About this title: Ayn Rand's bestseller tells the story of a staunchly individualist architect (based on Frank Lloyd Wright) who combats the collectivist (i.e., mediocre) impulses of his fellow Americans. The book is both a compulsively readable, steamy novel and an articulation of Rand's views.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: 50th 50th Anniversary Ed. ed.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Book
Date Published: 1952
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very light edge and corner wear. No marks. Couple of light spine creases. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 704 p. Audience: General/trade. A new Afterword by Leonard Peikoff. read more
Edition: 50th 50th Anniversary Ed. ed.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Book
Date Published: 1952
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Good reading copy. Light reading wear present. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 704 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: 50th 50th Anniversary Ed. ed.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Book
Date Published: 1952
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very light edge and corner wear. No marks. Tight binding. Tanning pages. Light corner crease on front cover. No spine creases. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 704 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: 1st Signet PB 1952, Afterword 1993; 48th Signet print.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Book
Date Published: 1993
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Spine creasing. Edge soiling and discoloration. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 704 p. Audience: General/trade. Center card re: OBJECTIVISM office. Rand's blockbuster fiction work about an unconventional, independent, and violently stubborn architect who has an explosive love affair with the woman who wants to destroy him. A fiction published first in 1943, its theme was known as "Objectivism", a ground-breaking philosophy. Her literary executor, ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Signet
Date Published: 1952-04-01
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Good. Excellent customer service. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability. Satisfaction guaranteed! ! read more
Edition: 48th
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Signet, Bergenfield, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Very Good + 50th anniversary edition. Small piece of corner of back cover clipped off. Light reading crease on spine, otherwise in very nice condition. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Signet
Date Published: 1952-04-01
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Good. Excellent customer service. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability. Satisfaction guaranteed! ! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Signet, Bergenfield, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780451175120ISBN:0451175123
Description: Paperback: soft cover edition in good or better condition, some slight wear to edges, as normal for age of book. Excellent read. A good book to enjoy and keep on hand. Or would make a great gift for the fan / reader in your life. read more
Description: Ships SAME or NEXT business day. We Ship to APO/FPO addr. Choose EXPEDITED shipping, receive in 2-5 business days. See our member profile for customer support contact info. We have an easy return policy. read more
Description: Ships SAME or NEXT business day. We Ship to APO/FPO addr. Choose EXPEDITED shipping, receive in 2-5 business days. See our member profile for customer support contact info. We have an easy return policy. read more
Description: Ships SAME or NEXT business day. We Ship to APO/FPO addr. Choose EXPEDITED shipping, receive in 2-5 business days. See our member profile for customer support contact info. We have an easy return policy. read more
"A book that was difficult to read. From the first pages I disliked all the characters. The supposedly kind characters are portrayed as pushovers and wimps, so equally unfavorable. Rand tries to make you believe that the hero of her story is to be admired. The more characters were introduced the more unlikable and extreme Rand's Objectivism shines through like a dark light. What an obnoxious world she is revering in this story. That is perhaps too unkind. (not that any of Rand's fans would care) I realize I'm not able to understand complete solitude and total disregard for relationships and the importance of community and 'feelings' that connect people together."
"This book is easily described as garbage. Poorly imagined, poorly conceived and poorly written it is only exceptional in the lengths it will go to justify the morally, ethically and socially reprehensible behavior of the central character who's vaunted genius amounts in the end to nothing more than being a willful disobedient ass. He is neither original or exceptional, he is simply an ass, and is treated as an object of admiration for it. A thoroughly disgusting piece of writing."
"I recall that most people read Ayn Rand in high school, which is the ideal time to embrace protagonists who refuse to compromise their originality and are assaulted on all sides for their greatness. Having skipped several grades in public school I missed some of these formative books so I'm reading them as an adult. More than 50 years have passed in architecture, capitalism, and the glorification of the mediocre, since Rand wrote The Fountainhead, which is why its philosophies are more suited for the high school mind than the adult reader. Her characters aren't human, they are symbols to illustrate her early philosophy. Howard Roarke, her hero and übermensch, is a man who cannot exist in real life. He is perfect, and his enemies try and destroy him because he is perfect. What we know of 50 years of capitalism and architecture is that style means nothing, whether modern, classic, brutalist, original, or stolen. Buildings are erected by faceless corporations, or by eccentric wealthy. There is enough room and real estate for both the Keatings and the Roarkes, and the Ellsworth Twoheys of the world don't mean a thing. Sad, really, because Twohey is a villain truly worth hating - the blowhard intellectual ass who seeks to destroy originality by elevating the mediocre and placing the good of others above the good of self so he may rule the plebes. Rand's notion that altruism is basically evil communism (embodied in Twohey) is amusing, because her model of success relies on everyone being rich (or having rich benefactors). My goodness - if only everyone were rich we'd all be happy! It's no wonder than Alan Greenspan was all crushed out on the woman. I'll admit at times I wished that Twohey would meet a horrible end - to have his hands cut off, his tongue cut out, so he would be forced to witness Roarke's triumphs and be powerless to do anything but watch without comment. But Rand's novel isn't plotted that way - nothing really happens other than ideas battling one another. There are no consequences to anyone's actions. And it is for that reason that The Fountainhead reads more like a television show; characters that do not change, who occupy the same sets, encircling one another and talking about themselves. That's what makes it a mediocre novel - Rand's place in history is now better suited to television - and I'm talking Oxygen, Lifetime, or Hallmark channel."
"The Fountainhead is a tale of both defeat and triumph. It is depressing and exalting, inviting and repugnant. And its philosophy, like all great lies, is more than three-quarters true.
In this lengthy novel, Ayn Rand presents her ideal man and her philosophy of objectivism. The philosophy rejects mercy, altruism, charity, sacrifice, and service. These proclaimed virtues are portrayed as either weaknesses or as tools of subjugation. Her philosophy is a sort of extreme capitalism applied to every aspect of life; as with Adam Smith's invisible hand, if men pursue their own selfish interests, mankind will ultimately benefit. Altruism, Rand argues, forces men to keep others subservient, so that they may make themselves righteous; it has been the root of the greatest evils in the world (Communism, Nazism, etc.); but egoism has resulted in creations with have alleviate the sufferings of man for generations to come.
Her philosophy is most succinctly expressed by her architect hero Howard Roark, who says, "All that which proceeds form man's independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil." Rand's philosophy stands in stark contrast to the collectivism which was then sweeping the world in an ocean of blood. Collectivism "has reached," says Roark, "a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country."
Roark aruges that "only by living for himself" can man "achieve the things which are the glory of mankind" and that "no man can live for another . . . The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves." And yet Roark is himself the quintessential intellectual, who shares the same failing of the intellectuals who created Communism, Nazism, and the other "altruistic evils"; that is, he is capable of loving man in the abstract but incapable of loving him in the particular: "One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name."
The Fountainhead expresses an individualism that is uniquely American, and it is therefore surprising that The Fountainhead, as far as I know, has never been in the running for the title of "The Great American Novel." Of course, although it emphasizes that individualism has made our nation great (and it has), it must of necessity ignore and dismisses another progressive force in our nation's history: American Christianity.
So what about the story? Despite the copious philosophical dialogue, the story is not sacrificed to create an ethical treatise. The characters are fascinating, very well-developed, and the story is at times gripping. However, the relationship between our hero and heroine is never fully convincing to me, and I find it highly disturbing that Rand felt it necessary to make rape an essential and even positive element of their union. The story drew me in at first, and then began to lose me for several chapters, as Rand breaks one of the rules of good structure and does not begin developing a main character until over half way through the novel.
I give it such a high rating because I like novels that truly make me think and reconsider my assumptions, whether I maintain or reject them as a consquence. I am glad I did not read Rand when I was a teenager and not yet a Christian, as I'm afraid her Objectivism might have taken a cultish hold of me; she has a way of speaking to (and perhaps luring?) the independent-minded student who feels the pressure of intellectual conformity. I give it four stars also because I read it at a time when I found fiction difficult, and it brought back my love of reading."
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