The Fountainhead (1943) by Ayn Rand
I may not agree with Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy in the sense that it positions man as his own god, but I admire its encouragement of the individual to actualize the greatest extent of their potential. And to do so with uncompromising integrity - a trait wholly personified by The Fountainhead’s Howard Roark.
Roark is an architect with the innate skill to design buildings which seem to exist, not as extensions of nature, but as a self-evident culmination of nature’s beauty. Roark - in his completely steadfast and, for lack of a better term, rigidly autistic devotion to his craft - stands against the worldly aspects of his field. Worldly aspects that Rand exhibits in Roark’s peer and former schoolmate, Peter Keating.
While Roark is willing to fall into poverty and shame, refusing any commissions that undermine the sanctity of his work and withstanding misplaced public ire against it, Keating is willing to steal credit, blackmail, and manipulate his way up the social hierarchy of the industry.
Both characters are played against the mystique of Dominique Francon, a figure who can only stand to exist in an “all, or nothing at all” state of being. She would rather destroy what she loves than agree to share it with a degraded world unreceptive to its greatness. Her recognition of Roark's unwavering purpose draws her irresistibly to him, but her contempt for the reality that persists in such opposition to all he represents, forces her to refuse him and punish herself in the entirely superficial, worldly chains of Keating. That is, until she meets Gail Wynand - a famously wealthy publication tycoon whose outward appearance is that of a degraded public figure, but whose true nature confesses a mutual understanding of honest integrity. However Wynand, in his hunger for power, indulges in the vice of destroying that honest integrity in anyone who displays it most eminently.
The only person to escape this fate is Roark, whose unshakeable self-assurance Wynand admires so deeply that the two form an unlikely friendship. Yet Rand tests this friendship under the pressure of a world that destroys integrity - and Wynand ultimately abandons Roark to save his newspaper. In both he and Keating, Rand paints the result of dishonest, worldly social pursuits. They end up as broken husks of their former selves, cursing the vapid success they gained and yearning for the meaningful connections they burned to maintain it. Whereas Roark, in extreme opposition, literally burned one of his buildings to the ground when it was altered beyond his control into a perversion of the original, pure design.
All that being said, the most enigmatic character in The Fountainhead is Ellsworth Toohey - a shadow that somehow seems to manifest a crawling discomfort in the reader just by his presence in the narrative. He’s a devil in the guise of a humanitarian newspaper columnist, understanding everything yet betraying nothing, and discreetly pulling the strings of society to abide his will, through an unassuming network of deep-seated influence. Toohey preaches altruism and self-sacrifice to suppress everyone into a collectivist mindset - not to promote selflessness, but to create a world of sheep that he can manipulate and control as he desires.
This is where Rand positions Roark against all other figures in the novel - as proof that control of your own convictions is a noble pursuit, while control of others is a malicious vice. I may disagree with the extent to which altruism and service to others is derided in this novel, but I fully embrace the sentiment that integrity is man’s greatest asset, and capitalizing on it to create and innovate, unhindered by public opinion, is one of his greatest callings.
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