classics

I first read this book in high school. That is the perfect time to read it and fully appreciate it, when you are young and impressionable and looking for something strong to cling to. The force of Ayn Rand's thinly veiled philosophy and one dimensional characters are attractive for their idealism. I thought at the time it was one of the best books I'd ever read.

In college I went to a couple of lectures sponsored by some Ayn Rand influenced group and found their politics appalling. When it came to their lack of concern for people and their entirely un-nuanced capitalism and libertarian agenda I realized the implications of her ideas. Upon re-reading the book I was embarrased by how much I had formerly liked it. The characters were simply personifications of capitalism and socialism. The "love" was hero worship and the sex, rape. I found myself marveling at how black and white Ayn Rand's worldview is and how little it deals with the nuances of the real world. And how little I'd like to live in her world.

Read it when you're young, enjoy it, then look at it again later and see how far you've come. If you are interested in what she has to say, dig deeper. Read Nietzche, read Sartre, read Heidegger. Her "philosophy" is a watered down version of some of the best existentialist minds and much worse for the simplification.

I stayed up late nights to read this book. I turned page after page. There is something Ayn Rand has seen through, something she articulates so roundly, that it relieves a burden I hadn't even realized I'd been carrying. I can put my burden down as I read -- she has seen me. I no longer have to scream at the top of my lungs. I love to read her books.

And there are many, many aspects of human nature which she sees very deeply. Not everyone could have written that rape scene, for example, and gotten it right. She is one of the 20th Century's great authors...... despite the fact that you can mail in a card enclosed in the book and join some save-the-world organization dedicated to her work. I really think they should take out the cards. They only make the right people ignore her and the wrong people read her for the wrong reasons.

And yet the cards reflect the vestiges of an ideologue which still lives in her. She's a Russian turned Jeffersonian. But I still feel the European ideology thing going on. Most Russian immigrants to the US take up capitalism and its freedom of speech in their own way. But I've seen precious few of them who so genuinely understand and embrace the Jefferson in America - and I've known a lot of Russian immigrants. I was married to one. (For that matter, I've met few Americans who get it consciously, but that's another matter.)

The ideologue in Ayn Rand shows up, for example, in her categorical condemation of anything suggesting 'spirituality' or 'God' or whatever. I even ran across an erratum somewhere where she apologizes for using the word 'spiritual' in a fit of passion... of course there's no spiritual, she explains. Of course not. No, no, no, no. But her passions spoke true, and her mind couldn't follow them. For she is essentially spiritual and just in denial about it. It's that she can't rationally fit it in with all the stuff that she does see so clearly with 'spirit' and 'God'. And the reason she can't do that is that she can't think of religion as a private matter between a person and God. Religion for her belongs to a state and a society.

So she puts her head before her heart a little sometimes, and the result is that she lacks the lyrical powers of Emerson, Goethe or Shakespeare. But I'm so happy she lived and worked.

If I had to pick only three books, they would be these: Steinbeck's "East of Eden," McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood," and this one, "The Fountainhead." All three had, and continue to have, a powerful impact on my life. These are not just great books, but novels of "ideas." By far, the most important of these is Rand's book. It was quite a big deal when it first appeared on the scene many decades ago, and still is for those who read it. Pity that after all these years of exposure to it, things haven't changed that much. There are still the sun-slappers and the self-soilers out there who refuse to see humanity for the wonderful thing that it CAN be. If you're looking for food for thought, this is your book.