Roark’s not above love, at least. He loves his work. He loves his mentor, (I wanna say) Henry Cameron. He loves Gail Wynand. One could argue that he loves Mallory the sculptor and (is it) Mike, the contractor who gets him the quarry job.
Nor is he above pity, as he completely pities Peter Keating and is revolted at the notion that humanity thinks pity is a positive emotion. And he feels things like reverence, for the raw materials of the building trades, and anger, against the people who would drive Mallory to try to pervert his talent by making knick-knack cherub figurines. And he feels the true opposite of love, indifference, for the likes of Toohey.
His love for Mallory and Dominique (and Wynand) seems to be grounded in what they could become and not necessarily what they are. He recognizes the potential in Dominique and the journey she has to make in order to believe herself worthy of him. Regardless of Rand’s protestations, I’m hard-pressed to read their connection as it’s presented as anything other than at least quasi-mystical.
As for the rape, it makes sense within the context of Rand’s twisted little psychodramatic world because Dominique can’t tolerate loving anyone or anything, or even the idea of it. Recall the Greek god statue she chucked down an air vent because she loved it and couldn’t stand the thought of loving it. In order for her to be able to love Roark, he had to take her by brutality. If he was tender with her in a manner that could lead her to love him, she would not have been able to accept him and would have been unable to make the journey she needed to so she could ultimately be with him. It’s no accident IMHO that her name is DOMinique.
None of which makes Rand’s sexual politics any less fucked up, but at least it’s an explanation.
I’ve a strange theory on the rape sceen as well. I was married to a Russian woman in my early 20s, right when I was reading Rand. From what I could gather she was raped by someone in a similar way and fell madly in love with him. This was before we were married but after we had been dating. I think this caused some of our problems. Anyway, when we saw the movie and I asked her what she thought of the rape she basically said, Dominique wanted it.
I thinking it might be a cultural thing. I always wanted to start a thread on Lolita as well because from the few Russian woman I’ve dated a number of them, and their friends, all had sex at a young age with much older men and none of them seemed to have a problem with it at all. So I’m going to put it as some sexual culture.
Not…exactly. They were about crushing mans spirit and harnessing it to ‘societies’ needs. And yeah…I DO think (in a big picture sense) that IS what they are about at their core. We are edging close to debate with this subject though.
Um…are you sure you read the book? Toohey is a man with no real creative talents? He is a man of great talent and intellect…who has harnessed that talent and intellect towards the goals of crushing the individual for the good of society. Don’t you remember when they talked about his early life? He’s practically brilliant, in a Hitleresque type way…especially at mass manipulation.
All this stuff you are talking about here was part of Toohey’s GOALS BG…he was consiously manipulating those ‘completely mediocre’ people for a definite reason, the same reason he wrote subtle pieces attacking any signs of individual brilliance. As for the Temple, I think again you aren’t understanding the deeper meaning Rand is trying to convey here. He’s not jealous of Roarke…he’s threatened by him, and sees the threat of a Roarke in his own desires for power and in the society HE wants.
Because there are people who enjoyed the book quite a bit and would love to see it done right on the big screen…including your’s truely. Although I like John Maces suggestion of a mini-series better.
Just because YOU didn’t like it (and I kind of get the feeling you didn’t take it all in anyway…probably because you DIDN’T like it and didn’t want to go through it several times), doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way BG. Though as I said I liked Atlas Shrugged better of the books she’s written, I would love to see a good screen adapatation to Fountainhead that was true to the spirit of the book. They can leave the wierd sexual rape/submission stuff out, but I’d like to see a lot of the rest put in.
I’ve only seen the movie, which sucked big-time. Cooper *was *miscast.
I have a problem with the premise that architects are (or should be) creative artists. Aren’t they essentially just engineers?
Maybe there’s supposed to be an implied analogy, architect+screenwriter. The only resemblance I see is, to borrow a line from John Boorman, that they both sell their ideas. (Boorman said, “Playwrights only rent their words–screenwriters sell them outright.”)
They would be if all buildings looked the same, or simply used facades from the past. That was kind of the point of the book. In reality one need only look at the different designs of building today to see that there is a large measure of creativity in architecture.
Um, because if you did it right you could make a ton of money…?
Take a poll and ask people what their favorite books are, and this one is always on it. It continues to seel well long after it was published. It’s a great story with all the ingredients of a hit-- sex, violence, jealousy, double-crossing, rich people…
I’d say it’s like LoTR. It has a huge cult following and a potiential for mass appeal. But it’s easy to ruin, and thus piss off the fanboys (as was done the first time).
And you’re take on socialist architecture is way off the mark. And your description of Roark as an emotionless empty shell is also off the mark. Go back and read the early scenes when HR and DF were having their secret affair. Pretty damn steamy stuff. Roark doesn’t care what other people think of his work, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about other people-- ie, the ones he likes.
I’m curious as to whether you called it a “rape” when you asked her about it. Having watched the movie a few times before reading the book I never read that scene as rape. I just re-watched the scene and knowing that it was written as a rape it’s more clear but it’s still ambiguous. HR enters her room, DF runs from him, he cuts her off, she beats on his chest for a bit, he kisses her forcefully and she runs away again, stumbling to the floor outside her room. HR gets a triumphant little look on his face and the scene cuts to HR returning to his room to find Enright’s letter. Two days later DF goes to the quarry looking for him. Absent the explicit statement of rape in the book, I read the scene as she wanted him and gave in to her desires after initial (somewhat token) resistance. Especially given how hot and bothered she got after watching HR drill and drill and drill.
I disagree. Toohey had no real intellect and no creativity. He was, as Rand calls him, a sponge. He absorbed everything and synthesized it, not to be creative but to be destructive of anything better than mediocrity.
I think the film was a product of its time. Making it a rape would have been too controversial.
There’s a different between intellect and creativity. Toohey certainly knew a lot, but he didn’t have the moral fiber (if you will) to be a prime mover. His was an error of choice, not a lack of ability.
Are you sure it’s not an accident? Rand, to be sure, had the education to make a pun on dominus, but she was writing long before the emergence (above-ground, at any rate) of the sexual culture of doms and subs (with that terminology).
Quite true – but he has no creative talents, as Roarke has; Toohey can only manipulate or destroy. And he does not pretend even to himself that he is seeking the “good of society.” All he wants is power – not glory, not adulation, but the power to drag everything down to the mediocre level of the masses. I do not believe any real leftist leader or ideologue in history has ever consciously thought that way.
Read the descriptions of the few things Roarke actually manages to get built – the Temple, the mansion – and then look at some pix of Albert Speer’s Chancellory in Berlin and the Soviet Palaces of Culture, etc., and tell me if you see no resemblance.
He’s not emotionless, but he is an empty shell. His soul is a vast, harsh, sublime modernist edifice with no occupants.
Here’s some interesting trivia about the movie (which I haven’t seen, though I did read the book): Rand & her agent shopped a movie proposal for the book around almost instantly after it’s publication in 1943. It was turned down flat by every Hollywood studio, being deemed too long-winded & cerebral to make a good movie. Along came actress Barbara Stanwycke. Her once-red hot screen career had hit the skids, and she believed that playing Dominique would be the perfect comeback part for her. Stanwycke met with Rand, introduced her to studio heads, and lobbied long & hard to get a production deal for the book. Finally, Warner Bros. optioned rights to the story. Behind Stanwycke’s back, they approached Ayn Rand and said they’d go ahead and make the flick with one provision - Stanwycke had to go (at 41, Stanwycke was considered too old to play a sexpot siren). Rand dropped Stanwycke like a bad habit and never once thanked or acknowledged her very crucial role in getting the film made. By Rand’s account, film studios fought for the rights to the book from the get-go.
I’m not sure how this anecdote could be viewed in the Objectivist view of self-interest, but it certainly smacks me as being extremely ungrateful and spurious.
It doesn’t have to be specifically the dom/sub sexual role playing. I have no idea if Rand intended the pun on domination but if not it’s a hell of a coincidence.
Exactly.
Sure doesn’t seem to stop certain right-wing authors from pretending that this is the logical conclusion to any collectivist thought though. I recall a story I read probably 25 years ago; I wish I could remember the name and author. It was “all men must be equal” taken even further than Rand’s worst nightmare. To make people equal, The State made attractive people wear clown masks, made strong people hang weights on themselves, made smart people wear earpieces that blast random distracting noise and the like. Enter the hero, who had the most hideous clown mask, carried the most weight, got blasted with the loudest noises, who single-handedly overthrows The State live on world-wide television.
Honestly I don’t really remember since it’s been 7-8 years. I think I did ask what she thought of the rape, and she basically said it was, but she wanted it anyway. I only know from my experience Russian women have a different view on sex. Granted this only comes from my ex-wife, one ex-girlfriend and a few other people I knew here and there but they were all very similar. These women didn’t know each other either so I found it interesting that they all had similar sex lives, especially the “rape” type deal and the young teenager having sex with a much much older man.
Toohey was smart, he was a very good manipulator. Though what he really wanted was power, he even says so at one point.
I just re-read The Fountainhead last month, and while I still liked many of the ideas, I can see why people don’t like the writing. I found myself in a number of places wondering how some of those passages were ever written. I thought about re-reading Atlas Shrugged but might not because of the writting.
Vonnegut played with the same idea in Sirens of Titan, but in that book, people choose and embrace their “handicaps” voluntarily, in the spirit of love and brotherhood.
And I see it doesn’t end as I remembered it. And seeing as how Vonnegut identifies as a socialist, my characterization of the story as the product of a right-wing author was, um, a bit off.
Palace of Culture. Nope. That’s just a big box with a bulge on the side.
So, why did he join Mike for a beer after work? Why did he do almost everything he could to convince GW to keep going? Why did he continue to visit Cameron while he was ill? Why did he hang out after work with Steve, Mike and DF while the Temple was being built?
Although I like John Maces suggestion of a mini-series better.
In reality one need only look at the different designs of building today to see that there is a large measure of creativity in architecture.