Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Fountainhead: Peter Keating: 6

It is 1925. Ellsworth Toohey has written a popular history of architecture. There have never been any great builders, he claims, only great buildings, which rise from the work and experience of a multitude of people. In the Middle Ages people had a sense of community, but then the dreadful idea of private property caught on. Individual taste arises from selfishness and is always unaesthetic. Some day all men will be as brothers and live in harmony again.

That same year, Henry Cameron retires. He has laid off everyone but Howard Roark, but his few commissions still aren't enough to support the practice. He has Roark burn all the firm's papers, but save a drawing of a soaring skyscraper that some genius may build some day.

Peter Keating's mother leaves Stanton and comes to live with him. She urges him to dress better; visits his office and tells him which of his co-workers are competitors to be watched or gotten rid of; and pushes him to get to know Guy Francon's daughter, who has graduated from college and writes a column on home decorating for the local Wynand paper, the Banner. Later, when Keating asks Francon about about his daughter, the old man mutters that Keating wouldn't like her and changes the subject.

Keating visits Katie Halsey and finds her sorting her uncle's fan mail. They talk, then go out for a stroll in a gentle snowfall. She confesses she loves him and he replies, "Katie, we're engaged, aren't we?" They agree to marry in a year or two, when he is better fixed at the firm.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Fountainhead: Peter Keating: 5

A year has passed since Keating joined Francon & Heyer, and Keating has undermined his friend Tim Davis (who married his sweetheart Elaine) by muttering comments to the boss along the lines of, "Poor newlywed, just can't keep his mind on his work." But no worries! After Davis is fired from F&H, Keating finds him a job with another architectural firm. Keating is promoted to Davis's position as lead draftsman.

Then he goes after chief designer Stengel, who has been thinking about starting up his own firm. Keating sneakily tips Stengel to a juicy home-building job, which Stengel plucks and runs off to have for his very own. Keating gets the chief designer position, the snake.

Handed his first design job, Keating feels inadequate to the task but bones up on Classical designs and comes up with some sketches—which he then takes to his old classmate Roark, because he knows (1) Roark is brilliant and (2) Roark is incapable of lying. Roark adds a sketch and suggests some simplifications to Keating's design, which go over well with Francon. Later, Keating hears that Cameron's firm is having tough times (and in fact the firm had just lost a major commission to a relative of the client's wife) and offers Roark a gift of $50. And I expected Roark to be a jerk and tell Keating to take a hike, but Roark is astonished and accepts the gift, which is really heartwarming. Nice bit of writing, Ayn Rand! But then Keating blows it by offering Roark a charity position at his firm, and Roark returns the money.

Roark and Cameron look at an issue of the New York Banner, a paper in the Wynand syndicate, and apparently to them it's nothing but a catalog of degradation:

... The front page carried the picture of an unwed mother with thick glistening lips, who had shot her lover; the picture headed the first installment of her autobiography and a detailed account of her trial. The other pages ran a crusade against utility companies; a daily horoscope; extracts from church sermons; recipes for young brides; pictures of girls with beautiful legs; advice on how to hold a husband; a baby contest; a poem proclaiming that to wash dishes was nobler than to write a symphony; an article proving that a woman who had borne a child was automatically a saint.
It's fascinating to think that some would consider these the greatest threats to civilization.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Fountainhead: Peter Keating: 4

A month has passed. Guy Francon is pleased: The great architecture critic Ellsworth Toohey has written a review praising the Melton Building, recently erected by Francon & Heyer. Keating has become a favorite of Francon, and he's learned a great deal about the old man, including the fact that he's a widower with a nineteen-year-old daughter off at college. Also: Lucius Heyer was apparently brought on as Francon's partner for his social connections, not for his skill as an architect.

Keating has made friends in the office, and one evening he offers to finish a drafting assignment for his closest friend, Tim Davis, who is supposed to complete the assignment but pines to see his girlfriend Elaine. Keating finishes the work himself, then goes to see an old friend from Stanton, Katie Halsey. He is quite fond of her, in an indifferent sort of way, and he finds himself so comfortable with her that he blurts out things he wouldn't normally admit to anyone, even himself: Francon is an old fraud; it won't be long before Keating takes Tim Davis's place in the firm. Keating is appalled at his own ruthless ambition, and he is positively frightened when he find out Katie's uncle is ... Ellsworth Toohey! How will he be able to hold back from using Katie to get close to the great critic?

On the other side of town, Henry Cameron has come to recognize that Howard Roark is an uncompromising young man of genius, and thus headed toward the doom of universal scorn—a man bearing the mark of Cain, walking among the people. One day, Roark, you will design a building worthy of your brilliance, and no one will allow you to build it! Go away now, Roark! Learn to modify your principles while you still can! But of course that's exactly the future Roark looks forward to, because it proves his heroism. So there.

Monday, January 24, 2011

The Fountainhead: Peter Keating: 3

A detail I overlooked previously: The action is taking place in 1922, which means Howard Roark was born in 1900 or thereabouts. A new and superior man for the new and superior century!

Peter Keating reports for work at Francon & Heyer and learns that Guy Francon hasn't designed anything in years. An architect named Stengel gives Keating a large watercolor drawing of an elaborate mansion to carry up to Francon's office for approval. Once there, it's clear that Francon has no idea how to critique the design. Keating boldly suggests a modification. The two size one another up and reach an unspoken understanding; Francon adopts Keating's change.

A fine passage describing a New York landmark is worth quoting at length:

... The Frink National Bank Building displayed the entire history of Roman art in well-chosen specimens; for a long time it had been considered the best building of the city, because no other structure could boast a single Classical item which it did not possess. It offered so many columns, pediments, friezes, tripods, gladiators, urns and volutes that it looked as if it has not been built of white marble, but squeezed out of a pastry tube. It was, however, built of white marble. No one knew that but the owners who had paid for it. It was now of a streaked, blotched, leprous color, neither brown nor green but the worst tones of both, the color of slow rot, the color of smoke, gas fumes and acids eating into a delicate stone intended for clean air and open country. The Frink National Bank Building, however, was a great success. It had been so great a success that it was the last structure Guy Francon ever designed; its prestige spared him the bother from then on.
Howard Roark makes his way to the offices of Henry Cameron, who had been a promising and original architect before he dared to scoff at the Columbian Exposition of Chicago in 1893. The Exposition marked the enshrinement of Classical forms; anyone who varied from slavish imitation of the old forms, who insisted on form following function, became a pariah. Cameron's decline was helped along by his imperious personality, openly disdainful of his clientele. The man oozed superiority, and if the skittering multitudes didn't like it, they could take a hike.

Now sixty-nine, the gruff genius greets the young upstart gruffly. He looks over Roark's portfolio and lambastes him mercilessly. Roark explains himself: He doesn't believe in God, and he feels called to become an architect in order to remake the earth in forms that please himself. Cameron offers our young hero a job, of course. The chapter ends without any smooching, but anyone can see these two were made for each other.

Monday, January 17, 2011

The Fountainhead: Peter Keating: 2

Peter Keating, son of the boardinghouse owner, is graduating from the Stanton Institute of Technology. He is the student body president and the most popular student, and he is quite full of himself. He is pleased to have finished at the top of his class, beating out his arch-rival Shlinker in the final year of study. (Roark, a year behind Keating and Shlinker, had at times matched their brilliance until his expulsion.) Keating is faced with a choice: accept a prestigious scholarship in Paris, or go to work for Guy Francon, who has just delivered a windy commencement address.

Unlike Roark, Keating looks for approval from others. In fact, his true love had been art, before his mother steered him into architecture.... He asks Roark for advice, and Roark suggests the Francon & Heyer job as the lesser of evils. As for himself, Roark is going to work for Henry Cameron, a once-great architect who is now almost forgotten.

Roark is easier to take in this chapter; Peter cherishes his opinion and approval, and this inclines the reader to feel kindly toward him as well.

So it looks like Peter will be a counter-example to Roark: Brilliant but unsure of his direction, weak, willing to be guided away from his bliss. Will Peter re-direct his path, perhaps under Roark's guidance? Is Shlinker going to be a sinister character? I confess I'm intrigued.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Fountainhead: Peter Keating: 1

Howard Roark laughed.
Thus begins The Fountainhead, with a sentence the author surely intended to establish her hero and his attitude toward the rest of the world. Our tall, gaunt, 22-year-old hero stands naked at the top of a cliff, laughing at being expelled from the Stanton Institute of Technology, where he has been studying architecture. Then he dives heroically into the lake below, swims across it, gets out of the water, puts on his clothes, and strides into and through the cruddy town of Stanton to the boardinghouse where he lives.

All hail Howard Roark!

Then Roark has a meeting with the Institute's Dean—who may have a name, but I missed it—who is going through the motions of giving Roark a chance to repent his individualistic ways and is relieved when Roark insists on his own way. So Roark is definitely out.

A striking feature of Roark is his disinterest in other people. In his hero's march through the town, he passes by several people, who instinctively dislike him without understanding why. (My guess: They are inferior people and resent the presence of a superman among them.) But "... Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty...." Later, in his heroic dialogue with the Dean, Roark says, "'... I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.'" Still later, we learn that Roark has said "indifferently" of his family, "'I don't think I have any relatives. I may have. I don't know.'"

Roark really does have trouble relating (even literally!) to other people and understanding their motives. I wonder if perhaps he has some form of high-functioning autism.1

The Dean dislikes Roark. "A great man, thought the Dean, or a criminal. The Dean winced. He did not approve of either." Later, the Dean finds Roark's indifference to the opinions of others "monstrous." This seems like a caricature of the academic who is afraid of anyone who threatens his orthodoxy, though I'm not sure it's a caricature. I'll give Rand the benefit of the doubt; there are probably a great many Deans out there in our colleges and universities today, much more comfortable with mediocrity than with greatness. But that's not the only type of academic. A great many—perhaps "the majority" is too optimistic—greet originality with pleasure and try to nurture it.

(In case it isn't obvious by now, I'll post this disclaimer: I was never a literature major, nor have I ever had any special knowledge about psychology. Or architecture, for that matter. Oh, and I'm also a slow reader. It may take me months to get through all 59 chapters of this book, if I can manage it at all.)

Getting back to Roark: His viewpoint seems to be that the cumulative knowledge of mankind is as nothing compared to the genius of the individual. Maybe I misunderstand or overstate. We'll see.


1According to Wikipedia, the New Latin term autismus was coined in 1910 to refer to morbid self-admiration. The term autism was first used in its modern sense in 1943, coincidentally the year The Fountainhead was published.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Fountainhead: Introduction

All right! I've picked up a copy of The Fountainhead at a used book store. This one is a paperback 50th anniversary edition (1993), including the author's "Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition" and an afterword by Leonard Peikoff. Swell.

The front cover has a crease, and a small bit is torn off near the top; the first and last few pages are yellowed a bit, as if from exposure to the sun. The spine doesn't show much sign of use, and page 245 is dog-eared. I wonder if that's as far as the previous owner got; let's see, that would be about 35% of the way through the book's 694 pages.

So, how does Ayn Rand introduce her book? She expresses "quiet satisfaction" that her book has remained in print, and she blathers on that Romanticism (of which her book is an example) is writing for the ages, as opposed to Naturalism (the mode that predominates today), which is writing for the moment. I think that's what she says. I'm already getting lost in her prose, and I'm only on page v.

She goes on to explain why she dedicated the book to her husband, even though she doesn't care for dedications. As to whether she would revise the book: No, she's quite pleased with it. There's one word she might change—in the original writing she was misled by a faulty dictionary. And there's one sentence which she worries over a bit; the obtuse reader might take it as an endorsement of religion, WHICH IT ISN'T. She goes on to reclaim several words to which religion has laid peremptory claim, such as "sacred" and "worship."

Finally she explains how she almost had the book published with a wonderful quote from Nietzsche, but ultimately she had the quote removed, because she simply can't stand the man's metaphysics. (At least that's what she says. I think there was an argument over a parking space that got out of hand.) Anyway, the Nietzsche quote ends with, "The noble soul has reverence for itself."

My impression of the author: I can imagine her, intelligent, imperious, and not quite coherent, shouting out to random people on the street, "Stop interfering with my self-development!"

So the introductory essay is ended, and next comes the work of fiction. I keep forgetting that this is not my first encounter with Rand. Back in high school—some years ago—my classmates and I mangled her play, "The Night of January 16th." I remember it as an entertainingly twisty courtroom drama. So there's hope that this will turn out to be a good story, at least.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Will I Laugh? Or Scream in Pain?

A certain blogger (whom I shall not name) has been providing me with instruction and amusement for several months. She writes about the failings of other people; as for herself, she periodically realizes that she has been selling herself short—she is really a much more wonderful and deserving person than she had previously thought. This great failing—the lack of appreciation of her own wonderfulness—causes her much pain and embarrassment.

You're probably thinking that she is very self-involved; but isn't that what blogging is all about?

A particular annoyance to her is taxation—or as she calls it, theft. This is a splendidly convenient point of view. One isn't a taxpayer, participating in one's community. No, one is a crime victim; and we all know what moral superiority victims can lay claim to. She has never given consent for dollars to be taken from her and given to some schlub who has been out of work for 99 weeks; she doesn't approve of such pandering. It doesn't seem to occur to her that taxation and ownership are two clauses belonging to the same social contract; if one wishes to have one's property rights respected, one must accede to taxation. (This is not meant to stifle debate about the way government spends money. It may turn out that those extended benefits really are a disservice to the out-of-work people receiving them. But this needs to be studied and debated in detail, by the people we elected to handle such things. Unfortunately those folks are more into polarization and symbolic votes these days.)

Personally, I think having to wash one's clothes is theft. And I will be joining my fellow victims at the laundromat tomorrow. Pity me.

So where does this blogger go for validation of her viewpoints? Why, to the great Ayn Rand, of course—the high priestess of the-world-revolves-around-me, me! individualism. Feeling selfish? Let the Ayn Rand Institute comfort you. It turns out, you're not being selfish enough!

Okay, let me stop and catch my breath. For as it happens, I have just written a great many words about something I know very little about. I've heard that Ayn Rand was a horrible person. I've heard that her philosophy is a laughable set of rationalizations for rampant egotism. I've heard that her writing style is ponderous.

Maybe it's time I had a look for myself.

A great many people describe The Fountainhead as the book that changed their life and gave them the outlook they have today. Sure, that outlook may include the notion that the only people who are poor are the ones who deserve to be poor, and similar thoughts. But I'm curious about a work that many people find either compelling or disgusting—curious enough to try reading the book myself. And blogging about the experience.

But with my biases, all the things I've heard, will I be able to give the book a fair shake? Probably not. I will certainly be on the lookout for evidence of misanthropy. Written in turgid prose. At the same time, Rand's underlying, mind-bendingly brilliant philosphy may fly right over my simple head. Yes, my limitations may hold me back from appreciating this great work.

Then again, I may turn out to be a much more wonderful person than I thought.