The Fountainhead

For the review:The ability to read this book across devices is invaluable! I can read this book on my kindle, on my iPhone while waiting in line, on the PC on my desktop, and even listen to the audible version while I stand on a crowded subway. The WhisperSync feature is nearly perfect and the only glitch that occurs is when there is no coverage in the subway. This is a very enjoyable way to read books and the transition between reading and listening is so seamless that it begins to feel very natural. You can read a long book like this much more quickly this way.The novel is one of ideas, ways of looking at life, and a story of characters who live those ideals.Quotes:First, from the introduction:"This is the motive and purpose of my writing: the projection of an ideal man.""IT is a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one's life is important, that great achievements are within one's capacity, and that great things lie ahead.""The Fountainhead's lasting appeal: it 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. The rest are no concern of mine, it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls."First sentence:"Howard Roark laughed.""My dear follow, who will let you?" "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"Roark:"I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards - and I set my own standards.""I don't propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me.""You've made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know? How can you let others decide for you?""One can't collaborate on one's own job. I can co-operate, with the workers who erect my buildings. But I can't help them to lay bricks and they can't help me to design the house.""I don't believe in government housing. I don't want to hear anything about its noble purposes. I don’t think they're noble.""The only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself. My work done my way.""When you suspend your faculty of independent judgement, you suspend consciousness.""Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing."On Dominique Francon and her first relations with Roark:"the sensation of a defiling pleasure.""the exaggerated fragility of her body against the sky.""He stood looking up at her; it was not a glance, but an act of ownership.""She thought of being broken- not by a man she admired, but by a man she loathed. She let her head fall down on her arm; the thought left her weak with pleasure.""He did it not as love, but as defilement. And this made her lie still and submit.""The act of a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted.""She had found joy in her revulsion, in her terror and his strength. That was the degradation she had wanted.""Through the fierce sense of humiliation, the words gave her the same kind of pleasure she had felt in his arms.""when they were in bed together it was - as it had to be, as the nature of the act demanded - an act of violence. It was surrender mad the more complete by the force of their resistance."She even wrote: "Howard Roark is the Marquis de Sade of Architecture.""He defeated her by admitting her power.""She felt no thrill of conquest; she felt herself owned more than ever."Roark's apartment:"His new home was one large room in a small, modern apartment house on a quiet street. His room contained a few pieces of simple furniture; it looked clean, vast and empty; one expected to hear echoes from its corners."Roark's office:"His staff loved him. They did not realize it and would have been shocked to apply such a term as love to their cold, unapproachable, inhuman boss. But working with him, they knew that he was none of these things, but they could not explain, neither what he was nor what they felt for him.""He responded only to the essence of a man: to his creative capacity. In this office one had to be competent. But if a man worked well, he needed nothing else to win his employer's benevolence: it was granted, not as a gift, but as a debt. It was granted, not as affection, but as recognition. It bred an immense feeling of self-respect within every man in that office.""They knew only, in a dim way, that it was not loyalty to him, but to the best within themselves."Ellsworth Toohey:"Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight with the unreasonable?""To write a good play and to have it praised is nothing. Anybody with talent can do that- and talent is a glandular accident. But to write a piece of crap and have it praised - will, you can't match that."Gail Wynand:"The man humbled his own wealth.""When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man.""I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.""The sky over New York and the will of man, made visible. What other religion do we need? Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel.""I never meet the men whose work I love. The work means too much to me. I don’t want the men to spoil it. They usually do. They're an anticlimax to their own talent.""Anger made me work harder.""The walls of Wynand's office were made of cork and copper paneling and had never borne any pictures."

Whether you agree with the ideas Rand presents or think she is one with the devil, "The Fountainhead" is a powerful and moving book that I highly recommend. Although it is long, it is very tightly written. There are no unnecessary scenes, no irrelevant characters and no ad nauseum descriptions of sunsets and waterfalls.There are several reasons I love this book, none having to do with the controversial philosophies of the author. The first is the amazing characterization. There were several people in the book that could have been drawn directly from people in my life: the social worker who works more out of self-righteousness than pure altruism, the over-blown academic who can read meaning and symbolism in tripe, the professional who cares more about where his work takes him than the quality of the work itself. Rand doesn't draw these as flat characters. Instead we actually see their flaws and motivations in all their beauty and terror.I also love the idealism of Roark. Several previous reviews have termed him "egotistical" with a "superiority complex", but that isn't how I see him at all. Would a professional who meets those descriptions lower himself to working as a common laborer at a quarry? Roark doesn't care if his work is good or not, let alone that it is superior. All that matters is that it pleases him. He might work a menial job, but he wouldn't debase himself to produce anything but the kind of art that pleases him, whatever anyone else says about its quality.The insight of the book into the power of the press and the country's growing socialization is another drawing point. I crack up whenever I read the Banner's editorial on parenthood in modern times. It describes how parents need to be just as loving toward and concerned about other children as they are of their own. It reads remarkably like Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village". In an age where talentless performers are at the top of the chart because of the right buzz, I can understand the idea that he who controls the media, controls the tastes of the masses.A common criticism of "The Fountainhead" is the rape of Dominique by the hero. Like so much of the book, it is not something that can be understood if you only view it in a vacuum. Roark and Dominique have an almost transcendental bond. Throughout the book they start in the middle of conversations and understand each other as if they were one. Their violent first sexual encounter is not indicative of Roark's character or of their relationship.There are some simplistic parts of the book: all capitalists are good, all socialists are bad, wanting to help people and do good is described as an excuse, not a noble motive. Still, there is so much good in this beautiful book that I consider it one that everyone should read.

Book grabbed me from the outset and found myself unable to put it down. Fascinating for its ideas about self determination and great if you are becoming interested in architecture--as I am. Thought the heroine Dominique made choices about her love life that made no sense. I suppose those choices served the plot but they were counterintuitive throughout. Also Toohey and Wynard were clear in their motivations I suppose, but they ultimately were somehow on the polarities of unexplained and two dimensional. Rourk is what keeps you in the book from the get-go. His frankness and the economy of his profundity is addictive and you want more and more of it. But early on Rand leaves him for large swaths of the book for Keating, who at the end of the day, doesn't amount to so much. At first we almost think it's the story of the two of them. Anyhoo great read and highly recommend it. Rand is a great, gifted writer.

Very good read. The ending builds to both an expected finish but also a somber reminder that there are those people who will not change.

Originally bought it because it was featured in the classic movie "Dirty Dancing" I had no idea what I was getting into but I'm glad I did! Highly recommend if you haven't read any of her stuff before!

El libro no es de fácil lectura, algunos personajes son complicados, pero este antagonismos lo que le da esencia al libro y la profundidad de los diálogos y monólogos de y entre los personajes llevan al lector a comprender la filosofía del Individualismo y su valor Vs su antagónico Colectivismo

Sollte jeder Mal gelesen haben. Sehr gutes Buch. Sehr lehrreich, sehr gute Autorin.

Monumental book. Huge characters.

The story portraying a Man how a Man should be.. In the form of a creative thinker and an innovator, self joyous, independent from the second hand opinions and desires, self sustained and free of all kinds of second hand suffering..The protagonist is a individual architect who designs a building with all his spirit, unaltered by second hand opinions and thought process.. A man who knows only to give the best of himself to the cause he is best at.. To not surrender to the world in manner of winning hearts of the mob, but to keep his soul out for the cause.. For the cause of betterment of mankind and its progree forward..He is best at what he does..The world opposes him just as it opposed all the innovators through ages.. Wheel, Sun, Fire, and so on... All the first hand thinkers are made to suffer by this world...People make him suffer.. but the Man is beyond all the suffering the world can impart on him.. He knows the best what to expect from this majorly unworthy world..He sticks around till the end with his selfless integrity and soul..And he wins just as such person should win through time.. He is not dependent on any other man for his joy or other's acknowledgement.. Just keeps on doing what is best for the Mankind.. Just what a Man should be..Other few like minded people stick along his crusade.. Giving meaning to their own lives..The Man wins just as a Man with such callibre and attitude towrds Life should..Wonderful story with a wonderful philosophy.. Must read..