A new review of 'The Fountainhead'

Revisiting old books

‘Fountainhead’ of cognition: Good, bad, and indifferent

By Sonali Maokar-Kelapure
I must agree that in her all sincere endeavour, Ayn Rand is really successful in proving, “At the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential, and, if sufficiently held on, the fire takes one to higher realms.”
Reading ‘The Fountainhead’ was like a total brainwash. It takes us out of our sluggish, stagnated knowledge of philosophy of life. It brings us down to earth where life is for living and not for thinking. The illusion of so-called knowledge, in her words -- second-hand knowledge -- gets washed off. If the story is set apart (because characters and story can be twisted from any possible perspective), the thought presented by the author is truly original. It takes courage to jot down the thoughts in their nakedness.
I liked the lines in introduction, “It is not in the nature of man -- nor of any living entity -- to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire never knowing when or how they lost it. Then, all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security of abandoning one’s values; practicality of losing self-esteem. Yet, a few hold on and move on, knowing that the fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and life’s potential.”
Ayn Rand is certain that ‘The Fountainhead’ is guidepost of this pursuit.

Published in The Hitavada Insight (Sunday supplement) on 25th Aug 2013

I have some knowledge of our (Indian) spiritual sciences. But, whatever I could extract from my readings, I always hold on to the concept of ‘Pradnyaparadh’ meaning giving in to the wrongness deliberately while knowing it as so. At gross level, it is called as ‘Vikruti’, which is antonym of ‘Prakruti’. ‘Pradnyaparadh’ is related to intellectual terms and ‘Vikruti’ to physical and mental terms. Has it not been mentioned in our ancient philosophy, which the author has described as ‘corruption of mind’ and ‘second-hand thinkers’? Also, ‘life in its pure sense’ is mentioned in our literature as ‘Shashvat Satya’ (eternal truth). This happens to be the source of all innovation and creativity. To remain continuously in contact with this is called true awareness – Bodh – Anusandhan – consciousness. This means, no distractions from your true sense of life. It is the highest kind of pleasure one can draw from existence.
As is depicted in the story, religion gradually starts collapsing when it reaches its highest point. Then starts the abuse of sentiments of common people by the intellectuals. It is true in every corner of the world about every philosophy. In case of India, the high-cast intellectuals (Brahmins) were the culprits for deterioration of ‘Dharma’. During its fall, the religion needs someone to show the undistracted path but this is the time when corruption sees its worst and the masses are left illusioned. Then the higher self of man forgets itself and seeks only survival of physical body and wanders as an animal. Here comes materialism. Those who are enjoying the downfall of man’s self-esteem (the real, not superficial), increase the importance of consumerism as larger than life. Ayn Rand has explained in ‘The Fountainhead’ the simple equation of capitalism – intellectuals pressing the levers (like E M Toohey) to circulate the whole machinery of fools.
In ‘Ramayana’, it is said, “Anta unnaticha patani hoi ya jagat” (Whatever grows declines). These points of downfall of humanity gave birth to the epics like ‘Ramayana’, ‘Mahabharata’, ‘Shrimad Bhagwadgeeta’. These are the times when actually the forgotten ideals are recreated before masses. Only in this dire need -- the need to exactness, not wandering -- ‘The Fountainhead’ must have been born.
In fact, Sant Dnyaneshwar, Gautam Buddha are path-breakers in this sense only. The only difference in the East and the West is that the latter’s perspective is still materialistic and the former’s is quite beyond it. Now, we also are inclining towards more materialism but originally we cannot be distracted so easily, and finding the answer is not painful for us. We know the answer, we only have to brush-up our knowledge.
Judgments apart, ‘The Fountainhead’ is the best example of conversational English. It adds on to one’s knowledge of English language. It is a fine balance of narration and dialogue. It is pleasurable even more than watching a fully entertaining movie.
The eye-opening dialogues of E M Toohey and defense-speech by Howard Roark at the end of the story are really worth reading.