The Fountainhead

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead was given to me by my older brother a few years ago. I finished reading it this past week. After making it about three hundred pages into it I fell off. It wasn't lack of an interesting story. Some other things got in the way and I have read a few other titles in between. The amazing thing is that I picked up were I left off with the vivid imagery of the characters still prevalent in my mind. The Fountainhead is engrossing and incredibly well constructed. A review of the book does not do it justice, so I will just give a brief note on what I got out of reading it.

The book centers around the profession of architecture. In particular the protagonist is an architect by the name of Howard Roark. Rand goes into great detail with all her character descriptions. Reading each paints a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Simply, put Roark is talented, and uncompromising. He is egotistical, not in the arrogant way we commonly associate to ego, but instead in the fact that he believes in his own process, his work, and his creation. His fight is to work in a world where everything has become the work of the collective. Buildings are graded on their incorporation of historical aspects of architecture, and not on the creativity and efficiency of the work.

This creates a world where anything deemed "good" is just a recreation of the past. No new forms of creativity can truly break through because they don't adhere to what the collective has deemed appropriate. It is the dilemma of the creative process, and why true art can be so hard to create. Truly unique works of art look to cater to no one except the creator. Too often we judge something to be good because someone else has said so. In Roark's eyes this is just being a "second-hander" or a follower of the masses.

The Fountainhead is set in the early Twentieth Century. Rand's anti-socialist sentiments comes through in many parts of the book. I honestly don't know where to stand in terms of collective action versus individual liberty. One thing that I think stands out in my mind is the fact that Roark was the most happy character in the book. His internal confidence came from the fact that he knew what drove him, his creative process, and he did not care about the opinion of others. This is part of Rand's belief in her own philosophy of "objectivism" which prescribes what is known as ethical egoism.

Ethical egoism is essentially the belief that we can act in our own self interest without being amoral. What we often perceive as selfishness can be desirable traits. It is a laissez-faire mentality. Today we can see laissez-faire in harsh tones. Greed, manipulation, and exploitation are things that come to mind. In it's truest form free trade was meant to be transactions between two parties where the rights of both were held in high regard. Roark is a testament to liberty. His works are built at the will of his employer in the manner most befitting. Without his total control of the process the work ceases to be his, and his own integrity is lost.


In summation I would simply see to read this book at some point. If nothing else for the fact that it makes you think a lot about the world around you. How much do we really know? How much of the world around us is spoon fed? What do I like and why do I like it? I'm not saying to be a selfish bastard like the people of Portlandia, just find a balance between your collective and individual selves.