By: Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff Publisher: Signet Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Signet Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 720 Publication Date: September 01, 1996
Product Description: Howard Roark is an architect whose genius and integrity will not be comprised. He has ideas that work against conventional standards.
Amazon.com Review: The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature, more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence.
Philosophically untenable Ayn Rand's talent as a writer is manifest primarily in her characterizations, and her ability to write dialogue. She is also a master of analogy, though it is an over employed technique.
Although my familiarity with her philosophy is limited to The Fountainhead, it certainly is capsulized in Howard Roark's summation to the jury at the close of the book. Rand's celebration of the self (egotism in her words) at the expense of the collective (second-handers in her terminology) seems shallow and unworkable. She idealizes the creator of the wheel, because such advances to civilization exemplify the results of an individual working for his own self interest, whereas the user of a cart is merely a member of the collective second-handers following the resultant availability of carts (essentially). Man's self interest is the highest good to Ms. Rand; higher than spirituality, higher than love (witness the 'heroic' surrender of Roark's love, Dominique, to two other marital partners apparently because neither could submit to the discounting of creative genius by the collective); higher than altruism (the ultimate underminer of Randian self-interest); and certainly higher than government regulation (as manifested in the current financial crisis led by such Randians as Alan Greenspan and Phil Graham).
The ultimate moral collapse of Gail Wynand makes no sense because he had no need to submit to the collective will- eventually acquiring full ownership of the Banner newspaper and closing it (those who have not yet read the book will forgive me this paragraph). The acquittal of Howard Roark makes no sense; predicated on the basis of a contract giving him full creative powers. In short the tenuousness of self directed behavior strains the narrative, itself, because of the faulted philosophical underpinnings.
Ayn Rand is the antithesis of Vedic thought from the Upanishads to the Buddhist sutras. One must feed the motives of the self. We are independent entities beyond the necessities of others. The highest self is that which knows no compromise. The transcendence of the ego leads to no discovery because there is no higher Self, no Atman, no Holy Ghost, no God, and no higher consciousness.
In short The Fountainhead is an engaging read. Within its narrative style lies a self-refutation of selfish behavior, a dramatization of the suffering caused by egotism, and blindness to the commonality and interdependence of mankind.
As a counterpoint to utilitarianism and the philosophies of the East stands Randian libertarianism ; a polarity to contentment, and in its contrast allowing one to understand the higher Self more deeply. If we all were capable of inventing wheels, and the servicers of our biological needs were insentient automatons perhaps the empty bauble of Howard Roark's existence would make sense, though it would remain empty; as untenable as Ayn Rand's philosophy.
Read and learn! A collegue gave me this book a couple of years ago. The book was catching the karakters as discribes by Ayn Rand are an inspiration. Ever since reading the book for the firts time I give this book to people around me and everybody loves it.
Poorly written, even for failed philosophy Ok, to start off lets forget all about the B.S Philosophy of Ayn Rand and focus purely on the writing content of the story itself.
I give it one star, simply for the character development which seems to follow her philosophy fairly well. She seems to have developed the Protagonist and the antagonist very well, though it seems she did this by accident if only to fill her philosophical ideals. It's apparent because the supporting characters seem shallow and their interactions in no way resemble true human relationships.
Rand seems like she tries to make up for this with excruciating and painfully dull, redundant, and useless detail such as the one sentence that almost made me burn the damn thing. "They went on, to move, to feel the movement, to know the feeling of their own muscles moving"
If rand wanted to create a nice piece of literature and not just a semi creative philosophy book, she could have cut out the redundant details and focused more on tying in all the complex details and philosophy of the book itself with a viable and decent story line. If you cut out all the useless B.S the book itself would be about 1/3 shorter and easier to read.
This book is a good example of why many famous philosophers such as Aristotle and Cicero stuck to the non-fiction genre. Philosophy alone doesn't make a good story.
Nice introduction to Rand's views This is a nice introduction to Rand's views I think for those who don't have the will to finish the significantly larger work of hers... Atlas Shrugged. It seems long enough that people should be able to fairly easily gain an understanding of what she's about, although I really think that if possible people should probably go for Atlas Shrugged first.
Both are certainly classics and should be read by anyone seeking a greater understanding of life, philosophy, and politics. I highly recommend it.
Worth of money. I bought a used book in good condition. This book arrived very fast and of course was in a better condition than my expectation. I am happy with my current purchase and would like to continue in future.
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