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.