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Ayn Rand THE FOUNTAINHEAD 25th Anniversary Ed. Bobbs-Merrill 1983 44th Printing
This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1983
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May 28, 2024
AYN RAND'S EARLIER "PATHBREAKING" NOVEL
In lieu of a traditional ‘book review,’ let me simply give an idea of some of what is contained within this enormous and powerful book:
Howard Roark says to his former classmate, Peter Keating: “If you want my advice, Peter… you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?” (Pg. 25)
The novel’s heroine Dominique Francon explains, “Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit. He saw man as strong, proud, clean, wise and fearless. He saw man as a heroic being. And he built a temple to that. A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation. He thought that exultation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth and achieving it, of living up to one’s highest possibility, of knowing ho shame and having no cause for shame, of being able to stand naked in full sunlight. He thought that exaltation means joy and that joy is man’s birthright. He thought that a place built as a setting for man is a sacred place.” (Pg. 347-348)
Roark says to Dominique, “I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air… I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to bel loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whose existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself---and so you would not love me long. To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why I won’t stop you. I’ll let you go to your husband. I don’t know how I’ll live through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the battle you’ve chosen. A battle is never selfless… You must learn not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom. I must let you learn it. I can’t help you. You must find your own way. When you have, you’ll come back to me. They won’t destroy me, Dominique. They won’t destroy you. You’ll win, because you have chosen the hardest way of fighting for your freedom from the world. I’ll wait for you.” (Pg. 369)
Roark explains to newspaper mogul Gail Wynand, “What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word---‘Yes.’ The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance. And ‘Yes’ is more than an answer to one thing, it’s kind of ‘Amen’ to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the thought that created it, to yourself for being able to see it. But the ability to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is the essence of all ownership. It’s your ownership of your own ego. Your soul, if you wish. Your soul has a single basic function—the act of valuing… You can’t say ‘Yes’ without saying ‘I.’ There’s no affirmation without the one who affirms. In this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours.” (Pg. 532)
Roark says to Keating, “I’ve been working on the problem of low-rent housing for years. I never thought of the potentialities of our modern world… I worked because it was a problem I wanted to solve… what made me give years to this work. Money? Fame? Charity? Altruism?..... don’t let’s talk about the poor people in the slums. They have nothing to do with it… You see, I’m never concerned with my clients, only with their architectural requirements… Bricks and steel are not my motive. Neither are the clients. Both are only the means of my work… to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.” (Pg. 570-571)
He says to Wynand, “isn’t that the act of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self… The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own… The man whose sole aim is to make money. Now I don’t see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end… In the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought---they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others… We haven’t even got a word for the quality I mean---for the self-sufficiency of man’s spirit. It’s difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted… I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men… If one doesn’t respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.” (Pg. 598-601)
And of course, Roark’s climactic courtroom speech: “The mind is an attribute of an individual. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts… The primary act---the process of reason---must be performed by each man alone… Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self. No man can live for others… The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He… makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption… Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution… Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense… The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence…
“The egotist … is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner… In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone… No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought… Rulers of man are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others… Now, in our age, collectivism… has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth… It is engulfing our country… It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home… I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy… I am a man who does not exist for others. It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor… I recognize no obligation toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no active part in a slave society… My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer…” (Pg. 672-678)
This book is more effective as “literature” than her masterwork ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ and will appeal to a much broader audience than simply Objectivists.
In lieu of a traditional ‘book review,’ let me simply give an idea of some of what is contained within this enormous and powerful book:
Howard Roark says to his former classmate, Peter Keating: “If you want my advice, Peter… you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?” (Pg. 25)
The novel’s heroine Dominique Francon explains, “Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit. He saw man as strong, proud, clean, wise and fearless. He saw man as a heroic being. And he built a temple to that. A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation. He thought that exultation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth and achieving it, of living up to one’s highest possibility, of knowing ho shame and having no cause for shame, of being able to stand naked in full sunlight. He thought that exaltation means joy and that joy is man’s birthright. He thought that a place built as a setting for man is a sacred place.” (Pg. 347-348)
Roark says to Dominique, “I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air… I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to bel loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whose existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself---and so you would not love me long. To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why I won’t stop you. I’ll let you go to your husband. I don’t know how I’ll live through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the battle you’ve chosen. A battle is never selfless… You must learn not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom. I must let you learn it. I can’t help you. You must find your own way. When you have, you’ll come back to me. They won’t destroy me, Dominique. They won’t destroy you. You’ll win, because you have chosen the hardest way of fighting for your freedom from the world. I’ll wait for you.” (Pg. 369)
Roark explains to newspaper mogul Gail Wynand, “What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word---‘Yes.’ The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance. And ‘Yes’ is more than an answer to one thing, it’s kind of ‘Amen’ to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the thought that created it, to yourself for being able to see it. But the ability to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is the essence of all ownership. It’s your ownership of your own ego. Your soul, if you wish. Your soul has a single basic function—the act of valuing… You can’t say ‘Yes’ without saying ‘I.’ There’s no affirmation without the one who affirms. In this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours.” (Pg. 532)
Roark says to Keating, “I’ve been working on the problem of low-rent housing for years. I never thought of the potentialities of our modern world… I worked because it was a problem I wanted to solve… what made me give years to this work. Money? Fame? Charity? Altruism?..... don’t let’s talk about the poor people in the slums. They have nothing to do with it… You see, I’m never concerned with my clients, only with their architectural requirements… Bricks and steel are not my motive. Neither are the clients. Both are only the means of my work… to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.” (Pg. 570-571)
He says to Wynand, “isn’t that the act of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self… The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own… The man whose sole aim is to make money. Now I don’t see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end… In the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought---they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others… We haven’t even got a word for the quality I mean---for the self-sufficiency of man’s spirit. It’s difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted… I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men… If one doesn’t respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.” (Pg. 598-601)
And of course, Roark’s climactic courtroom speech: “The mind is an attribute of an individual. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts… The primary act---the process of reason---must be performed by each man alone… Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self. No man can live for others… The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He… makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption… Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution… Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense… The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence…
“The egotist … is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner… In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone… No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought… Rulers of man are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others… Now, in our age, collectivism… has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth… It is engulfing our country… It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home… I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy… I am a man who does not exist for others. It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor… I recognize no obligation toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no active part in a slave society… My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer…” (Pg. 672-678)
This book is more effective as “literature” than her masterwork ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ and will appeal to a much broader audience than simply Objectivists.
Displaying 1 of 1 review