The Foutainhead, a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand, a Russian-born American. This fiction tells the story of the life of an individualistic young architect, Howard Roark.
Ayn, who studied history and philosophy at St. Petersburg University, is very much known for her best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
The book was rejected by twelve publishers before a young editor, Archibald Ogden, at the Bobbs-Merrill Company publishing house wired to the head office, “If this is not the book for you, then I am not the editor for you.”
In October I read The Fountainhead, which is a birthday gift from my good American friend, with so much interest and side-effect. Thanks indeed for this thoughtful gift. It’s one the most fascinating novels I’ve had. I had to stay late almost every night, spare some of my lunch break and my days-off trying to get to the last page. Reading this book a number of questions came to mind: what’s ideal, what’s virtue, or what really makes the world moving? The answers don’t have to be given since it’s not necessary for everyone in every aspect.
Howard Roark, in the final page of the story, stands on the top-roof of Gail Wynand’s skyscraper building to claim his victory after many years of battle in his career as an unpopular architect, as claimed by the entire society. Being so good is not good, many characters believe. But before then the whole world is just against him; he has to go on carrying the weight of the world. He is expelled from the Stanton Institute of Technology architecture school before going to work in New York for a disgraced architect, where he establishes his own firm (Howard Roark, The Architect) and has to stand against highly regarded intellectuals and mass public opinions. Nobody admires his great work, except a few people whom he considers as friends. Recognition of his work is judged by public, which, most of the times, he doesn’t accept to follow their common standard. Thus he has a great deal to fight until the last minute; once he has to cope with failure by going to work as a laborer, which is unusual for people in his position, before he can bounce back. Howard Roark is he who does never surrender; he who does not sell his soul.
Howard Roark is an aspiring architect with a unique, uncompromising creative vision, which contrasts sharply with the staid and uninspired conventions of the architectural establishment. He ignores the driving preoccupations of the world around him: wealth, status, regard amongst his fellow men. Roark takes pleasure in the act of creation, but is constantly opposed by “the hostility of second-hand souls” and those unwilling or afraid to recognize his creative ability.
Gail Wynand is the other character who’s almost as great as Howard. Gail is a powerful newspaper mogul who rose from a destitute childhood in the ghettoes of New York City to control the city’s print media, whom Rand describes as “a man who could have been.”
In 1968, 25 years after her novel published, Ayn Rand wrote the last appeal for the great work:
“The Fountainhead is a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming man’s glory, showing how much is possible.
It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature–and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning–and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls”.
I know nothing about building design or architecture. I learned very little about it when reading the book, and that I learn how to appreciate the work of architect, how new building get erected. You would get nothing if you want to be a great architect by reading this novel. However this book gives you everything if you hope to understand what it means to be an idealist, of how a man should live his life.
Next, “Who is John Galt?”
I’m currently reading Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s novel published in 1957 in the United States.
Hey Tharum, The Fountainhead is a great novel. Have you read the other objectivists of the period?
Dear Tharum,
Thanks for lending me the book. I have to admit that it will take me longer than you expected to finish the book as I am occupied with other more important things after work. But I commit myself to reading it at least 30 minutes before bedtime. I am inspired by the book. I learned something at the first stage of reading: “Stick to what you think is right and make your own decision.”
Sounds good. I’ll have to to put this on my reading list.
[...] Shrugged is the last Ayn Rand’s novel that I’m currently reading, shortly after The Fountainhead. My friend Geoffrey Cain asked me whether I had read Atlas Shrugged when I posted some notes about [...]