Text: The Fountainhead
Author: Ayn Rand
Year: 1943
Today's selection is one of my all-time favorites. There aren't many books I've read twice, this however, is one of them. My particular copy condenses this behemoth into a mere 704 pages. Good luck. It made more than a few trips to the porcelain pony with me.
Rand makes the case for capitalism as the ultimate economic system, selfishness as the ultimate virtue and the individual who reigns supreme over the collective masses. I don't agree with every detail, but her ideas are extremely thought provoking. If nothing else, it taught me an appreciation for the human creative spirit. It explains why we're important.
Despite being 60+ years old, it is surprisingly relevant for today's YUPPIES. It's kind of like a blueprint for how to make decisions regarding your work, and ultimately, your life. It's also just a great story about an uncompromising young architect.
I implore you to go read it. D.
It's a goodie for sure, I'm currently stuck halfway through my second reading but I'll get to it soon - I've got Pride and Prejudice and The Fourth Hand on the go, and a study of the Haitian revolution coming fro the library...
ReplyDeleteIt really made an impact on me when I first read it - just after I first moved to Toronto, actually. I've given a lot of copies to friends when they've considered creative pursuits - I once had a friend who wanted to make movies. I mailed him a copy - he was enrolled in computer classes, and dropped out after he read it so he could switch to film classes.
Like you, I don't agree with every little detail - but then, when do you ever agree with anyone's every idea? And I don't buy into the idea that she's a crazy insane profit-driven megalomaniac, either - first off, her family all disappeared in Soviet Russia, and who wouldn't walk away from an experience like that with a heavy heart committed against communist revolutions?, and secondly, I find her books (esp Atlas Shrugged) to be full of deceitful cheating profit-driven capitalist pigs... it's the characters who don't want to fleece consumers and get rich on an honest living that she admires.
Moreover, I think she's a brilliant 'screenwriter', as it were. Her scenes are so vividly described, to me she's one of the most visual novelists I know - I can see and imagine everything so clearly when I read those books.
(I hear Charles Dickens is the master 'screenwriter' of novelists, directing your mind's eye around a room or person or scene like a camera -- it's always been on my list to read him more, but I've yet to tackle him)
On another note, I once gave a copy of The Fountainhead to another friend who was miserably depressed and wanted to make movies one day, on the occasion of his birthday - he was so upset he got up and left and couldn't talk to me for a day. This puzzles me, but it's not that uncommon -- I once, without realizing how many people were so opposed, mentioned at work how much I had recently enjoyed The Fountainhead - the manager whipped around and told everyone present that I must love authors who tell their readers to do anything it takes, lie cheat and steal, to get ahead and get more money in the world. I was blown away, I didn't know what to say -- to me, it's obvious she'd never read it.
BTW I highly recommend Fifth Business if you haven't had the pleasure.
Not to monopolize the comments here, but I had a great discussion of The Fountainhead with some friends once; I really believe it does not take place in any actual or realistic New York of the '30s, I think it's a very fictional, totally heightened reality with absurd and ridiculously grave and stately buildings with wedding cake type finery stuck onto them - almost like a Tim Burton or Fritz Lang or Walt Disney version of Bad Architecture.
ReplyDeleteI also think the characters in it are not meant to be realistic people, but - sort of like animation, perhaps along the lines of Batman The Animated Series or Sleeping Beauty or etc - Ayn Rand's personal idea of how people, in her words describing Mallory's work, should look. I don't mean "cartoonish" when I name those cartoons, I just mean heightened.
I could easily be off-base in that idea, but I'm totally 100% confident about the NYC skyline - she's not describing the real New York.
I'd happily, happily give both my little fingers to make a Fountainhead movie (although Baz Luhrman already did it with Strictly Ballroom....;) ) And I'm pretty confident I'd do it animated.