The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Fountainhead
Book Review: A Fascinating Rommance
Summary: 5 Stars
For me, The Fountainhead is the best book that Ayn Rand wrote. As a Rommance, the fountainhead is way better than Attlas Shrugged. The characters are much better constructed, the story is more interesting and plausible. I'm not saying that I don't like Attlas Shrugged: Actually its a great book too, but in a philosophical sense. Attlas Shrugged exposes Rand's Philosophy in a complete way, and maybe because of that, as a rommance, attlas shrugged is not so good as Fountainhead. Howard Roark is one of the most fantastic characters ever created, as well as Peter Keating, Gail Winnand(perhaps the most intriguing of all, a character which Victor Hugo would have liked)and Ellsworth Toohey. The psicological side of the protagonists are fantastic, and so is the story itself. For my personal taste, the best Rommance ever written is "Le miserables", by Victor Hugo. The Fountainhead is not very far from this. A great Book!Book Review: A 900 page mind-'tuck'
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, the person who originally said this didn't say 'mind-tuck', but for the sake of decency (and I don't want to be scolded by the Amazon censors), 'mind-tuck' will have to do. But I think y'all know what I mean. This book, which I've had in my "Will Someday Read" pile since my junior year of college, has finally been read - 14 years later. And well worth the wait, I may add. It's probably for the best that time has gone by and life experience has accured for I may not have been able to appreciate all the intricacies and intrigues of this novel back when I was 19.
The book is definitely a page turner. Ayn Rand has a superb sense of pacing in drama. If it were written by anyone else, it would have been a pure fluff soap piece. The characters are fleshed out to the point where they seem quite real. Every sentence that comes from a character's mouth is consistent with the groundwork Rand has laid for that character.
Roark, the fiercely independent architect. Who doesn't want to be more like him? How can you beat Roark's reply when asked "What do you think of my work?" Roark's response? "I don't." BURN! Roark is the person you want to be at your high school reunion. The person you want to be when you run into that ex. Unflappable, determined and single minded, never wavering from course.
On the flipside is Peter Keating. A whiny, self-important, wishy-washy fraud of a man. A well-dressed, blubbering mess. A man who wants nothing more in life than to be admired by others.
Dominique, the intelligent femme-fatal, able to get any man she sets her sights on but only wanting the one that gives her the most chase. She mirrors Roarck in her intensity and singlemindedness. A strong woman with incredible faith that things will work out in the end.
The monologues given by some of the key characters were - at least, to me - breathtaking. Roark's vituperative speech about 'second-handers' had me talking back to the book, much in the manner of 'screen talking'. At other times, I had to get up and pace around my apartment. So much happens in this book that it would be impossible to 'summarize' the plot here. I can only describe my reaction to the book.
This novel left me feeling as if I had ended a long term relationship. I didn't want it to end and didn't quite know what to do with the time I had previously reserved for reading the book. I began looking for the Roarks and Keatings in my own life. When faced with a tricky social situation, I asked myself, "What would Roark do?" I found myself re-reading passages and mentioning the book to all who would listen. One good friend of mine decided to take my advice and borrowed my bedraggled and marked up copy to read on his trip to Korea. When he came back from the trip and called, the first thing he said was not about his experiences in Korea, but instead, "Man, that was a 900 page mind-'tuck'!" I couldn't agree more.
Book Review: A Beautiful Mess
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is the "Louie ,Louie" of literature. There are flaws and mistakes but the overall work is compelling. I have read this book 6 times and each time I see more flaws but something always brings me back. The Flaws: first Dominique Francon's motivations are unrealistic and stupid... Which brings me to the second flaw:Ayn Rands view of ...[intercourse]. The whole rape thing is present in both her Big(and I do mean Big) books . Ayn Rand has some ....interesting ideas about... [intercourse]. Lastly Ayn Rands writing style is peculiar. Her metaphors are odd . People dont talk like this and writers dont write like this. Not in the English language. That said this book is hypnotic. Why because ofthe ideas it presents . This book is like A comic book in that you have to suspend dibelief or ignore certain things to read and get to the main pointS :"Collectivism is bad. Individualism is good." "Think and verify for yourself" "Dont compromise your principles for the crowd". Fact is, nobody is saying this stuff in fiction so if you are of libertarian bent ,if you are the weird girl in high school who writes poetry and smokes clove cigarettes and have no boyfriends , this book says its okay . At the time it was written it was totally against the trend of the times and gets credit for existing at all. Honestly You should read this book. "Whoah NO ,Me Gotta Go"Book Review: A Bible
Summary: 5 Stars
also the Koran, the New Testament and the Bhagavad Gita in one bookBook Review: A Bible for the Religion of Objective Positivism
Summary: 3 Stars
It would be very easy to reject this massive work as a simplistic product of yet another humanistic evangelist. The worldview is more black and white than the Koran. Parts of the plotline don't work. The romantic dynamics are silly. And there are other pretty transparent weaknesses (more below). But the truth is that buried in almost a thousand pages, and underneath some laughably cardboard characters, there is an absorbing story here.First off, not all the characters are weak. The protagonist, an unorthodox architect, is a sensible and dedicated hero worthy of respect. His fundamentalist dedication to Reason is strange, and in some ways robotic, but he is a likeable fellow. Be warned: his expressions of the Reasoning Self are disturbing and sometimes criminal and they inevitably place him in conflict with society as a whole. But not to worry, reassures the author, it's all for a good Reason.
Mr. Objectivist is surrounded by some pretty fascinating supporting characters as well. The character problem becomes evident about half way through the book when we recognize that most characters are not so much persons as caracitures of a various ideological perspectives. Their interactions often become predictable and irritatingly pedantic.
This problem is amplified in the climax of the novel, a scene in which our rational hero is confronted in a courtroom by the legal implications of his behavior choices. This scene degenerates into a sophomoric lecture on the moral superiority of rationalism and the human spirit. Which isn't a spirt, it's a consciousness. Except it's a Reasoning Consciousness. With Purpose. And that's what makes it Good. You get the idea.
There are other baffling odddities. The symbol of objective purity is ... architecture and building design. Hmmm. That's a pretty subjective starting point.
Still, I didn't mind the book. It's written at a level for thinking adults, worthy of the priorities of its author. The plot isn't predictable. The key areas of architecture and New York elite culture are treated with humorous sophistication. Perhaps the best thing is that the worldview is not hidden, which allows for some critical evaluation if that's your bent. Just be warned, this isn't light reading and doesn't pretend to be.