“H Roarke, primary character, begins the story as a sweaty rapist. But don't despair for his victim. In a Randian world (or at least in Ayn Rand's mind), women fall in love with their rapist as long as he was an individual acting solely on his own, for his own purposes. The story ends after Roarke reverts to crime and becomes a domestic terrorist blowing up the building he designed, aided by the woman he raped.Yes, Ayn Rand is an author from whom we might learn something.”
“I have recently started a group that plans to discuss this novel as well other prominent works of fiction:Best English-Language Fiction of the Twentieth CenturyA new group centered on a composite list of the best English-language fiction of the twentieth century. Please give it a look, join up and invite your friends!http://www.shelfari.com/groups/46898/about”
“Although, Roark and Toohey are perceived as complete opposites in the book, they are actually very similar. Both have a much greater and deeper understanding of the world, even though they are trying to achieve a very different end result. Throughout the book, I kept waiting for an intellectual battle between the two, in the magnitude of the John Galt speech in Atlas Shrugged. ”
“One of the first books in quite some time, I literally could not put down. Roarke and Toohey are painted so radically different by Rand as opposed to their typical societal standing that it leaves you questioning everything you've believed up until you read the book. Makes me think about my second-handing...”
“This book may de stabilise the whole world of morality on which your everyday actions are placed and makes you question yourself if you are living it right as so much of what she points out strikes a resonant chord within us. But unfortunately ,fiction is as fiction should be. As tremondously moved you will be by this book ,any attempt to emulate her morals in the real world can only lead to miserable failure because as Freud points out, any interaction in the real world is but a social transaction and as a scompletely objectivistic man, this can only lead to failure.”
“Does anyone else get a real Mad Men vibe from this novel. I just found myself picturing Peter Keating as Peter Cambell, running around the Sterling Cooper offices. It's not simply the era, or the business like settings but the vibe of the pieces that really made the comparisons evident. Now i can't watch the show without seeing how Don fares as an objectivist icon.”
“I'm about two chapters into this book, and I am absolutely enthralled. The scene describing Roark jumping off the cliff reminds me of the painting "The Wanderer Above the Sea Fog"”
“hmmm. there's something about the way this book ends, like a happily ever after, cape flowing in the wind as the hero beams with pride looking past the horizon... i don't know... the book ends on a happy note that seems too ludicrous to contemplate seriously, after the 3 million pages of reading one just did... anyone else feel that way? ”
“Whether one agrees with Ayn Rand's philosophies or not, there is no question that she was a genius. I can't read a Rand novel without completely re-evaluating my personal ethics. That is not to say that I change my values and adopt those of Rand, but she presents her thoughts in a way that force me to think things through more thoroughly. The Fountainhead, in my opinion, is Rand's best work. Atlas Shrugged is more of the same, but written by an older, more experienced Ayn Rand who seemed to have deliberately dulled her sword a bit in the name of good politics. But The Fountainhead just rams it in!”
