The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice what the public sees as modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers."

The problem with critiquing Ayn Rand is that she anticipates most of your arguments and makes fun of them in her books. You wind up feeling ridiculous for calling her out on her lack of empathy or humanity when it is clear that she abhors both. And anyway, it would be a waste of time since she demonstrably believes that any critiques which do not value her are simply products of erroneous beliefs. Which is a convenient Catch-22 she’s got going on there. Though, to be fair, she probably wouldn’t accept praise either, unless it was given in the appropriately selfish frame of mind.

What’s frustrating about Ayn Rand (besides her cardboard characters, who are not people so much as they are things, and who serve to merely act out some weird Kabuki play of melodrama rather than make any pretense of behaving like real people, mostly because there are no people who are like the characters in her novels) is her absolute adherence to an unworkable scheme. She, naturally, will make no attempts to make it workable, as that would be compromise, and compromise above all things is terrible to her. I feel like there are kernels of something real and important in there, but they are completely obscured by the medium – Ayn Rand and fiction do not go well together. It’s the flimsiest façade for her philosophical bent, which just aggravates me. You know the phrase, golf is a good walk ruined? The Fountainhead is a good book ruined.

And yes, I get that she basically grew up destitute because of Communism, and that would make anyone a hardened Objectivist, but she makes it such an unpleasant experience. There's a little afterword in my copy in which some of her notes during the writing of the book are printed, and there's an excerpt there about ease of access to a library, and Rand goes, "Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?" Because we don't have enough problems as it is, but we need to make it harder for people to educate themselves. I get where she's coming from, I do, and it can be frustrating that people have all these opportunities that they don't take advantage of, but it's not a great idea to get all pissy about it and effectively say, "You don't want to go up some steps to the library? Fine, wallow in illiteracy!" because the only thing that does is create more imbeciles. Rand's books are full of that idea though, the one that says, "You're not appreciating me the way I ought to be appreciated? Fine, I'm going to go sit in a hollow cave and sulk about it until you realize how much you need me!" In Atlas Shrugged, it all worked out, because people "realized" how much they needed the geniuses, so the populance were properly abject when they all emerged from the cave, but in real life? The only thing you've done is create people who have no need for you at all, because they can along just fine without you. Just because we don't have savants shipping the steel across the country doesn't mean it won't get done. Just not as efficiently, maybe. Books will still be written, houses still put up.


You might ask, why am I reading this book when I obviously don’t enjoy it? Well, I’m reading it for a book group. Also, I didn’t think I would find it as tiresome as I have, because I’ve read Atlas Shrugged before, and I found it entertaining and provocative. Part of my weariness with The Fountainhead is because I’ve seen it all before (if you’ve read one Ayn Rand you’ve read them all), and part of it is because I’m no longer fourteen. Ayn Rand would say it’s because I’ve already betrayed my own soul (this is not speculation, it’s in the foreword to my edition of The Fountainhead), but I think it’s just because I’ve met a lot of selfish people and the shine as worn off. You’re old hat now, Rand.

Ayn Rand is hard to like, because she does not respect you. In her mind, why should she? You haven’t proven yourself to her at all. She’s like the Kanye West of philosophy, except really unlikable, because she doesn’t even seem to be having fun looking down from her throne. At least Kanye knows how silly he sounds. But when Rand lords it over you, it’s a duty, not a pleasure. It’s certainly an interesting paradox, as to why when Kanye sings, “There’s a thousand yous, there’s only one of me,” that you can’t help but like him for it, even though you know he probably believes it, but when Ayn Rand says, "You have already betrayed your own soul because you compromise with others," you're like, "Right back atcha, beeyotch!"

Let’s get to the meat of the book. It’s about Howard Roark, who is an architect, wonderful or ruinous depending on who you ask, and all the people who seem oddly determined to put him down. Why? Who knows. Because people of genius are like the flames to which moths are drawn, I suppose. Rand likes to have her characters monologue for entire chapters about their creeds, but honestly, I still couldn’t quite fathom what Toohey (the Big Bad) gained from his shenanigans. I mean, possibly power over the people, but what did that get him? Just the satisfaction of being puppetmaster? I mean, no one even acknowledges that he is the one in control. That’s gotta be lonely. And that seems like a completely disproportionate workload in order to get the string-pulling power that he has. Maybe it’s just my objectivist showing, but he goes to all this effort to make sure that all artistic impulses in New York . . . come out mediocre? Just to . . . prove he can? What? I mean, couldn’t he just as easily manipulate the people into making nice things, and then at least have something decent to read, or watch?

Anyhow, Roark builds some stuff, and gets some praise, some criticism for it, he hooks up with (by which I mean rapes) Dominique Francon, who then spends the rest of the book married to other people, because she – I dunno, wants to prove how miserable she can be, I guess- and then builds a housing project which he blows up after too many other people try to put decorations on it, and then he goes on trial for it. But it’s just a kangaroo court because it is a trial of PUBLIC OPINION, and honestly, I can’t imagine that the state is not going to appeal a “not guilty” verdict when the perpetrator admits right off the bat that they did it.

Rand’s ideas are also still a little bit cloudy in this book, because she spends a lot of time complaining about collectivism, but demonstrates that just about all the forces against Roark can be attributed to one man. Maybe she just hates how easily people can be led by the nose. I’m trying to elucidate the exact reasons why I don’t exactly follow Rand’s philosophy, but everything I type out seems both obvious and beside the point.

Certainly Rand’s methods of communicating her ideas are pretty abrasive and unattractive. And all her relationships have a weird D/s tinge to them or are, in this book at least, admittedly outright rape (I can’t remember exactly if it was rape in Atlas Shrugged, but it was definitely not quite vanilla) and since I can’t imagine what purpose it serves the plot or characters (except maybe that if you have the courage of your convictions, raping people is a fine idea) so it really just comes across as Rand’s personal preferences, which is gross. I don’t want to know her sex life. TMI, Ayn, TMI.