Books in '16 | The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book I started reading straight after a friend's - a political science student - recommendation. The philosophy of 'Objectivism', that’s what the author is famous for, my friend told me, and the book celebrates that. I took this book to challenge myself as I felt that I was restricted to only limited genre. I didn't google the word 'Objectivism'. That would have been the easy way out. Instead I started on a self-appointed quest hoping to reach the finality of it.

 
   After reading the first page itself I knew I was going to like this book. Maybe, because as it turned out the protagonist was the same age as I. Therefore, I could empathize more with him. Not that I have the caliber to be studying in Stanton Institute of Technology. It's the way Roark is, his attitude of not following the usual order but creating one of his own. Not only that he has his own ideology but also he never feels inclined to convince others to agree with him. He's perfectly okay even if people don't get him. He's neither motivated with feelings of earning money and fame nor does he believe in altruism and charity. For an aspiring architect that Roark is, bricks and steel are only the means and so are his client to fulfill his only concern: to build, and to build it right.

   Then there's Keating, the ambitious one. He respects Roark but doesn't consider his way as practical. Keating works his best to be in the good graces of his Boss, all the time working his way to the top. What others thought of him was his prime concern. He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn't want to build, but to be admired as a builder.

   Reading on, I was overwhelmed by the complexity of this book. Every character is so intricately carved; you get the idea but at the same time it's bewildering, too. All the characters have a definite way of functioning which is impervious to other's ideology. They may love the other person all the while hating the fact that they do. So much conflict!!

   'In essence, freedom and compulsions are one.' Though this contradicts the general view one might concur to this with a pensive thinking. Sometimes, too much choice in the matter brings about more distress than the original case when there was hardly any choice. People are torn apart, deciding between the choices, propelled by the human instinct of seeking out the best that we hardly have time to savor the outcomes of the choices that we made.

   'I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.' 

This is Roark's mind in contrast to the prevalent situation of the world where people's goals, dreams and ambitions are motivated by other men. People want something not because they do really want it, but to make their neighbors gape at them. While people ask, 'Is this true?’ what they really mean is, 'is this what others think is true?’ Try imagining a world where everyone is trying to live out their lives according to the desires of his neighbor who in turn has no desire of his own but that of the next neighbor - it goes on like that. There, everyone will be a slave to everyone else; a world with universal slavery but no master.

   In this battle of Individualism and Collectivism, Ellsworth Toohey serves the villain. Through his words, the author attacked the people who talk of sacrifice, self-denial, about giving up everything from cigarettes to sex to ambitions in the name of a Divine purpose, paradise or moksha. Those who term anything humans enjoy as sinful by tying our happiness to a feeling of guilt. There might not seem a clear purpose behind all this but there is. Those people acquire their true power by giving up everything but in the process leaving people unsatisfied with their lives. Because what those people set is an ideal goal, it can't be achieved in real life. And while they keep saying to have governed up everything themselves they become powerful by collecting sacrificial offering from others. That's how they become powerful, in the real sense. There are more ways than one to skin a cat. The skinning isn't important once you've broken its spine.

   It’s a tough fight for Roark to survive in the world of Collectivism, whereas an architect, he is expected to create his designs the same old day. His creativity is repeatedly smothered by the majority but that doesn’t seem enough to shake his morale and morality. Standing by his side is his lover Dominique who admires him but also seeks to destroy him because in spite of her admiration her pessimism doesn’t see Roark succeeding in his ways. She wants to wear Roark down before the world tears him apart for what he is.

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