Quote:
Originally Posted by Dundasguy
Ryan, you should read The Fountainhead when you get a chance. It's easy to be a critic.
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sigh
Given that it's easy to be a critic, here's a spot critique of The
Fountainhead:
The story is contrived to push Rand's ideology. The narrative is awkward and feels forced. The characters, supposed to represent Rand's personality archetypes, are merely two-dimensional cutouts with unpersuasive motivations - especially protagonist Roarke, who comes off not so much the visionary hero as a petulant, over-precious twelve-year-old.
The dialogue is forced and clunky, with characters transparently mouthing either Rand's own diatribes or the strawmen she seeks to knock down. Roark's famous closing speech is hopelessly cranky and overwrought. Toohey is a impossible to take seriously as a socialist bogeyman.
The sexual tension between Roarke and Francon is creepy and deeply chauvinistic, playing up Rand's insistence that what women really want is to have heroic, self-absorbed men they can worship.
Frankly, I resent the fact that I'll never get back the time I wasted reading this book - and I read it in my very early twenties, when I was at my most naively libertarian.
In short, the egocentric romanticism of assholes like Howard Roarke (i.e. Ayn Rand) are a big part of the reason why architecture has become the plaything of megalomaniacs like Daniel Libeskind instead of a means to create human-scaled buildings that express public values and support community spaces.
Oops, I guess that makes me some kind of collectivist "second-hander".