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Anyone read the Fountainhead

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#42
I've been a huge fan of F & SF since age 10 and have read all of Ayn Rand's works as a matter of course at one time or another. In my opinion, compared to other classice works in the genre, her books suck. The writing is extremely tedious and her work would benefit rom losing about 2/3 of the content that seems to just take up space.

Incidently, I'm generally sympathetic to the individualist philosphy Rand advocated but I just think she was a terrible author. I also consider the Lord of the Rings novels to be unreadable trash, so that might help explain my dislike for Ayn Rand.
 
#43
I read it, pretty inspiring, as is atlas shrugged. Lots of right wing politicians refer to Ayn Rands philosophy, even though theyre too dense to realIze which character they would really be
 
#44
Sometimes you read something for the ideas and not the writing style ie P K Dick.
I read Fountainhead and Atlas before i knew what good writing was.
What i got from it was who are the gatekeepers in society and how much damage they can do, far worse than the content providers.

/dons flame suit and pointy hat

ps. could've been worse , she could have played with the sex pistols
 
#45
Ironbar said:
Yes, that's one of the messages.



Good point.



Those who haven't read Ayn Rand have no place criticizing her work. Period.

Ayn Rand's body of work is sort of like Monty Python. You either "get" Monthy Python or you don't. There's little to no in between area. Regardless of her personal idiosyncrasy, I consider her body of work to be sort of like Jesus in the Bible in that perhaps the WORDS truly are more than the man.

People who believe in collectivism might as well pack their sh** and move to Russia now. The piano metaphor noted above was not an example of collectivism. Moving a piano up a flight of stairs is an example of cooperation not collectivism. Collectivism would be that the all the people who moved the piano own the piano, not one person.

Now that I'm off the soapbox, in answer to the OP's question, yes I have read The Fountainhead (obviously) as well as Atlas Shrugged. I read it after reading Atlas Shrugged so I knew what I was in for as far as writing style. I absolutely loved the book. I thought Howard Roark was an amazing character who didn't just play by a different set of rules, he created the rules! He railed against the establishment, and made the world a better place for it.

A lot of people who have spouted off about Ayn Rand on this thread have totally missed the point of her writing. It's not about being in it only for yourself and yourself alone. The point of her writing was that we are all uplifted and the world is made better by the UNBRIDLED creative mind of man!
Click to expand...

Thanks for not getting too political.

:rolleyes:
 
#47
Ironbar said:
Yes, that's one of the messages.



Good point.



Those who haven't read Ayn Rand have no place criticizing her work. Period.

Ayn Rand's body of work is sort of like Monty Python. You either "get" Monthy Python or you don't. There's little to no in between area. Regardless of her personal idiosyncrasy, I consider her body of work to be sort of like Jesus in the Bible in that perhaps the WORDS truly are more than the man.

People who believe in collectivism might as well pack their sh** and move to Russia now. The piano metaphor noted above was not an example of collectivism. Moving a piano up a flight of stairs is an example of cooperation not collectivism. Collectivism would be that the all the people who moved the piano own the piano, not one person.

Now that I'm off the soapbox, in answer to the OP's question, yes I have read The Fountainhead (obviously) as well as Atlas Shrugged. I read it after reading Atlas Shrugged so I knew what I was in for as far as writing style. I absolutely loved the book. I thought Howard Roark was an amazing character who didn't just play by a different set of rules, he created the rules! He railed against the establishment, and made the world a better place for it.

A lot of people who have spouted off about Ayn Rand on this thread have totally missed the point of her writing. It's not about being in it only for yourself and yourself alone. The point of her writing was that we are all uplifted and the world is made better by the UNBRIDLED creative mind of man!
Click to expand...

Thanks for making clearer the differences between a "collective" (my piano example) and "collectivism" (your example). I don't think I mentioned either collectivism or my feelings about her writing, other than I hadn't read them and have no interest in doing so at this moment.

I still think "collective" thinking is a good thing. Many of us are part of collectives every day and don't know think about it.

Peace!

NOTE: The above was written not as argumentative. I have no knowledge or edumecation to back me up; I only speak from feeling.
 
#48
It's pretty easy to get into an ad hominem rant against Rand, because, let's face it: she was pretty much a horrible human being and a huge hypocrite. Not only did she collect benefits when she was old and dying of cancer, but she complained about "looters" and "parasites" without the least hint of irony while stealing ideas from much more accomplished philosophers, such as Nietzsche and Locke, without giving them credit.

On a very shallow level, I think her idea of being the best you can be and making your own destiny is a really good and inspiring thing to live by. When given more in-depth analysis, it's easy to see the glaring problems with Rand and Objectivism. She never provided a convincing refutation of Kant. Science is never going to be able to adopt Objectivist principles in place of Kantian principles, because all knowledge is ultimately processed through some form of human interpretation. Not only that, but Objectivist ontology has been pretty well debunked by sociology, anthropology, and even physics. For anyone with at least an informed understanding of sociology or economics, it's tough to read d'Anconia's speech at James Taggart's wedding about the exchange of value, because it's completely wrong in terms of how value is actually socially constructed.

With that said, I wouldn't ever discourage anyone from reading Rand's works. I disagree with her on just about everything and think that Objectivism is Fisher-Price's My First Philosophy, but her writings are important to 20th Century literature. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're good, but they are important.
 
#49
Marial said:
Unbridled selfishness would be more accurate.
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If you read more critically you would realIze that its about not feeling entitled to everything, and being strong and competent. Rand doesn't paint the weaker protagonists negatively because they believe in the strength of the stronger s. Those cast negatively chase money and feel entitled by unearned capital or social hookups
 
#51
Been a while but this is how i remember it: The Fountainhead is like one of those films that is pretty good up until 3/4s of the way through and then it becomes rather mediocre very quickly and ends up being totally unsatisfying at the end, leaving you thinking, "that's it???".

It's like Rush's Power Windows, only the beginning of Fountainhead is nowhere as brilliant and I can listen to those first 5 songs all day but I will never read Fountainhead again.
 
#52
Goatrope said:
I like the concept of "important" not being equal to "good". That affords us more common ground for discussion.
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+1

I think it's important to be able to exchange ideas without necessarily getting into reactionary arguments. It's also important to entertain ideas that aren't necessarily your own. I've read both Nozick (who articulates many of Rand's ideas much better, IME) and Marx, but I'm neither a libertarian nor a communist. For some reason, we seem to believe that if you consider someone else's ideas, that you have to either put up your mental walls or subscribe to those ideas.

To be fair, Rand is often criticized for her writing style, but she does have some moments of true brilliance. The chapter in Atlas where Dagny takes the John Galt line on its maiden run was incredibly well-written. I get that she was always trying to nail that romantic period aesthetic with her writing. I often wonder if not being a native English speaker is why some of her writing often had a very clinical feel to it.
 
#54
Read much of her work back in the day, when I was much younger. I know that objectivism had a great impact on my own philosophy and growth. I also know that part of the attraction to Rand's ideas was, for me, the removal of the grey area, something that many religions also appeal to.

It soon became apparent that while I found merit in some of objectivism's concepts, it wasn't a really workable solution. Human nature is built upon the grey areas.
 
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