The Fountainhead

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 one's life is important, that great achievements are within one's capacity, and that great things lie ahead.""The Fountainhead's lasting appeal: it is a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming man's 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 man's 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?" "That's 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 don't propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me.""You've 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 can't collaborate on one's own job. I can co-operate, with the workers who erect my buildings. But I can't help them to lay bricks and they can't help me to design the house.""I don't believe in government housing. I don't want to hear anything about its noble purposes. I don’t think they're 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."Roark's 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."Roark's 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 employer's 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 can't 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 York's 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. They're an anticlimax to their own talent.""Anger made me work harder.""The walls of Wynand's office were made of cork and copper paneling and had never borne any pictures."

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.

Outstanding, beautiful book. I'm 40 and I wished someone told me to read it when I was 20.