Deb and Kat read "The Fountainhead" 2009 discussion

To discuss tomorrow . . .

Well, it's done. Neither of us felt our lives had been changed, but here's what we took away:

An extremist philosophy, any extremist philosophy, doesn't work. However, in the end, we agreed more with what Roark was saying than with Toohey.

The spirit of anti-collectivism is obvious in the book: workers are honored as individuals, but unions are villanized. Howard is never successful in getting a commission from a board of directors, only from individuals.

We were moved most by Wynand, as the character who tried the hardest and failed.

Howard seems have been born as the perfect human--that's how Rand portrays him. But we don't believe you can become Roark (able to be your own source of inspiration and strength) unless someone helps you learn how to do that. There must be external forces.

We particularly liked Roark's words on Pg 578: "To get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences." We thought that spoke aptly to our knitting projects.

Also, on Pg.680: "MEn have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. but suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make sufering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous."

And: "We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement."

Which we agree with. However, the disconnected emotional state that Howard lives his life and his inability/disinclination to ever do anything with anyone else in mind is counterproductive in the real world. We both agreed that there is a way to hold on to your own moral principals and still give to others.

All in all, this book was too long and had too many peripheral characters (seriously we had to make a character map to keep them straight.) And for such a long narrative, having a protaginist who doesn't change is not engaging enough to make it worth the read.