The Fountainhead (Centennial Edition Hardcover)
by Ayn Rand
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ayn RandEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-04-26
ISBN: 0452286751
Number of pages: 752
Publisher: Plume
Book Reviews of The Fountainhead (Centennial Edition Hardcover)
Book Review: Ellsworth is Alive and Well
Summary: 5 Stars
I read the Fountainhead in the Summer of 1961, when I was 22. I thought it was the best book I had ever read - until I read Atlas Shrugged. Even then, with no experience, I understood what Ayn Rand was writing about. Now, as I approach 70, I remember those reads as if I had them memorized, and here is my book report on the first.
The Fountainhead is about the war waged by one, Ellsworth Toohey against the soul of the individual. Why he waged such a war, I have never been able to determine. No more have I been able to fathom the choice of crime over hard work. No more the choice of religious terrorism over religious tolerance. No more the atheism which is nothing without God. Better to be counted a Taliban who would NEVER bomb a statue or diminish a woman.
Ellsworth is one of the great enigmas of literature. He would rather no progress than to have to produce anything that has calculable value to another. He would be the one who decides what the value is and who will posess the title. Ellsworth is a cheat, a liar, a prevaricator, a manipulator and, because he is all of that, and intelligent, he is Ayn Rand's example of the Great Progressive. His only decent characteristic is that he is not a politician. He is a carp by choice and by literary design.
The Fountainhead is fiction, but be certain of one thing. Ellsworth is alive and still working as hard as ever. Sadly, most folks haven't got a clue about that. They don't see him everywhere the way I do. Well, here's the way you can see him as clearly as I. When you meet someone who justifies mediocrity in anything, look carefully, and you will see Ellsworth as himself or in drag. Once you get his message, you will understand and 'objectivise' his universal presence. Ayn Rand wrote about the ease with which the mass of non-geniuses, to which most of us belong, can be led to believe that those with ability are to be channeled into endeavors of value to us. We are led to be social workers rather than engineers by insuring that the least trouble with math during elementary school is an excuse to shunt someone to non-quantitative employment. The bright are separated, because we don't want them to be bored, but they are bored anyway. They do not even have the challenge to help their less able classmates, because they have been isolated in another track. Children are labeled by their academic performance in K-4. Parents lobby for quick advancement for THEIR offspring who are, naturally, the best and the brightest is neither in or for their best interests and futures. Everyone has to have the opportunity to be the best that s/he can be, so everyone goes unprepared. Ellsworth and mediocrity. Those who can analyze Ayn Rand by the power of her character constructs do NOT dare go near her philosophy. Her philosophy is the philosophy of clear, and brutal, honesty. She would rather that the education that has devolved so surely to the medi-ochre, be redesigned, instead, to teach all knowledge to students who may need to measure, divide or imagine, as well as they can learn, by the hands and minds of those who understand the fundamentals of what it is they now only pretend to teach. Of least concern in one's education should be what the teacher thinks. Rather, the measure of a good education is the degree to which a student learns to think with objectivity/clarity and individuality. Ayn Rand is bemoaning the progressive creation of the eternal, unthinking, mob. As fiction, it may have the weakness of too much crystallized truth. As fiction, the strength of The Fountainhead is that Ayn Rand captures us all in her stark characters. She has an agenda, and she presents it in a timeless manner. Why else are folks still calling her names and characterizing her nature rather than discussing her thesis? Her FICTION is not set in any past, nor any future. Her story is set in the now. It is always relevant in the NOW. No less so than when I was 22. If you want to discuss a theory of mine, try the following. There are more communists/socialists in Burbank, CA than in the whole of the Czeck Republic (past CR president) - US versions of the Taliban, too. Don't deny it unless you have evidence to the contrary, such as, are there more male or female mud wrestlers in the USA? And, how many of the Abu Graib miscreants were members of a religious group? My estimate is that most of them would ascribe to the doctrine of the Progressive; yet, in the way of the progressive, it was the political (religious) right that received the enmity of the mob. Even now, the progressive excuse for failure is "GW". Ellsworth is everywhere, and Ayn Rand was correct. We have a weakened system of governance, a weakened system of education and a weakened economic system. Current governance depends on the manipulation of the mob. Education creates the mob, and the bankers, the rich, and the religious are to blame for everything. The much more intelligent progressives will come to our rescue again. Oops! I suspect Ayn would strongly suggest that I either end or get back on point. So, my advice is buy it NOW, read it, and screw your head on properly as soon as possible! Best wishes to all, and "Hic Finis Est"!
Summary of The Fountainhead (Centennial Edition Hardcover)
A special edition hardcover in celebration of Ayn Rand?s centennial.When it was first published in 1943, The Fountainhead--containing Ayn Rand?s daringly original literary vision with the seeds of her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism?won immediate worldwide acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This centennial edition of The Fountainhead, celebrating the controversial and eduring legacy of its author, features an afterword by Rand?s literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, offering some of Ayn Rand?s personal notes on the development of her masterwork.
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.
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