This is Arvind Swarup speaking

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are two books, especially the former, that have gained the status of Modern Classics. The thoughts expressed below are, well, my general thoughts on the two most popular works of Ayn Rand.

After I finished reading The Fountainhead, the character that impressed me the most was Gail Wynand, the next being the iconoclast Ellsworth Toohey. I found the final monologue, if monologue is the word I am looking for, of Toohey to Peter Keating and the defense of Roark(for those who have not read the book, Howard Roark happens to be the Hero of The Fountainhead) in the climax the most impressive parts of the book. It is definitely a book that is a must read for any bibliophile worth his salt. In fact, each of the characters sketched out by the writer in Fountain Head have something definite and unique. In stark contrast to this, Atlas Shrugged has most of the characters, the Heroes of the book, very similar to one another and after the point to be put across is put across, the theme repeats itself again and again and the writer tends to get excessively didactic. I must, at this point, confess that the 90-odd page radio speech by John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged, took a lot out of me, leaving me practically a spent force by the time I finished the Chapter ’’This is John Galt speaking’’. The sheer size of the book Atlas Shrugged is very intimidating. Anyway, I managed to read that, spreading it over a period of nearly four months.

Ayn Rand happens to be one of the most compelling and influential writers I have ever read. Though it is highly difficult to rise up to the standards set in her philosophies they definitely influence the reader immensely. The philosophy she professes though hard to live up to and emulate definitely sets standards to the way an ideal man has to live. I do not presently remember, but a writer or critic once pointed out that after reading The Fountainhead, one would feel that the rest of the writers through the generations have written their works while sitting on the potty or something to that effect. Though I would say that saying so is going a bit too far, it definitely gives an idea as to how powerful Ayn Rand’s writings are.

Delving for a while on the cover illustration of The Fountainhead, I have this little theory of mine that it shows the picture of the Titan Prometheus from Greek Mythology, stealing fire from Gods, which, as the legend goes, he gifts to mankind and for doing so Zeus punishes him by chaining him to a rock and leaving eagles (another version says it is vultures) to gnaw at him. The illustration in a way, I think, encompasses, or is symbolizes the word I really am looking for, the idea of the Creator, the first to go on an un-laid path only to get pilloried, inviting the world to point the finger of disdain and scorn, the idea Roark so convincingly presents in his defense.

In Ayn Rand’s own words, the philosophy of objectivism sums up to this:
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." In a nutshell, one sees the Earth in the eyes of Ayn Rand as a place where there is no room for those wallowing in mediocrity. Well, that, if you practically look at, sends most of us packing to the outer space with a copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; but then, that is neither here nor there. The nearest antonym to ego, according to her, is altruism. Her theories severely pan the concept of Collectivism and glorify Individualism and the Virtue of Selfishness. In this context, it doesn’t need a rocket scientist to understand her views on Soviet Communism vis-a-vis American Capitalism. It would be of interest to psychologists to know that the writer was a Russian immigrant to the  United States.

The Ayn Rand Stereotype:
Ever observed? Ayn Rand definitely did not see eye-to-eye with Shakespeare on the subject of fat men. All her heroes have to possess lean frames with athletic builds and angular faces (Hank Rearden, Francisco d’Anconia, John Galt, Howard Roark). All the bad guys should be fat with flabby masses of flesh falling off their bodies (Peter Keating, James Taggart, Ellsworth Toohey et. al.). All her heroines (Dagny Taggart, Dominque Francon) have to invariably sleep with all her heroes. Of course, in pointing out the last observation, i don’t mean to say that Dagny Taggart from Atlas shrugged goes out all the way to sleep with Howard Roark who appears in The Fountainhead.