The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Copyright 1943
Pages 720

Synopsis=  The Fountainhead takes place in New York City during the 1920s and 30s. It depicts the struggles of innovative architect Howard Roark and his unswerving devotion to his own thinking and judgment. His autonomous thinking allows him to create and successfully fight for revolutionary designs.  Along the way many people use their influence in one way or another to either make or break Roark while Roark's only devotion is to himself and his own work.

At the beginning of the book we meet Howard Roark as he is being kicked out of school for refusing to do the old outdated work that is expected of it's graduates.  We also meet his nemesis Peter Keating who is a classmate of Roark and the son of Roark's landlord.  Peter is a suck-up who can smile at a persons face while stabbing them in the back, and all he cares about is success, fame, appearances and money, all of which he acquires but not through his own ability.  Eventually Roark gets what he wants- the ability to build the way he wants to, and the girl too.  Many people learn some hard lessons along the way.

Others in this work=
Elsworth Toohey=  The anti-Roark.  He is always trying to control others through manipulation, and this is his only talent.
Dominique Francon= The girl.  She is supposedly the perfect girl for Roark although she spends a lot of the book trying to destroy him because of her own views on life.  She first marries Peter Keating, and then Gail Wynand.
Gail Wynand=  Is the middle point between Roark and Wynand.  He is the owner of The Banner, a newspaper with high circulation and the same paper that both Dominique and Toohey work for (Dominique is ultimately fired for her support of Roark).  Wynand grew up like Roark, but along the way he let the world shape and corrupt him.  Only toward the end does Wynand try to turn his life around but he is not strong enough and gives in.  He is the tragic figure of the novel.

One does not have to subscribe to objectivism in order to get something out of this book.  For those who are not philosophically minded this also makes a strange love story.  The Fountainhead reads at a quick pace despite it's size and the character development is good.

Ayn Rand was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905 and was the oldest of three daughters. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine she decided to make fiction writing her career.

During her high school years, she was eyewitness to both the Kerensky Revolution, which she supported, and—in 1917—the Bolshevik Revolution, which she denounced from the outset. In order to escape the fighting, her family went to the Crimea, where she finished high school. The final Communist victory brought the confiscation of her father's pharmacy and periods of near-starvation. When introduced to American history in her last year of high school, she immediately took America as her model of what a nation of free men could be.

When her family returned from the Crimea, she entered the University of Petrograd to study philosophy and history. Graduating in 1924, she experienced the disintegration of free inquiry and the takeover of the university by communist thugs. Amidst the increasingly gray life, her one great pleasure was Western films and plays. Long an admirer of cinema, she entered the State Institute for Cinema Arts in 1924 to study screenwriting.

In late 1925 she obtained permission to leave Soviet Russia for a visit to relatives in the United States. Although she told Soviet authorities that her visit would be short, she was determined never to return to Russia. She arrived in New York City in February 1926. She spent the next six months with her relatives in Chicago, obtained an extension to her visa, and then left for Hollywood to pursue a career as a screenwriter.

She began writing The Fountainhead in 1935. In the character of the architect Howard Roark, she presented for the first time the kind of hero whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing: the ideal man, man as "he could be and ought to be." The Fountainhead was rejected by twelve publishers but finally accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. When published in 1943, it made history by becoming a best seller through word-of-mouth two years later, and gained for its author lasting recognition as a champion of individualism.

Ayn Rand returned to Hollywood in late 1943 to write the screenplay for The Fountainhead, but wartime restrictions delayed production until 1948. Working part time as a screenwriter for Hal Wallis Productions, she began her major novel, Atlas Shrugged, in 1946. In 1951 she moved back to New York City and devoted herself full time to the completion of Atlas Shrugged.

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was her greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatized her unique philosophy in an intellectual mystery story that integrated ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics and sex. Although she considered herself primarily a fiction writer, she realized that in order to create heroic fictional characters, she had to identify the philosophic principles which make such individuals possible.

List of Ayn Rand works include:

Fiction-

• Night of January 16th (1934) ISBN 0-452-26486-3
• We the Living (1936) ISBN 0-451-18784-9
• Anthem (1938) ISBN 0-451-19113-7
• The Fountainhead (1943) ISBN 0-451-19115-3
• Atlas Shrugged (1957) ISBN 0-451-19114-5

Non-Fiction-

• Night of January 16th (1934) ISBN 0-452-26486-3
• We the Living (1936) ISBN 0-451-18784-9
• Anthem (1938) ISBN 0-451-19113-7
• The Fountainhead (1943) ISBN 0-451-19115-3
• Atlas Shrugged (1957) ISBN 0-451-19114-5

Objectivism=  A philosophy espoused by Ayn Rand which she used as the basis of her books.  Objectivism holds that mankind's goal is to achieve great success and that the individual's self interest trumps that of the collective.

1.  Reality is an objective absolute.
2.  Reason is man's basic means of survival.
3.  Man must exist for his own sake.  Man does not live for others nor make others live for him.  The pursuit of his own self-interest and happiness is his highest moral goal.
4.  Laissez-faire capitalism.