A Tribute to The Fountainhead

After a lot of procrastination and resistance against passionate recommendations from friends, I finally bought and now am about to finish reading 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand. I took the title at face value and knew got from various reviews and discussions that the book was about architecture. Then I constructed my own naive judgment and predicted that the book was about designing a house around a fountain. So far and so utterly unrelated to the actual subject matter of the book. 

I have never felt so much awed by the complexity of the book ever since I finished reading the 'War and Peace' by Tolstoy almost one and a half decade ago. So many characters, so many plots, so many scenes, so much happening from a page to the the next but never confusing, boring or out of sequence. The nature must have given parallel brain to these authors, one to live their daily lives and the other to manufacture such amazing works artistic imagination and philosophy. 

I was struck by the sheer amount of detail in Ayn Rand's masterpiece. The characters come to life through vivid description of their personalities, thoughts, philosophies and outlook of life. Once does not imagine the words coming from Ayn Rand but from the character themselves. Almost an entire universe of its own - the characters, the surroundings, the society, the gossips, the events, the ideas and the ideals followed by the people in this universe. 

One should not live life for others. One should live one's own life. If one lives by the ideals of others just to gain prosperity, name and fame, all that shall amount to nothing in the end. The life of a mediocre pauper lived on his own terms is much better than the life of a parasitic aristocrat who lived for the others, on other's ideals and using others creativity for his own personal gain. These are the crux of the philosophy from Ayn Rand in this book and also the bedrock of a radical new outlook of life based on what is known as 'Objectivism' which is attributed to Rand, mainly due to her opinions in this novel and the other monumental work 'Atlas Shrugged'. 

I might be to naive, mediocre and commonplace to fully grasp the Ayn Rand philosophy of objectivism but I can find myself having a spiritual connection with the outlook of life adopted by the protagonist Howard Roark who never compromised his desire to live on his own terms, not on the face of temptations or threats. I wish I could get some of that attitude so that I could live my life on my own terms and avoid having to regret in the end that I did not try to make my life my own. 

A tempting prospect indeed. Ayn Rand has created a masterpiece that can inspire people to be themselves and life life on their own terms for generations. 

Thursday, 17 January 2019