Friday 18 March 2011

'The Fountainhead' a quick review

As a huge Rush fan (more on them another day, lots more...) I've just finished Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'. Neil Peart, Rush's lyrcist and drummer often mentions 'The Fountainhead' and 'Anthem' as major influences on his writing.

Ayn Rand, for those of you who don't know and can't be bothered to google, believed in egotism and the power of one rather than collective efforts (she opposed fascism, communism, well nearly all of the other 'isms' apart from 'egotism').

'The Fountainhead' is the story of 4 main characters; 2 architects; 1 slut and a captalist, media-mogul (think Rupert Murdoch, but 20-30 years younger). The 2 architects are juxtaposed; one, Howard Roark, is brilliant (gifted perhaps) whilst the other, Peter Keating, is also brilliant but a plagiarist. The slut (Dominique, named after her ability to fall like a domino on men) manages to marry all of the main characters simply because she has to. It is impossible to like any of the characters, their actions being almost foretold by fate or legend. Half of the book is spent describing how characters 'did not need to express their desires as they knew what the other was thinking' (not a direct quote but close enough).

At first you find yourself fascinated by the Howard Roark character until you realise he is an unbelievable, fantastic ideal - how Rand would like all men to be I guess. That's at about page 30 with another 700 pages to go.

The main problem with the book is that it didn't start me thinking... aren't you supposed to question your values, beliefs and thoughts when reading so-called profound books? Well, not with this one.

The greatest compliment I can give this book is that I finished it, although towards the end of it, I was losing the will to read on. Oh and there's a movie of this too (not sure how they made an interesting movie of one woman sleeping with three men...)

Recommended if you like long monologues, lots of 'unspoken things', outdated philosophical twaddle and a complete lack of real character development or explanation.

Not recommended to anyone wanting to read a good book.

And I still have 'Anthem' by Ayn Rand to read...

1 comment:

  1. She was a philosopher who also wrote novels. Not a great combination. The german writer Doll is similar, but I still think he should be renamed dull.

    ReplyDelete