The FOUNTAINHEAD

By Ayn Rand

   --Order the book!! (HARDBACK)  --   Order the book!! (PAPERBACK)   -   -Order the AUDIO BOOK TAPES!!   --

As much as I wanted to love this book (I am a huge fan of this author's "Atlas Shrugged"),  I found the first 250 pages pretty difficult to get through.  It was pretty difficult to like any of the characters, even the "good guys". After about 300 pages though, the pace picked up, and the personalities became somewhat more likable.

Howard Roark is an architect who designs buildings according to his own "Muse"  He cares nothing for popular design conventions, be they traditional or "modern".  He builds only for function and to fit the the building site.  He cares not for his client's desires or their money.  He just wants to build good buildings. No one really likes him, but you have to admire his integrity.

Peter Keating is another architect-  He cares only for success. An old classmate of Howard's who will build anything the client wants, but the only halfway decent structures that he builds were originally designed by Roark Peter Keating is not a nice person, nor is he evil  He is just "average". And yet he is the only major character in the book for whom one develops any affection.

Ellsworth Toohey  is a newspaper columnist who shapes public ideas and "ideals" through his writing, lectures and the little "discussion groups  and "artist's associations" he forms".

The book, however would have been worth any number of tedious pages for six superbly conceived and written pages that succinctly explain how our current society is being destroyed.  You can click on the following links to read these pages. A , B , C,  I realize that this is a copyright violation, But what they say is so important that they should be shared with everyone.

THE FOUNTAINHEAD is worth reading, but please read ATLAS SHRUGGED first. It is the more important book, is better written and the characters are either more likable or more despicable.  I really believe that Ayn Rand should be required reading in all high schools-  Unfortunately, most teachers have been infected by the  "Tooheys" of this world, and they would miss the point entirely.

Ayn Rand wrote in the 1930s - 1950s, but her books are more prophetic than the writings of  Jules Verne & George Orwell combined.

   --Order the book!! (HARDBACK)  --   Order the book!! (PAPERBACK)   -   -Order the AUDIO BOOK TAPES!!   --

CLICK HERE to visit the Ayn Rand website You will find some interesting stuff there.