The Fountainhead:-
It seems impossibly romantic and thrilling - the thought more than the story, the idea more than the events, the creative talent and heroic fight and the architect designing a house for his beloved and her living in it.
And it is a racy read, too, all of which goes towards explaining its popularity with young.
The principles and the creative philosophy and in fact the creative architecture is all based on a real person and his work - the writer's home was in fact designed by him - the very famous Frank Lloyd Wright, whose autobiography is worth reading; he is as capable of articulating his creative process of thought in words as he is of designing, and one realises Fountainhead is half lifted from his philosophy of architecture while it is based on his persona, his creations, and his heroic struggles.
Another part, about the architect and the woman, is in Forsyte Saga, which predates this one, and is very worth reading - a far superior work of literature, and a better romance too.
There is one area where this book really goes into an impossible part of the story, and one wonders how much of it was the writer's own fantasies projected on the heroine.
Actually there would be two in this case, since this heroine protrays the current unhealthy model of the fashion industry - she is totally thin, and looks like an idealised mask, we are told, without curves. Which is all very well for one writer to fantasise about one female ideal for herself, but this is the model she upholds constantly.
And we are all too familiar with the state of affairs in the world, where young women in rich nations - US leading the way - are dying of diseases like starvation, anorexia and bulimia, all in order to become as thin as the fashion industry would have them believe they need to be for being considered beautiful; while of course most women in poor nations, especially the poor ones, are starving due to other reasons - economy, and a system that denies women food except what is needed to survive.
(If being tanned and thin is so very fashionable why aren't poor women of non-rich nations being paid for being models? Or is the fashion industry after a completely different agenda, war against women, rather than a really sincere if mistaken and unhealthy portrayal of beauty?)
And then there is her second unhealthy fetish, about violence and rape as necessary for a real relationship or even love. In this book she goes into it the worst way possible, as far as fantasy about violence goes. And since the story involving the woman has this as a major part one cannot neglect it either.
One wonders why she had this fetish about rape. Most women fear it on par with death, and contemplate suicide seriously when they have experienced it, and it is not possible this woman ever did experience it - so she is merely mouthing off about it on and on in every book.
Was she taking her lack of identification with any women to the extreme, one wonders, by identifying with men in this respect, and that too the worst of the type who would perpetrate such offences, the worst of fancies of men against women in invading love with physical assault and battery?
Of course her heroines do not experience it in reality, since they not only want it they match the violence themselves - and they survive. But most women don't experience it that way, and most men when they either fantasize or perpetrate it do not turn into the perfect lambs of lovers that her men are, forever after, either.
One does wonder how far the prevalent culture in US was due to the demons she let loose, or was she merely observing and recording, subconsciously influenced and unaware of what she was doing?
Still, this is a good read in many ways even if to develop faculty of discernment, and no reason not to read it once, or more if you like it, to see what it is you like and confront yourself and grow to be better.
Eventually one does grow out of the adolescent mindset that the readership of this needs.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
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Atlas Shrugged:-
This is the best exposure to the philosophy of the writer in a novel form, and it covers more than her other classic, Fountainhead (which borrows heavily from two other sources, the autobiography of Frank Lloyd Wright and Forsyte Saga) but is more popular and a racier read. That one is about one hero, this about many, and a heroine as well.
It does borrow sort of from another writer's well known and great work, but perhaps it was subconscious; at any rate one does not think of Lost Horizon after reading this one, however much one loves that; but when you think later of Lost Horizon it is clear that Atlantis in this one has that quality, it is very much a reflection of Shangri-La; only it is based on a different philosophy, not of conserving knowledge through years of war and peril but of withdrawing men of ability from a world that would share what is "theirs" - and not the world's - to own. Nevertheless the borrowing is clear once one sees it - Ayn Rand's Atlantis or Galt's Gulch or whatever other twenty names she gives it is borrowed from James Hilton's Shangri-La of his Lost Horizon.
The philosophy is good in that it exposes hypocrisy usually uttered but it is not perfect or complete, and the same can be said about the extent of knowledge of the writer - which is ok as long as one does not express prejudices about subjects one is ignorant of.
Ayn Rand has no such qualms, but then it takes a deeper thought capability and wider extent of knowledge, a height of spirit, to see one's own horizons.
It does go a way towards exposing the hypocrisy most creeds live by - that of helping others - and points out that such a creed is generally professed loudly by those who lack competence to make much out of themselves and their own lives and so would impose such creed on others, for laying guilt on them and gaining power over their psyche, all the while being not averse to gain from loss of others themselves.
Largely on the mark, while not being perfect or complete, this writer's thinking - perfect in the context of the knowledge of the writer, but there are areas missing, huge glaring gaps. However, that does not negate what is said in this book, it is good as far as it goes except where it touches in passing on areas largely unexplored but very relevant to life and world.
Strangely enough the topic she shows most unfamiliarity with is the world of women, by which I don't mean that of housekeeping or financial dependence - many upper class women don't do any of it - but simply this. She goes on and on about a man - woman relationship strictly in terms of rape, and while it is not so much in this book - the book is humoungous and the rape was really not rape, she wanted it we are told, still, what she shows is often violence to begin with.
One wonders why she had this fetish about rape. Most women fear it on par with death, and contemplate suicide seriously when they have experienced it, and it is not possible this woman ever did experience it - so she is merely mouthing off about it on and on in every book.
Was she taking her lack of identification with any women to the extreme, one wonders, by identifying with men in this respect, and that too the worst of the type who would perpetrate such offences, the worst of fancies of men against women in invading love with physical assault and battery?
Of course her heroines do not experience it in reality, since they not only want it they match the violence themselves - and they survive. But most women don't experience it that way, and most men when they either fantasize or perpetrate it do not turn into the perfect lambs of lovers that her men are, forever after, either.
One does wonder how far the prevalent culture in US was due to the demons she let loose, or was she merely observing and recording, subconsciously influenced and unaware of what she was doing?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
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