The Fountainhead
Since this is my first post I guess I will just write about the last good book I have read. I know most of the people have read this book as a kid but I just got a chance to read it last week on suggestion of a friend who claims this book changed the course of his life. I was devastated by the way life was going and may be this was the reason my friend Venky gave this book to me. I have had read books of this kind earlier but I was amazed by the way Ayn Rand captured the character of Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Dominique, Ellsworth Toohey and Gail Wynand.
This book was written more than 60 years back and was still so modern that I felt every building being built by Roark was being built in 2006, all the characters were so purely different and to my astonishment I can only find the character of Peter Keating and Ellsworth Toohey in the real life as the other characters were simply out of this world.
Peter Keating was the best example of a person who would sacrifice everything to be rich and famous including his soul, he always did what people liked and always lived a life to be accepted in the masses only to realize in the end that his childhood ambition to become a painter can no longer be realized as his mom forced him to become an Architect which was a noble profession.
Ellsworth M Toohey is a simple guy who is considered the wisest by whoever meets him, his ability to make people feel at ease and consider him there greatest friend ever was interesting. He is the one responsible in shaping the future of everybody he meets. He can be said to be the villain of this novel as all his followers can no longer think for themselves and are so dependent on his advice that they forget the desires of there heart and end up being the slaves of his mind. He wants to rule the masses and to do this he schemes throughout his life to destroy every specialist in his/her field and promoting those who really suck. The best battle in this book is between Roark and Toohey where Toohey tries his best to destroy Roark whereas Roark hardly considers it a battle and doesn’t give a damn about what anyone thinks of his work.
Gail Wynand is the owner of Wynand papers and has raised from nothing to one of the most powerful man by being immoral and cares for nothing but for absolute power. He enjoys destroying everyone on his way but surprises every reader by the way he impressed Dominique well enough to marry him and then the way he convinces Roark to build for him.
Howard Roark is the central character of a book and a genius in architecture, the only aim of his life is to make buildings the way he wants them, he is thrown out of his college because of the modern way of his thinking and because he believes they cannot teach him anything that he doesn’t know already. He is a man of integrity and builds for himself and won't do any building till the time the client agrees to make the building the way he wants. He is a kind of man who never gives up in life and against all odds reached the purpose in his life, the last scene in which he is standing on the top of the tallest building in New York sums up his success. He is a man every one of us aspires to be, to be indifferent to the world and follow your dream...don't know many who have been able to live there life this way.
Dominique is the love interest of Roark who always believed in destroying whatever she loved so no one else can have the same pleasure as she can, she used to destroy a priceless artifact after buying it if it was too good to be seen by some one else. Her world goes through turmoil when she finds Roark working in a quarry, she tries to challenge his dignity and reaches the heights of love for him when she is raped by Roark. She fought against Roark to stop him from raising new buildings as she was not willing to share his greatness with anyone. It takes her a long time to do what she would have done at the first place, but it is really interesting the way she first falls for Roark and then marries the worthless Peter Keating and agrees to sleep with Gail Wynand to get a contract for Peter and ends up marrying Gail starting the downfall of Peter.
To sum up I can say that this book is another inspirational story like Alchemist major difference being there were doubts at some moments in Shepherds mind in Alchemist but our Howard Roark had no doubts neither he cared about anything else than making his building. Also this book is around 700 pages so a really lengthy reading but still highly recommended.
Since this is my first post I guess I will just write about the last good book I have read. I know most of the people have read this book as a kid but I just got a chance to read it last week on suggestion of a friend who claims this book changed the course of his life. I was devastated by the way life was going and may be this was the reason my friend Venky gave this book to me. I have had read books of this kind earlier but I was amazed by the way Ayn Rand captured the character of Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Dominique, Ellsworth Toohey and Gail Wynand.
This book was written more than 60 years back and was still so modern that I felt every building being built by Roark was being built in 2006, all the characters were so purely different and to my astonishment I can only find the character of Peter Keating and Ellsworth Toohey in the real life as the other characters were simply out of this world.
Peter Keating was the best example of a person who would sacrifice everything to be rich and famous including his soul, he always did what people liked and always lived a life to be accepted in the masses only to realize in the end that his childhood ambition to become a painter can no longer be realized as his mom forced him to become an Architect which was a noble profession.
Ellsworth M Toohey is a simple guy who is considered the wisest by whoever meets him, his ability to make people feel at ease and consider him there greatest friend ever was interesting. He is the one responsible in shaping the future of everybody he meets. He can be said to be the villain of this novel as all his followers can no longer think for themselves and are so dependent on his advice that they forget the desires of there heart and end up being the slaves of his mind. He wants to rule the masses and to do this he schemes throughout his life to destroy every specialist in his/her field and promoting those who really suck. The best battle in this book is between Roark and Toohey where Toohey tries his best to destroy Roark whereas Roark hardly considers it a battle and doesn’t give a damn about what anyone thinks of his work.
Gail Wynand is the owner of Wynand papers and has raised from nothing to one of the most powerful man by being immoral and cares for nothing but for absolute power. He enjoys destroying everyone on his way but surprises every reader by the way he impressed Dominique well enough to marry him and then the way he convinces Roark to build for him.
Howard Roark is the central character of a book and a genius in architecture, the only aim of his life is to make buildings the way he wants them, he is thrown out of his college because of the modern way of his thinking and because he believes they cannot teach him anything that he doesn’t know already. He is a man of integrity and builds for himself and won't do any building till the time the client agrees to make the building the way he wants. He is a kind of man who never gives up in life and against all odds reached the purpose in his life, the last scene in which he is standing on the top of the tallest building in New York sums up his success. He is a man every one of us aspires to be, to be indifferent to the world and follow your dream...don't know many who have been able to live there life this way.
Dominique is the love interest of Roark who always believed in destroying whatever she loved so no one else can have the same pleasure as she can, she used to destroy a priceless artifact after buying it if it was too good to be seen by some one else. Her world goes through turmoil when she finds Roark working in a quarry, she tries to challenge his dignity and reaches the heights of love for him when she is raped by Roark. She fought against Roark to stop him from raising new buildings as she was not willing to share his greatness with anyone. It takes her a long time to do what she would have done at the first place, but it is really interesting the way she first falls for Roark and then marries the worthless Peter Keating and agrees to sleep with Gail Wynand to get a contract for Peter and ends up marrying Gail starting the downfall of Peter.
To sum up I can say that this book is another inspirational story like Alchemist major difference being there were doubts at some moments in Shepherds mind in Alchemist but our Howard Roark had no doubts neither he cared about anything else than making his building. Also this book is around 700 pages so a really lengthy reading but still highly recommended.
