I Have Hurt You Today I ll Do It Again Fountainhead

But finished reading–for the kickoff time–Ayn Rand'south The Fountainhead (1943).

Why hadn't I read information technology back in my formative years? The few times I'd heard the volume mentioned by someone in my college classes, information technology always seemed to be past some seriously weird, loner-type girl. I recall one literature class in particular, in which one of Ayn'southward acolytes annoyingly brought up Rand and her ideas (which were far, far to the right of Barry Goldwater and Attila the Hun) at every possible opportunity. Such fierce devotion pretty much soured me on reading Rand.

I must say that later on finally slogging through Rand's turgid tome (my re-create weighs in at 727 pages), I tin see why I resisted her charms.

The Fountainhead is about as subtle every bit a dial in the face up. About as nuanced as a tractor pull. Characters don't take conversations, they make speeches to each other. Long, interminable speeches. Elmore Leonard, she is not.

I don't know if Rand was a successful card histrion simply I suspect she would take done marvelously at a Vegas poker table since she is a primary at stacking the deck. The novel contains not a moment of subtlety, dash, or balance.

You can instantly tell the (tiny handful) of skillful guys from the bad guys (everyone else in the globe). The skillful guys are angular, sparse, chiseled, steely in demeanor and are so grimly convinced of their rightness that they do not for a 2d heed to anyone else or consider another's betoken of view.  Not exactly people you lot'd desire to accept a beer with.

The bad guys are lumpy, curly-haired, soft, rounded, and are e'er looking in the mirror to meet how they announced to others. "Second-handers" Rand calls them.

If you prize even a modicum of plausible characterization, this is not the book for y'all. The characters might as well exist wearing those little name tags you see at real estate brokers conventions.

Hello, My Proper noun Is _____. I stand for solitary genius and uncompromising individualism.

Hi, My Name Is ______. I represent soulless conformity and the evils of collectivism.

In fact, if non for the spicy sexual practice scenes between Howard Roark, the architect and fiercely uncompromising hero of our sodden tale, and the exotically beautiful Dominique, one of the strangest female characters in all of literature, there would be nothing to recommend this ode to selfishness, rugged individualism, laissez-faire capitalism, and overblown overwriting.

For the dirty little secret well-nigh The Fountainhead is that–despite its tawdry politics and eye-rolling prose style–the only time the book throbs to life (pardon the language, but Rand's bodice-ripping prose can become contagious) is when Roark and Dominique go at it. And when they become at it, I mean they get at it.

The Fountainhead was our grandmothers' Fifty Shades of Gray.

When I quizzed my Baby Boomer contemporaries, I found that virtually none of the men had read The Fountainhead. Some of the women had. When asked what they specifically remembered about the book, inappreciably anyone mentioned its politics or larger themes: but they all seemed to vividly recollect that Howard Roark was a hottie. And the torrid love affair he has with Dominique Francon.

In truth, the novel simply pulses with life in the scenes between Roark and Dominique. In that location's a kind of Fifty Shades of Grayness kinky domination/submission dynamic to their dearest affair. When these two angular, steely characters become together, the sparks really wing.

Pardon me for the long quote coming up, but if I paraphrased this selection yous'd think I was exaggerating or making it all up.

Actually, for a fun thought experiment, try imagining Congressman Paul Ryan or economist Alan Greenspan or any of the Tea Partiers who worship at the altar of Saint Ayn reading the following scene between Dominique and Howard:

She fought similar an animal. Only she made no sound. She did non phone call for help. She heard the echoes of her blows in a gasp of his breath, and she knew it was a gasp of pleasure. She reached for the lamp on the dressing tabular array. He knocked the lamp out of her hand. The crystal burst to pieces in the darkness.

He had thrown her downwardly on the bed and she felt the claret chirapsia in her throat, in her eyes, the hatred, the helpless terror in her claret. She felt the hatred and his hands; his hands moving over her body, the hands that broke granite. She fought in a last convulsion. And so the sudden pain shot upward, through her body, to her throat, and she screamed. And then she lay still.

Information technology was an human action that could be performed in tenderness, as a seal of love, or in contempt, every bit a symbol of humiliation and conquest. It could be the act of a lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did information technology equally an human action of scorn. Not as love, but every bit defilement. And this fabricated her prevarication still  and submit. One gesture of tenderness from him–and she would have remained cold, untouched by the affair washed to her torso. But the human action of a principal taking shameful, cynical possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted. . . .

E'er wonder where the Republican Political party'southward "war on women" comes from? The seeds are right here, baby.

And this most-rape (or true rape, depending on your point of view) isn't an isolated moment in the novel. No.The Fountainheadoverflows with the near ridiculously over-the-top sexual activity and overwrought pillow talk.

Here is Dominique after she has ruined Roark's chances for an important architectural commission:

"I take injure you lot today. I'll do it again. I'll come to yous whenever I accept browbeaten yous–whenever I know that I have hurt y'all–and I'll let yous own me. I desire to be owned, non by a lover, but an adversary who will destroy my victory over him, not with honorable blows, but with the impact of his body on mine. That is what I want of you lot, Roark. That is what I am. You wanted to hear information technology all. You've heard it. What exercise you wish to say now?"

"Have your clothes off."

I hereby nominate Howard Roark and Dominque Francon every bit the Fun Couple of 1943.

So autonomously from the naughty $.25, what else is in that location to recommend about The Fountainhead?

Not much.

For one thing, Howard Roark may be the biggest pill in all of literature. It'south no wonder curvation-conservatives love him to expiry. He cares goose egg most other people: their needs, opinions, lives.

One tin imagine the Tea Political party members of Congress doing the happy dance when they hear Roark say stuff like this:

"I don't work with collectives. I don't consult, I don't co-operate, I don't interact."

Rand relishes telling us how unlikeable Howard Roark is: self-contained, self-righteous, unable and unwilling to compromise, to get along, to see both sides of things. (Sound familiar?)

Here is Roark in a scene with the dean of the architectural school which is simply about to expel him:

The Dean moved in his chair. Roark made him uncomfortable. Roark'south eyes were fixed on him politely. The Dean thought, there'due south nothing incorrect with the way he'south looking at me, in fact it'southward quite correct, most properly circumspect; only, it's every bit if I were not here.

Of course, it's non simply Roark's personal manner that rankles. His ingrained contempt for anything smacking of altruism or the social good is what makes Rand'due south supposed hero one of literature's true monsters.

In his large summation scene near the stop of the novel (Roark has blown upwardly the public housing project he designed and is now on trial), Roark lays it all out. The selfish, the egotists are the true heroes of mankind:

"The commencement correct on earth is the correct of the ego. Man'south first duty is to himself. . . .

Roark goes on to explain why tyrants, emperors, and dictators are "2d-handers" and not true egotists:

"Rulers of men are non egotists. They create aught. They be entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activeness of enslaving. They are as dependent as the ragamuffin, the social worker and the bandit. The class of dependence does not matter."

Note where Roark ranks "social workers" in his social bureaucracy: between beggars and bandits.

Of class, in real life Ayn Rand constitute any effort to provide social services or a safety network for the public tantamount to full-fledged socialism. (I told you she wasn't into dash.)

Throughout her life, she battled whatever programs or policies designed to better the life of the average person. In truth, throughout The Fountainhead runs a deep streak of hatred for common folk–Rand's only regard is for the handful of the chosen: the alone genius, the man apart, the rugged individualist. To hell with the needy, the old, the infirm, the less well-off.

Rand fought the New Bargain molar and nail. She excoriated both Social Security and Medicare (fifty-fifty though, after in life, she personally took advantage of both programs).

Her "greed is good" and "selflessness is the ultimate evil" stance is dear by ultra-conservatives everywhere. I'm sure she would accept been battling on the ramparts with the Ted Cruz'due south of the earth, fighting unto decease the odious idea of universal wellness care. (Hey, wealth has to offering some exclusive privileges, doesn't it? Or else what's the betoken?)

And the environment? Forget about it. Rand has a chillingly anti-Sierra Guild view of the natural world. Here are Dominique and Gail Wynand (multi-millionaire publisher and Dominique'south soon-to-be-husband) on Wynand's yacht:

". . . When I look at the sea, I experience the greatness of man. I think of man'due south magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless infinite. When I expect at mountain peaks, I think of tunnels and dynamite. When I look at the planets, I call back of airplanes."

"Yep. And that particular sense of sacred rapture men say they feel in contemplating nature–I've never received it from nature, only from . . ." She stopped.

"From what?"

"Buildings," she whispered. "Skyscrapers."

"Why  didn't you want to say that?"

"I . . . don't know."

"I would requite the greatest dusk in the world for ane sight of New York's skyline. . . ."

I love that bit about mountains calling to mind, not the wonders of the natural globe, but "tunnels and dynamite." Drill infant, drill.

If you've ever wondered where right-wingers' hatred of the environment and whatever attempts to protect the natural globe comes from: hither it is. The wonderful folks who are set on stripping the EPA of all its legitimacy and funding, who still believe, despite all scientific prove to the contrary, that this whole Climate Change thing is a liberal media-inspired hoax–get their inspiration from Rand's relentless championing of the man-fabricated and artificial at the expense of the natural.

I accept to say I finished The Fountainhead with a sigh of relief: I didn't have to battle with Rand's prose whatsoever longer. Honestly, later on slogging through the book, the merely things that kept me going after awhile were the sex scenes.

And nevertheless, I'm non sorry I read the book. It has its loopy charms.

A character like Ellsworth Toohey (where does she get these names?) is such a cardboard figure that he is incommunicable to take seriously. He practically twirls his give-away melodrama villain mustache when he explains in heed-numbing detail his plans for full global domination and ability. (Recollect Austin Powers' Dr. Evil.):

"Yous're afraid to see where information technology's leading. I'm not. I'll tell you lot. The world of the future. The globe I want. A globe of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will non be his own, but an attempt to judge the thought in the brain of his neighbour . . .

"I desire nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I can exercise to them. Information technology's my only role and satisfaction. I have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the hereafter. Let all alive for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress finish. Let all stagnate. . . ."

Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead: Grim. Humorless. Relentless. Merciless. Absolutely sure of herself and her stance . . . I'll need to take a few months (and have a few stiff drinks) before I can even call back of attacking Atlas Shrugged (which, from what I hear, is even more of a grind-your-teeth slog than The Fountainhead). And almost twice equally long. Oy vey.

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Source: https://erupprecht.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/fifty-shades-of-the-fountainhead/

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