ISBN-10: 0451191153
ISBN-13: 978-0451191151
Publisher: Signet
WHEN DOES HE BUILD THE FOUNTAINHEAD THIS BOOK TITLE IS A COCK TEASE
Okay, so as a visual artist who has been in and out of art school, I’m going to have a lot to say about this one.
Howard Roark is presented as a self-absorbed brat, er, genius. He can divine what you’re thinking but he just doesn’t understand why you have to be like that (because he’s so innocent, in a way). He’s concrete in his will and you will contort, knowing deep down in your heart that he’s right. He makes everyone uncomfortable, but don’t you see?? It’s because he’s the most human of all of us.
Roark just got kicked out of architecture school because he’s too damn ambitious with his designs. But he doesn’t care. That school had nothing to teach him anyways. His complaint is having to do studies of older forms of architecture. He doesn’t want to. Why did he enroll in the program?? There’s a reason why artists are encouraged to carry a sketchbook, and it’s so they can do what they want with it. But if he doesn’t like the learning objectives of a course, why did he sign up for it?? Absolutely obnoxious behavior. Of course, his enemies present broken arguments as well. Instead of what I’ve stated above, they cry about how architecture has to stay the same forever because…idk, Ancient Greeks and Renaissance masters had the superior ideas. New ideas bad!!
He decides to go work for the disgraced architect, Henry Cameron, who is a modernist. There’s not actually anything wrong with this. He should have just taken the courses he deemed necessary and then applied to work for Cameron. But Rand wanted to make her characters as obnoxious as possible.
Peter Keating is juxtaposed against Roark. He graduated! But he doesn’t begin as an enemy. He has a reverence for Roark and asks him for advice. He’s presented as mistaken because he decides to work for a standard architecture firm. He’s obsessed with undermining other people’s positions through pseudo-friendship; that’s the name of the game! But when he finally gets around to the real bare bones of architectural design, he falters and runs off to that genius Roark for advice. He’s still jealous of Roark. He’ll never be as good and honest, and his spirit gets more and more twisted until he finally breaks and becomes a groveling alcoholic.
Dominique Francon. She does things because she hates how fake everyone is. Wouldn’t it be a hoot to go to a social welfare meeting and give a speech about how lazy and irresponsible poor people are? Quirky. She doesn’t like that people can enjoy things because she doesn’t think anyone deserves it. Everyone is fake af and they deserve all the filth that comes to them. She’s also the pinnacle of beauty or some shit; well, she’s a blonde!
When Roark meets Dominique, he rapes her. He shows up uninvited in her bedroom, she tries to fight him off, and he gives her bruises?? And then he just leaves, and she has a mental breakdown in her bathroom that’s described as being pleasurable. Dominique likes pain and was playing a game with Roark the following month. They had looked into each other’s eyes and just KNEW. Dominique can’t speak like a fucking adult and say she wants to have rough sex; no, the proper answer is for Roark to take initiative and hit her up with some rape. She also literally says that he had raped her so…but it was good rape! A man with real insight rapes the woman he wants!!
The Fountainhead takes a noble idea about preserving personal creativity and turns it into something gross. People who believe in doing good for others are presented as the most foul characters (Ellsworth Toohey). Once again, Rand took great lengths to tell us how everyone is fake, and that altruism and self-respect can’t co-exist in a person. She defines altruism as the most religious extreme. “Altruism? Oh, obviously you always deny yourself and only think about helping your fellow man at every moment to the point where you might as well be a robot.” You can’t love yourself genuinely and want praise from others or want to help others for nothing in return. You’re fake as hell; Rand has you figured out!!! Only this time, as opposed to Atlas Shrugged, she does have a point that professional relationships are so often composed of give and take and unfairness. But again, it’s so poorly presented and the characters are so disgusting. There’s another court-room monologue about how America’s conception was great that she felt the need to cram in Atlas Shrugged as well. The Fountainhead is over-dramatic. Every little situation is given ridiculous gravity. Ellsworth Toohey literally gives an evil villain monologue.
+1 Roark and Gail Wynand are totally gay for each other.
++1 MARQUIS DE SADE NAME DROP.
Bonus: Apparently Rand really hates Mickey Mouse because she brings him and Minnie up a few different times in a negative way. Hold your horses, Rand, it’s only 1943, you’re not allowed to have this much contempt for Disney yet!!!
I have the same complaints about the writing here as I did for Atlas Shrugged. Head hopping within even the same paragraph and similes for days.
Conclusion: Read Mario Puzo’s The Last Don instead.
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