knew I would enjoy it. With that having been said, it was a slog compared to Atlas Shrugged even though its about 300 pages shorter, but the ending tied together well and the virtues espoused by Ayn Rand in the book are excellent. It is definitely the lesser of the two, so if you are only going to read one, make it Atlas Shrugged.

The Fountainhead is known as one of the most politically influential books of the twentieth century, giving rise to the libertarian and conservative movements. Although my own outlook on life is at odds with these movements, I thought I should read it nonetheless. As to the story aspects of the novel, the general framework is compelling. A lead character who is true to his ideals, however unduly rigid they may be. A feminine protagonist, who is a remarkably independent woman for a novel written in the 1940s. A dominating, Hearst-like publisher who has essentially a bromance with the lead character. A wide assortment of hypocritical intellectuals in the arts and politics. But there are drawbacks to the story. The book is nearly twice as long as typical novels. It is unduly wordy at times, particularly in the multi-page soliloquies of some of the characters. Also, Rand unfortunately portrayed the characters in black and white, with no nuance. The real alarming aspect of the book is its political outlook. Charity is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind. Collegial work on projects is terrible. Blowing up buildings, because of artistic objections, is just fine. And so forth. Here are some repugnant excerpts from the book. A person who lives to help others is a parasite. The concept of serving people is worse than enslaving them. The sole goal of leaders is to enslave others. Civilization is the process of setting man free from man. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. Its frightening that this book is seen as a beacon by so many political figures in our country.

About 15 years ago, I read ATLAS SHRUGGED and tried to start THE FOUNTAINHEAD, but couldnt get beyond the first 5 pages. With the encouragement of a friend, I recently finished it. Im glad I did and dont understand why the book didnt interest me earlier. The character development in THE FOUNTAINHEAD is far superior to ATLAS SHRUGGED. I have seen the film GONE WITH THE WIND (GWTW) an uncountable number of times. I decided to read the book and learned that the book is better than the film. Like GWTW, I saw the film THE FOUNTAINHEAD prior to reading the book. UNlike GWTW, the acting in THE FOUNTAINHEAD is terrible. Although Gary Cooper was captivated by Rands theoretical perspective, he was not acting, he merely read the lines. Like GWTW, the book version of THE FOUNTAINHEAD is far superior to the film. As I was reading THE FOUNTAINHEAD, I found myself realizing that I had seen the Dominique character in the past. It took a long time, but in a slow unfolding series of page-turns, I came to the realization that Dominique shared many of the psychological characteristics of Scarlett OHara (bi-polar, in particular). Since there are too many similarities to be a mere coincident, I think that Rand subconsciously used the Scarlett character. For example, both authors glorify the raping of these women. On a personal level, I found the raping description distressing. Since our cultural attitudes toward rape have changed, I suspect that if Mitchell and Rand were writing today, they would drop the rape scene. The similarity becomes more obvious if one reads the 50th anniversary edition where Rands original notes are included in the appendix. However, the parallel between Howard Roark and Rhett Butler are not as clear cut. I find Ian Rands work a wonderful paradox! Although her religious belief structure is identical to Karl Marx, her intellectual pathway takes a different direction. Listening to her interviews and reading her biography, one learns that she detested communism. However, both her novels (ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD) address state-controlled capitalism. Thats far from Communism, thats Fascism. It is not surprising to learn that Rand had little intellectual insight into Fascism. Giovanni Gentile didnt write A DOCTRINE OF FASCISM until after Rand completed graduate school. Her novels articulate the application of the framework presented in her academic works. She doesnt acknowledge that Communism is an honest portrayal of an economic philosophy. Communism does NOT endorse a free market; not even a state-controlled free market! Fascism is more insidious and deceptive because it embraces capitalism without a true free market. Within a Fascism structure, the state-controlled economy is regulated to enable the rich to become richer (except Jews). Pragmatically, the government must have the support of the wealthy. Sound familiar? If Rand was born 15 years later, her books would have been richer and her theories more sound. I wish she was writing today. After reading ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD (and other academic stuff), I dont understand how contemporary right-wing conservatives can envision Rand as their intellectual fountainhead. I see her thoughts as being central to extreme left-wing as well. Rand enables the extreme right and the extreme left to hold hands. THE FOUNTAINHEAD has made me curious about Hitlers MEIN KAMPF: MY STRUGGLE. Thats what I will read next.

For the review: The ability to read this book across devices is invaluable! I can read this book on my kindle, on my iPhone while waiting in line, on the PC on my desktop, and even listen to the audible version while I stand on a crowded subway. The WhisperSync feature is nearly perfect and the only glitch that occurs is when there is no coverage in the subway. This is a very enjoyable way to read books and the transition between reading and listening is so seamless that it begins to feel very natural. You can read a long book like this much more quickly this way. The novel is one of ideas, ways of looking at life, and a story of characters who live those ideals. Quotes: First, from the introduction: This is the motive and purpose of my writing: the projection of an ideal man. IT is a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that ones life is important, that great achievements are within ones capacity, and that great things lie ahead. The Fountainheads lasting appeal: it is a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming mans glory, showing how much is possible. It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of mans proper stature - and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning. The rest are no concern of mine, it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls. First sentence: Howard Roark laughed. My dear follow, who will let you? Thats not the point. The point is, who will stop me? Roark: I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards - and I set my own standards. I dont propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me. Youve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know? How can you let others decide for you? One cant collaborate on ones own job. I can co-operate, with the workers who erect my buildings. But I cant help them to lay bricks and they cant help me to design the house. I dont believe in government housing. I dont want to hear anything about its noble purposes. I don’t think theyre noble. The only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself. My work done my way. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgement, you suspend consciousness. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. On Dominique Francon and her first relations with Roark: the sensation of a defiling pleasure. the exaggerated fragility of her body against the sky. He stood looking up at her; it was not a glance, but an act of ownership. She thought of being broken- not by a man she admired, but by a man she loathed. She let her head fall down on her arm; the thought left her weak with pleasure. He did it not as love, but as defilement. And this made her lie still and submit. The act of a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted. She had found joy in her revulsion, in her terror and his strength. That was the degradation she had wanted. Through the fierce sense of humiliation, the words gave her the same kind of pleasure she had felt in his arms. when they were in bed together it was - as it had to be, as the nature of the act demanded - an act of violence. It was surrender mad the more complete by the force of their resistance. She even wrote: Howard Roark is the Marquis de Sade of Architecture. He defeated her by admitting her power. She felt no thrill of conquest; she felt herself owned more than ever. Roarks apartment: His new home was one large room in a small, modern apartment house on a quiet street. His room contained a few pieces of simple furniture; it looked clean, vast and empty; one expected to hear echoes from its corners. Roarks office: His staff loved him. They did not realize it and would have been shocked to apply such a term as love to their cold, unapproachable, inhuman boss. But working with him, they knew that he was none of these things, but they could not explain, neither what he was nor what they felt for him. He responded only to the essence of a man: to his creative capacity. In this office one had to be competent. But if a man worked well, he needed nothing else to win his employers benevolence: it was granted, not as a gift, but as a debt. It was granted, not as affection, but as recognition. It bred an immense feeling of self-respect within every man in that office. They knew only, in a dim way, that it was not loyalty to him, but to the best within themselves. Ellsworth Toohey: Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight with the unreasonable? To write a good play and to have it praised is nothing. Anybody with talent can do that- and talent is a glandular accident. But to write a piece of crap and have it praised - will, you cant match that. Gail Wynand: The man humbled his own wealth. When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man. I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New Yorks skyline. The sky over New York and the will of man, made visible. What other religion do we need? Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. I never meet the men whose work I love. The work means too much to me. I don’t want the men to spoil it. They usually do. Theyre an anticlimax to their own talent. Anger made me work harder. The walls of Wynands office were made of cork and copper paneling and had never borne any pictures.

I wish I read it 30 years ago. Perhaps not - as I am not sure if I was open to its philosophy as I am now. It certainly takes a different kind of courage to read it and accept what it offers. That explains why it’s never been the mainstream material in a collectivist society. Story line and characters are great, at times I thought the narrative was overly descriptive of the people and settings ( felt a bit cinematographic) but still a joy to read. Some of the twists were just plain incredible. It added so much to my understanding of the concepts of creator, second hander, independent, ego, selfish etc. I thought I had a good grasp of those terms until Ayn Rand slapped my ignorance on my face. Best book I read in years. Better late than never.

The Fountainhead is Ayn Rand’s first full novel. Released in 1943, it is often overshadowed by Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s masterpiece. The Fountainhead is however, in my opinion, perhaps Rand’s best work. The plot of the novel is disciplined, it has less monologues than Atlas and reflects more of the inner travails of the characters. The plot pits Howard Roark – aspiring architect – against the architectural community which values tradition over reason in the construction of America’s buildings. The novel’s genre is close to literary fiction, although following Rand’s singular style the characters are still somewhat two-dimensional. The story is different from Rand’s other main book. Atlas Shrugged tells of the heroic battle between the producers and the looters; the industrialists and the politicians; those who live at the expense of others against those who would live for themselves alone – as they vie against each other on the world stage for the soul of a nation. It is epic and sweeping and grand. The Fountainhead is instead the struggle of a single man to find and hold his place in a world not unlike our own without surrendering his principles and values; and finding out in the process just how hard that is. The most insightful exploration I have read of The Fountainhead (although I can’t remember where) presents the book as a juxtaposition of four archetypal characters. The man who was not, but thought he was. The man who was, but chose not to be. The man who was not, and knew it. And the man who was, knew it, and endured unimaginable adversity to remain so. The most dangerous man in this story – not only for the men of the mind but for the well-being of society as a whole – is the third character, the man who was not and knew it. His singular mission, bring society to his level. He was not smart? Ridicule intelligence. He was not strong? Glorify weakness. He had no honor? Make integrity meaningless. He was unable to produce? Put those who could to work for him. It is this man and his archetype that represents the greatest evil in the story – and in the world. As he builds a coalition against the individual man of the mind – represented by Howard Roark – will he prevail? Read the story to find out. I also like this book because it highlights the individual struggle in a world easy to recognize. Unless you live in Venezuela or Cuba or Argentina, Atlas Shrugged’s world is easily dismissed (like Whittaker Chambers put it) as preposterous. In our modern world there are rarely only two groups; the “looters” and “supermen” identified by Rand. There are also a lot of people like me, and maybe like Howard Roark. People who must live in the world, not above it. Like Roark, I am not a great man. I am not an industrialist or a tycoon – I am not a superman and do not consider myself a “motor of the world.” I cannot singlehandedly confront the great evils as do the heroes we read about and admire. Nevertheless I do consider myself a man of reason – a man of the mind; and I do what I can to advance the principles of the self-made man in liberty wherever I have the opportunity. Perhaps for this reason I too have occasionally found myself in the granite quarry. That’s why I find comfort in Roark’s struggles and travails. There is honor in our battles, even if the outcome is unsure and the minstrels will never sing of them. For those of us without loud last names or deep pockets the fight for freedom is harder, because it is more risky. This does not make it less important, but more so. Because it is those of us who would have been serfs who better understand the meaning of living free.

Well, I have to say that I was expecting more philosophizing and less drama here. But in the end, The Fountainhead is a drama. A drama with a message, but a drama nonetheless. This drama features characters unlike any Ive ever met before, so Im not sure that such personalities exist here in the real world. Perhaps the characters are meant to represent hypothetical extremes of pesonalities. But characters that I cannot relate to unfortunately make the message more difficult to relate to as well. Because its a drama, the ~700 pages actually read fairly quickly. The language and style are quite pedestrian; a 5th grader should be able to get through the novel quite easily though the message would likely not be fully appreciated by one so young. The story is gripping and becomes a struggle of good against evil. Good is represented by the egoists, evil by the mundane and mediocre whose agenda is to stifle genius and promote collectivism. A bizarre love story is intertwined through the greater plot. The novel is set in early 20th century New York, which was the most modern city in the world at the time, so even now in the 21st century theres nothing really outdated about it. And the New York setting lends greater dynamism and pace to the plot. This is not, as you may often hear, a story about the field of architecture. It just so happens that the main characters work in that field, but the story (and message) could have been nearly the same if written about any other field. In fact, when reading the many architectural discussions throughout the book it became painfully obvious to me that Rand did not have an architectural background, and Im not even an architect. Some of those discussions should have been omitted as they didnt really add value to the story or the message. The message seems to basically be that only people with great ambition for personal success or perfection generally advance technology or the arts and thereby our standard of living. By nurturing such egoists and not obstructing their way, we allow the fruits of their work to be integrated into our culture, and this ultimately betters society as a whole. The implication is that humanity would be much farther along after, say, 500 years of nurturing egoism than after 500 years of stifling it. Its a compelling theory and I will not speculate on the long-term benefits to society, but I seem to see an obvious and major downside to the theory: Because an egoist could easily be a power hungry madman with no good intentions, short-term trauma on a massive scale could be a possible outcome. Is theoretically faster progress worth that pain? I dont think its as simple as Rand makes it out to be. Throughout history, egoists have arguably led the advance of technology and the arts. However, they have also started wars resulting in appalling levels of bloodshed, sponsored attempts at genocide, stolen peoples retirement nest eggs through corporate crime & scandal, etc. The problem is, egoism does not necessarily connote genius and good intentions. Egoism could just as easily come with cunning and a thirst for money & power without regard for who is injured as a consequence. A good read. I would not call it brilliant as many have. In fact I did not find it particularly well written from the standpoint of style. However, I can see that if the message were to ring true for someone then the book could be seen as brilliant.

Fountain head is a story of individualism vs collectiveness. Of competency vs mediocrity. Beyond any great creation is the work of an individual not a committee..in this book you obtain Ayan Rands philosophy

There are writers. And then there’s Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was a very unique individual; an individual that isn’t afraid to stand by her convictions, no matter what anyone said. That’s what made her so beloved and hated. Even more so, that’s why people were so bifurcated about her books. Knowing that, then it isn’t shocking to realize that The Fountainhead was written with her very own ideals embedded within every page, within every character, within every thought. In that sense, she is rather unique because not only did she create an amazing story, as many authors have, but she went a step beyond and used the book with the essence of her philosophy, which was, and will always be, a truly daring endeavor for any writer. The Fountainhead has been described in many ways, but at its core it is about The Individual vs. The Collective; about Freedom vs. Conformity. With characters that are gripping, settings that are par excellence, and dialogue that displays incredible depth, the book is a well rounded synthesis about the nature of individualism and what it means to be human. The leading characters all flow through their roles seamlessly, and whether you love them or hate them, you can feel the realism in them, even if at times they are the epitome of Rand’s ideal. Anyone who values individuality will value this book. Those that seek to conform will undoubtedly hate it. That’s the nature of the beast, and always will be. What Rand did though, perhaps better than anyone else, is show both sides of the coin – Individualism vs. Conformity – in a manner that nobody else had brought about through fiction. This is why the book is so engaging, because you hate the villains as much as you love the characters you gravitate towards. It is rare when a book has you personally invested in nigh every character failing or succeeding, but this book accomplishes that in spades. Ayn Ran went to war for the Individual against The Collective in a torrential manner in a way almost nobody does. Through her characters, Rand did a salient job of showing the wide range of latitudes within human nature. All of this was, of course, was to highlight the importance of Individualism. As Rand herself elucidates in the following passages, the last of the three which is in her own words, the prior two through her characters: “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, their vision unborrowed, and the response they received – hatred. The great creators – the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors – stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great ne invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”[1] “From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man – the function of his reasoning mind.”[2] “And for the benefit of those who consider relevance to one’s own time as of crucial importance, I will add, in regard to our age, that never has there been a time when men have so desperately needed a projection of things as they ought to be.”[3] Rand stated those words decades ago, and they apply even more so now. Given that humanity keeps snowballing down a hill in a world where morality, common sense and virtues keep getting swept under the rug, such statements and their ramifications should be pondered at length. Whether you love the book or you hate it, it will give you much to ponder about, especially if you value Freedom and Individuality in any way shape or form. __________________________________________________________ Sources: [1] Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, p. 710. [2] Ibid., p. 711. [3] Ibid., p. vii. Written in the Author’s Introduction to the 1968 Edition.