The Fountainhead

Customer Reviews

• Brilliant despite stilted dialogue  Mar 10, 2001 (340 of 375 found this helpful)

  This is one of the fastest paced books I have ever read. Ayn Rand's characters come to life as she paints very clear pictures of who they are and what they represent. She does this in spite of the fact that the dialogue is sometimes a bit wooden and stilted. In this novel, she sets forth her philosophy of "objectivism." She exposes those, such as a character named Peter Keating, an architect, who seemingly achieve greatness by copying others but somehow give the illusion of originality and creativity. In order to achieve "greatness," Keating was literally willing to sell anything, including his wife. Thus despite wealth and apparant achievement, his life was empty. Rand begins to formulate her values that altruism is an evil because a society which seeks to achieve this must do so at someone's expense and therefore leads to collectivism. In the person of Ellsworth Toohey, a flamboyant newspaper columnist, she shows how the power hungry manipulate the masses by setting a standard of mediocrity which fosters collectivism.

  This book is full of passion, including a flaming, complex romantic affair between individualist architect Howard Roarke and socialite Dominique Francon. Their relationship develops from one in which they each seek to assert power over the other while achieving sexual release to one of true love between genuine soul mates. Roarke also has a passion for his work and is uncompromising in his creativity in accomplishing his professional goals. He will not ever compromise these goals despite enormous pressures to do so. Rand believed that there is only black and white in moral issues; there is no gray. Therefore, giving in a little is not compromise but rather, selling out your values and giving in to evil. Roarke was not a man to sell out, he had the courage of his convictions.

  While setting forth her philosophy, Rand has also given us a novel which has a well developed plot. I found the novel to be gripping and I couldn't put it down. Following the career of Howard Roarke and the machinations of his enemies was fascinating. The plot had enough twists to provide surprises and to hold the reader's interest. This book is both an enjoyable novel as well as a challenging philosophical statement. I like Rand's philosophy and I love this book.

• One small voice, mine.  Oct 4, 2001 (39 of 42 found this helpful)

  Read just about any four or five star customer review and you have a fine summary of this book. It is not necessary for me to repeat what has already been said. I myself would like to talk about the individual characters which keep me rereading this book as much as the philosophy does. Roark, Keating, Toohey (shudder), Dominique, etc., all represent facets of humanity, good and evil. But characters like Keating and Wynand are more complex than the characters in Atlas Shrugged. Yes, they are Randian archetypes but they have taught me much about human nature.

  Keating, had he a little more backbone, might have actually been able to make something of himself. Unlike the villains of AS, he was somewhat sympathetic. He was in love with Catherine, a woman who may not have possessed the glamor and poise of Dominique but who was right for him simply because they were happy when they were together. Fool that he was, he instead opted for what he thought he was supposed to, just as he chose architecture over his true calling, painting. His story is a lesson for all of us. To detractors of the book who call it contemptuous of people I say you don't HAVE to be this way. Don't be a Peter Keating. It is up to you.

  Ellsworth Toohey is a villain for the ages, somebody you just love to hate. I won't even describe him as a man. I relish the creepy, slimy feeling I get rereading the passages about him. Every patronizing, smarmy sentence that comes out of his mouth is designed to make one cringe. The fact that he DOESN'T seek out wealth, or even happiness, makes him all the worse.

  It is through him and this book that I learned what is evil: holding society and "the greater good" over the individual. Now, whenever I read or watch the news, I am acutely aware of the malice in people who would say they are trying to protect society when their actions result in harm to an individual, or worse, equate society with an individual as I recently heard from a prominent proponent of the death penalty. Again, he is a lesson to all of us: beware the Ellsworth Tooheys of the world. They are out there.

  Rand wrote Roark as the ideal man. He certainly is that. I could never expect to be as he is but I firmly believe that he is something to strive for. He had the courage of his convictions. He did not care what other people thought, except those whose opinions mattered to him, such as his mentor, Cameron. Such is the lesson I learned from him. If I find myself jealous or resentful of somebody, I asked myself what my weakness is because fear of one's own shortcomings is from whence hatred and jealousy arise.

  If it is difficult to relate to a man who does not even see you, as he is frequently described, consider for a moment why it is important for him to see you and why you feel your own worth is based on how others see you. Then consider the friends that he makes in the book, competent and intelligent people who feel about the world as he does. And finally consider what true friendship is. It is not alms to be doled out in the name of compassion. It is respect and love for those whom we enjoy having around us.

  Dominique Francon is a strange bird (Rand said that Dominique was her in a bad mood). Her motivations are complex but when I think about them, they make sense to me. I see her as somebody who has so much contempt for the world that she doesn't think it deserves a man like Roark (or a woman like her). Hence the reason she works against Roark, not to deprive Roark of a living but to deprive the world of Roark. Clarifying the reasons behind her actions also clarifies that controversial rape scene. It is the ideal man saying to the ideal but obstinate woman that the world cannot destroy him. They spar violently to show how strong they are.

  Gail Wynand is less interesting to me but an intriguing character nonethless, the man who could have been. He had the drive and the intelligence but, like Dominique, too mu

• Brilliant, very flawed work by brilliant, very flawed woman  Feb 4, 2003 (239 of 282 found this helpful)

  Funny how most of the reviews are either unqualified adulation from Rand worshipers or slams from Rand haters. IMO, "The Fountainhead" is neither a prophetic work of great genius nor a piece of evil tripe. It is a brilliant work, perhaps even with flashes of genius -- but as flawed as its author.

  I think Rand had the potential to be a great novelist, which she largely ruined when she decided she was the world's greatest philosopher since Aristotle. Any dogma is the enemy of art. If you read Rand's three major novels -- "We the Living", "The Fountainhead", and "Atlas Shrugged" -- you can see her dogma becoming more and more rigid, and her characters less and less human. "The Fountainhead" is a novel you can still appreciate even if you don't agree with the philosophy (and I think the philosophy has some excellent points, just taken to an absurd extreme).

  Unlike some reviewers here, I don't find Howard Roark to be completely inhuman. He does feel pain -- not only the pain of his own struggle but of his mentor Henry Cameron and his friend Steve Mallory, the sculptor. It's just that, as Rand says, the pain "only goes down to a certain point" because it can't touch the core of his independent soul. But consider this passage when Dominique tells Roark she has married Peter Keating: "It would have been easy, if she had seen a man distorting his mouth to bite off sound, closing his fists and twisting them in defense against himself. But it was not easy, because she did not see him doing this, yet knew that this was being done, without the relief of a physical gesture." Clearly this is a man who feels and suffers. He can feel sympathy as well: for Gail Wynand, even for Peter Keating.

  At that stage, Rand herself was still capable of sympathy for less-than-perfect characters. Guy Francon, Dominique's father, is an opportunist -- but ultimately still more a good than a bad guy. His relationship with his daughter, sparsely depicted, is nonetheless very "real" and touching. Even Keating, the ultimate "second-hander" and in many ways a despicable man, is to some extent sympathetic and is shown as having some good in him. His failed romance with his true love, Katie, is very poignant -- and the scene near the end where he meets her years after dumping her, when she has "gotten over" him and lost her humanity, is truly heartbreaking. (Though her loss of humanity and selfhood is a little too complete.)

  Gail Wynand is a fascinating, tragic character throughout -- and in a way, his relationship with Dominique is more interesting than the Howard/Dominique romance. The story of his childhood and his rise in the newspaper industry is absorbing and very well-written.

  Some reviewers mention stilted dialogue. I don't agree. Yes, there are long passages where the characters preach/philosophize instead of talking, and become nothing but vehicles for Rand's ideas. But apart from that, the dialogue is mostly dynamic, crisp, and quite believable (e.g. the first meeting between Wynand and Dominique).

  Rand also has a terrific descriptive style. Take this passage describing the aftermath of rain: "The pavements glistened, there were dark blotches on the walls of buildings, and since it did not come from the sky, it looked as if the city were bathed in cold sweat. The air was heavy with untimely darkness, disquieting like premature old age, and there were yellow puddles of light in the windows."

  And there are wonderful, memorable lines; one of my favorites is, "All love is exception-making."

  Now the flaws. The character of Dominique, particularly in the first half of the book, is not very plausible. I don't "get" her masochism, the wallowing in her degradation at Roark's hands in their first encounter. (And yes, it was definitely rape -- Dominique herself repeatedly describes it as such.) Her motives for trying to destroy Roark's career when she has already realized she loves him never feel "real," no matter how Rand tries to rationalize them.

• Exemplifies the reason for reading any piece of literature  Jan 28, 2003 (28 of 31 found this helpful)

  I feel the purpose of reading is to be challenged: ideologically, philosophically, politically, etc. Either those challenges will cause one to rethink one's beliefs or strengthen one's existing convictions. Either of these outcomes will produce, I believe, a better person - a thinker who is willing to encounter more than one argument, one side to any issue, and still retain opinions of one's own.

  I would also like to counter some of the comments that the book is simply a thinly veiled treatise on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. If anyone read the introduction written by Rand she answers a fundamental question:

  "Was The Fountainhead written for the purpose of presenting my philosophy? ... This is the motive and purpose of my writing; the projection of the ideal man ... My purpose, first cause and prime motive is the portrayal of Howard Roark as an end in himself."

  What I understood from Rand's statement is that her ultimate goal is to present her characters - showing, through their actions and inactions, attitudes and convictions - and the good and bad points of their diverse perspectives on life. In interpreting the book, I feel one should focus on how one perceives the characters, not on what the afterward by Leonard Peikoff or any other outside source espouses.

  Form your own opinion of the philosophical ideas expressed in the book - do not rely on Piekoff's interpretation or the interpretation of this review or others. Read the book and analyze the characters on your own - pull from them what grabs at you - what relates to any of your life experiences. To me, that is the most effective way to think and read. Think critically and scrutinize closely and you will not fail to learn from most every part of life.

  This is how I approached the novel and I was not disappointed.

• Brilliant ( Long Review )  Sep 30, 2005 (15 of 16 found this helpful)

  Only thing that was keeping me from ever reading The Fountainhead were the dozen number of people who recommended it to me. It is a certified guaranteed winner as per most people (most of whom cannot frame a sentence without using words such as "nice" , "intelligent" ,"sweet" etc.)
  
  The Fountainhead is impactful,precise,gigantic in it's scope, the work of a mastermind. Ayn Rand shocked me(again) with her control over character definitions and flabbergasting logic. After I had finished reading Atlas Shrugged, I felt a bit cheated and robbed of my time. Don't get me wrong, "A.S" has my favourite book character of all time in Fransisco but it is the "giving in" nature of most characters in Atlas Shrugged that made it seem a bit too harsh to me.There is a certain preachiness in the words of John Galt that didn't really sell consequence. Moving on, about Fountainhead I'd like to say that it has the best and most well conceived perception of a human brain I've read. Some of my favourite characters in the book are Peter Keating, Gail Wynand (the best), Ellsworth Toohey (never has a character been this interesting in his villain own self) and the hero, Howard Roark. One very tactful and intentional foreplay of characters is the fact that they are all unique. You will never once in the book find a flaw or loophole in any of the characters. What I'm trying so hard to say will be better explained by examples.
  
  Howard Roark never says more than he thinks he must in this book and often says nothing when you'd expect him to talk. Gail Wynand doesn't ever give away his self respect into the hands of another and never begs anyone. Ellsworth Toohey never gets himself into trouble despite the mind riots he causes most lesser people in the book.
  
  Ayn Rand has an astounding quantity of mind. She shocks me repeatedly in this book by adding a shape to certain thoughts every 20 something year old guy goes through. I do not like the part where there is raw love between Howard Roark and Dominique because it seems a bit too barbaric and unrealistic for me to swallow. It's surprising how boring and dull the book became for a few pages when Roark and Dominique Francon meet. There is a certain sarcasm that the book displays in paragraphs containing comments made by the local people. Fountainhead was extremely funny in it's own silent subtle way at times.
  
  WHY IS IT BETTER THAN ATLAS SHRUGGED(to me)?
  I hope I do not offend anyone by comparing the two but like many readers have pointed out, most characters of The Fountainhead grow on you and towards the last few pages your pace of reading declines(intentionally). Gail Wynand with his practicality and adaptation skills makes more of a hero than any of the much exaggerated Atlas Shrugged Characters. Atlas Shrugged is an epic in itself but it doesn't manage to grip you like The Fountainhead does. Most books ignore the character details of the villains but in Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey gets a whole lot of pages dedicated to him.
  Gail Wynand with his "I Do" yacht was easily the most eyebrow raising thing in the book. Wynand fought a life against all odds. For him to believe in his own individual existence came as a shocker to me. Wynand is very inspiring. I won't say much because the more I talk of Gail Wynand, the more I feel I'm depriving him of a quality summary.
  Ellsworth Toohey made me smile with how well knew the people around him. His attention to detail and "liquid cement memory" were both very well jotted down. Dominique Francon was a bit of a mixed bag which is why I don't mention her very often. She was almost half as bad as Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged.
  
  To end what I had to say, The Fountainhead is the best book I have read in my life. It's reassuring, almost magical touch of brilliant storywriting , flawless character defintions and the much loved irony brings me down to my knees. I do not suggest this book