Chất liệu ngôn tình thua kém duy nhất Tân Di Ổ, với Cổ Mạn.

Recommend cho chị nào cá tính, đang ế chồng, và muốn tìm
niềm tin vào một chàng hoàng tử của đời mình. Ngoài ra các
kiến trúc sư cũng nên đọc để làm bản ngã của mình trở nên
lấp lánh, và huyền ảo hơn. (vì anh hotboy nhân vật chính là
một kiến trúc sư, và có rất nhiều quan điểm hay về kiến trúc,
tôi thích nhất là cái cách Ayn Rand định nghĩa về khoảng trống
nó rất giống như định nghĩa một khoảng lặng trong âm nhạc,
hay các định nghĩa về Yin Yang của Lão Tử)

Lưu ý, để thưởng thức hết nội dung ngôn tình của cuốn sách, các anh
chị cần một thời gian. Nhưng hãy kiên trì, tôi tin các anh chị (FA) sẽ
sống FA trong tư thế hãnh diện. Ttôi đọc cuốn này từ năm 2
đại học, trước đó tôi còn giằng xé trong nội tâm câu hỏi "Tôi là
ai ?" mà đéo có người yêu, nhưng sau khi đọc xong cuốn này ,
mụ Ayn Rand (mụ này rất nhiều anti fan, vì fan của mụ khá đông
đảo giống Sếp`ssss toàn bọn FA) đã tăng độ hoang tưởng cho tui,
nên đến giờ cứ mỗi năm thêm FA, tôi lại thêm hoang tưởng mình
là Howard Roark, Elon Musk và thoải mái ngồi chờ đợi nàng Dominique.
Đéo còn gì hãnh diện hơn khi được FA và nghĩ Thế giới ngu ngốc chừa mình
ra.

Chúc các anh chị đọc kiên nhẫn và vui vẻ.

I read the Fountainhead, the famous book by Ayn Rand that almost everyone else in the country read long ago, before me, and "LOVE love love love love loved" it, well after I should have.

The book is 800 long pages, and I labored through it for about a month, including a week haitus when I couldn't take it anymore, and finally found some chapters at the very end that captivated me enough to say I couldn't put the book down (maybe 50 pages, total).

This book is commonly accepted as wonderful, but I honestly need to call this an overrated novel. Maybe it's because I became predisposed to hating it because so many random strangers on public transit insisted on interrupting me to mention how much they love the book. Maybe it's because everyone says the exact same thing and has the exact same opinions about the book, which, ironically enough, seems to contradict what Ms. Rand so thoroughly and relentlessly promotes. Maybe it's because I don't personally have the patience for a repetitive, slow-moving soap opera with characters I can't quite care about.

This isn't to say that I don't find the writing style to be eloquent, or that I lack appreciation for the ideal presented. I think the concept of selfishness for the greater good is fascinating, as do lovers of Ayn Rand works. Anyone who has ever been made to feel inadequate would logically feel this way. I don't discredit the effort to create such a lengthy, epic tale, but I feel like most of the hours spent reading this would have been better spent elsewhere.

Oh, Ayn Rand. How I wish I could enjoy your books more than I do.

This is my second go at a Rand book. My first was Atlas Shrugged. I liked this one a lot more, but I pretty much hated Atlas Shrugged, so I'm not sure how much that says. :) I'm starting to think Rand may be an acquired taste.

It's not her writing I have trouble with. In fact, I was impressed with how much her book kept my attention despite it's length (about 800 pages, or 26 CDs). She's clearly an intelligent and thought provoking author. It's also not her philosophy of objectivism I struggle with, per se, even if I don't agree with it. In Rand's own words (from Atlas Shrugged), her philosophy "in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Hmmm. While I differ with this viewpoint (I do think it's vitally important to follow one's passions, creativity and ideals, but not above all else or at the expense of others), that in and of itself would not be enough for me to dislike a book. I think it's more that her philosophy is so.... well, pervasive. It consumes every page, and there's not much subtlety to be found. You know where Rand stands, and you know where her characters stand. Which is all well and good. But as others have pointed out, the end result is that the majority of her characters (though quite vivid) are not very likable. They are selfish, self-absorbed, self-important, and all things related to the self. While I realize this is part of the point, it made it hard for me to relate to, admire or even sometimes care what happened to them. While this is also arguably in part the point (society doesn't tend to favor people who stray from the norm and relentlessly follow their own ideals).... that didn't make it any easier for me to like the characters. And, maybe this doesn't make me much of an intellectual reader, but I like to emote and relate (at least to some degree) to the characters I'm reading about. Especially if I'm going to spend 32 hours with them.

All that being said, I did like the book overall. It is well-written, well-developed, fast-paced and thought provoking. It was also revolutionary for its time. And while I disagreed with some of the ideas of man and reason as supreme to all else (isn't there enough egotism in society already?), I still enjoyed hearing the arguments for argument's sake. And as stated earlier, I did appreciate and agree with some of the points made on the importance of creativity, reason, non-conformity and the pursuit of happiness/following one's convictions. I can see why so many love it, especially if the ideas ring true for you. I can also see why so many people hate it. It's worth checking out, if not just for the controversy.

yesterday i spent the day mainlining bookface and discovered that one of the most reviled books on the site was the fountainhead. i can think of a few reasons:

1) it feels good (perhaps a marker of personal progress?) to reject or condescend to that which we once loved. (see also: catcher in the rye and on the road)

2)tthose (the overwhelming majority of bookfacers) who fall on the liberal end of the spectrum find the residual conservative drool all over the book a bit yukky?

3)tthe philosophy is unrealistic; the characters are stand-ins, mouthpieces, wooden fantasy archetypes; the plot is full of contrivances; at its best the prose is serviceable, at worst, it's cringeworthy.

4)tits themes of personal accountability scare the shit out of people.

i found this book terrifically useful in high school. with not enough life experience to understand why i was perpetually on the outside, i read the fountainhead and reconfigured it all to believe that i wasn’t part of the group b/c the group was a dead-end of groupthink and i was unique. whatever. a load of shit, but it helped me get by, y’know? and as i grew up i realized that along with the personal accountability part and the urging on to remain an individual despite societal pressure to conform (both of which i still appreciate), was a good degree of selfishness and unreality. but whatever… i approach this too-long book as containing a highly flawed system of belief, but one that works for a specific time in many people’s lives. shit, they should start pushing this as a young adult’s book. that’s really what it is. and though ayn rand might not like it, there’s really nothing wrong with that.

If I were to suspect the artist of having written out of passion and in passion, my confidence would immediately vanish, for it would serve no purpose to have supported the order of causes by the order of ends.

~ Sartre


It is not literature. It is not philosophy. It lacks any understanding of how an economy functions. A childish affirmation of pure entitlement.

It is just a rant told through a really bad piece of fiction.

Ayn Rant.


+++

(the 4 stars rating was given at a very early and impressionable age)

Egads, I hate this book. I first read it 6 years ago when I was 16, and I thought to myself, this book is an enormous pile of compressed dog feces. However, because I'm aware of the fact that our judgement at the age of 16 is not necessarily quite so excellent as most of us liked to think it was, I decided recently to reread it, and see if I understood what other people saw in this book.

I still have absolutely no clue. After slogging through it for a second time, I still think that it's 700+ pages of Ayn Rand's litany of "for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are mine, fapfapfap." Its plot is nonexistent, its characters are two-dimensional, and its philosophy has more holes than Swiss cheese.

(Update at end; latest is 2013-11-12)

OK, I’ve got to explain this four-star rating, because I don’t want anyone to think I’d actually recommend this book...

It has been many years since I’ve read either of Ayn Rand’s two doorstop books, and I can’t really recall the details of either. I’m pretty sure the one with John Galt had the absurdly long speech near the end, and all the cool kids smoked special cigarettes, and was mostly about railroads. This was the one with the architect, right?

Anyway, I think folks should need permission to read this. Frankly, I think teenage experimentation with pot is trivial in terms of risk to a kid’s soul compared to experimentation with Ayn Rand. Her books can much more easily destroy a life.

Let me explain. Rand’s philosophy, as near as I can tell, is that great people shouldn’t be encumbered by the not-so-great. Taxes, regulations, all that stuff: just the shackles the large number of mediocre folks force onto their betters — pure parasitism. Her morality comes down to letting the best do whatever they want, and letting the rest starve. These books are her ideas about how that should work out, and as such are suffused with incredibly juvenile wish-fulfillment. The powerful are tormented by the weak, but through force of will rise above it all.

I might not be remembering all this quite right — after all, it has been a long time. The above description is what my initial impression has distilled down to; your mileage may vary.

So where’s the danger, and why the relatively high rating? Well, many teenagers look out at their world and feel victimized by the completely lame and restrictive world that adults impose upon them. It is clear to them that they are as smart and able as these authorities, yet those adults are so... clueless. Obviously, adult life somehow has turned them into a lesser breed of humanity, with all the vitality sucked out. Add Ayn Rand to this and you suddenly have the ingredients for a self-perpetuating sense of victimhood and entitlement.

Most people have overcome their teenage angst and fantasies by, say, twenty-eight or so. At that point, Rand will have lost her magic and her books should be freely available. But between twelve and twenty-seven, a committee of wise elders should decide whether that kid is mature enough not to get sucked into it.

Sounds unlikely? Yeah, well so does Rand’s puerile philosophy, but somehow we have self-righteous imbeciles getting elected left and right. Well, sorry, not so much “left” — mostly “right”. (The left has it's own cast of bad influences, of course.)

But then, why the good rating? Because Rand provided a window into the strange logic of the pathologically extreme libertarian. We might have seen Hitler’s deeds, and learned of Nietzsche’s diktats, but we never saw the fantasies that drove them. Most folks that would enthusiastically agree with Rand are either too dumb to put pen to paper, or too smart to let the world see what sociopaths they really are.

So: four stars for the opportunity to watch the slow-motion horror show of Rand’s political philosophy in action, warning us of where we’re heading.

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Update, late summer 2012— Romney's selection of Ryan as his running mate has got folks chatting about Ryan's on-and-off obsession with Ayn Rand. Not having made a study of Rand's life, I was pleased to learn that while her extremely anti-collectivist views are still antithetical to civilization (which is definitionally a collectivist enterprise) she was actually quite the social liberal. Not sure that makes her any more pleasant — ideologues of any stripe are quite annoying, even those that suddenly appear more complex and harder to pigeon-hole — but nice to know. A few more details? Check out the NY Times op-ed piece, n   Atlas Spurnedn.

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Update, summer 2013— I was catching up on my favorite intelligentisa magazine, the excellent Wilson Quarterly, and ran across a brief note in the Spring 2013 issue entitled “Fountainhead of Need”. As a young woman and recent immigrant to the United States, Rand was very poor while toying with a life in Hollywood — she worked as an extra in Cecil B. De Mille’s King of Kings — and at one point was destitute enough that she relied on charity to keep a roof over her head. Years later, she wrote a letter of thanks to the women's boarding house that helped her at a time of dire need.

As the article puts it:

“The Studio Club,” Rand wrote, “is the only organization I know of personally that carries on, quietly and modestly, this great work which is needed so badly — help for young talent. It not only provides human, decent living accommodations which a poor beginner could not afford elsewhere, but it provides that other great necessity of life: Understanding.”

A paean to altruism? Not exactly. In the letter, Rand also declared that it was time to stop favoring “crippled children, old people, blind people and all kinds of disabled unfortunates” over “the able, the fit, the talented.” She continued, “Who is more worthy of help — the sub-normal or the above normal? Who is more valuable to humanity?” Aiding “the disabled” was fine, she said, but nurturing “potential talent” represented “a much higher type of charity.”

Yup, that's the kind of woman she was.

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Update, autumn 2013— Wow, there are still folks out there that are explicitly adherents of Objectivism. If you would like to cringe, take a gander at n  "Give Back? Yes, It's Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1%"n at Forbes. Yeah, Forbes is the "church periodical for those that worship at the temple of weatlh" (as a FB acquaintance put it), but it still seems somewhat staggering that there are people that believe that

n  

n    It turns out that the 99% get far more benefit from the 1% than vice-versa.n  

n

See if you can spot the basic logic error in the first paragraph!

The proposal that the wealthy be exempt from income taxes is only capped by the appalling suggestion that “the year’s top earner should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Honestly, if this were in the Onion it would still be over the top.
­

I had not really paid much attention to Ayn Rand, darling of the conservatives (very surprisingly, actually) until I began reading her biography. When I asked around to see who had actually read any of her work, I found only a few, but lots of opinions about Rand herself. Often those comments ascribed beliefs to Rand that were at opposite poles of the spectrum, from conservative to radical, individualist to Nazi fascist. Obviously another case of what I call the “De Toqueville syndrome,” where everyone pretends to have read a famous book and to know what the author stood for, but has no firsthand reading knowledge. Her biography revealed a complex and very interesting individual, so it was time to dig into her works personally.

The Fountainhead tells the story of Howard Roark, an architect. Thrown out of Stanton School of Architecture for his refusal to adhere to the standards of the past (the dean views Roark as a rebel who opposes all the rules of architecture and his society’s view of art that is representation of what has been revered in the past) and for turning in assignments that represented a complete break from the past. The conversation with the dean, who tried to persuade Roark to come back into the fold, represents the central theme of the book, the conflict between those who are realitycentered against those who define their lives through the eyes of other people. Roark seeks employment with Cameron, an architect whose designs tried to incorporate using the advantages of new materials, e.g., a skyscraper should look tall, not just like a twenty-story brick building trying to look like a renaissance house. Cameron began to design buildings the way he wanted rather than how his clients demanded. His business dwindled to nothing, but he was sought out by Roark.

Following Cameron’s retirement, Roark seeks employment as a draftsman in a large architectural firm, where he gets a break by sketching a house that breaks with tradition completely but is just what the client wants. Roark is a brilliant but struggling iconoclast, while his rival and former classmate Peter Keating rises to the top of his profession by using obsequiousness, manipulation, and deception. His primary concern is how he is perceived by others. He designs by copying from the past, never thinking independently. Both men are in love with Dominique Falcon, a brilliant, passionate woman, who falls in love with Roark, admires his genius, but who is convinced his genius has no chance in a corrupt world. The villain of the book is Ellsworth Toohey, an architectural critic of note, who denounces Roark for his failure to adhere to the accepted standards of the day. Toohey believes that the individual must sacrifice his independence to the will of others, i.e. society or the group. Toohey is employed by Gail Wynand, a publisher whose paper caters to the lowest common denominator to gain power. He comes to admire Roark and must then decide whether he will continue to pander to popular taste or live according to his higher standards. Rand and her novels have been vilified by the left-wing as reactionary and praised by conservatives as brilliant and influential.

Frankly, I cannot understand how conservatives can be so enamored of this work that celebrates independence and the rejection of tradition and “normal” morality. She celebrated atheism, a kind of free love, very strong women, and a rejection of parental values and social norms. She abhorred the subordination of reason to faith, of surrendering one’s own thinking to the beliefs of others. She despised the religious believer who without questioning adopts the religious beliefs of his parents, conforming without thinking. Morality becomes something practical and relative. For example, Roark dynamites a government building project that has been altered, so he can gain access to the courts since the government cannot be sued. Roark really doesn’t care what other people think. He has such strong personal will that he will just do what he thinks is right. He also pals around with one of the construction workers who admires him because he is the only architect that understands construction, and, indeed, Roark makes the point that he loves engineering and building.

That sounds more like sixties liberalism than what I hear conservatives espouse. Rand is clearly a romantic who believed that man can live up to an ideal, and reason can help them achieve the independence and the happiness that depends on that independence. What infuriates liberals, as far as I can gather, was her unfailing adherence to capitalism. I suppose conservatives latched on to her vigorous rejection of collectivism, no doubt related to her childhood experiences under Communism. This is not to say Rand celebrates nonconformity for its own sake. That is simply another form of conformity because it’s living one’s life in reaction to the standards of others. The conformist must learn the beliefs of others to adhere to them; the nonconformist must learn the standards so as to avoid adhering to them. Both groups are psychological dependents. Rand celebrates the independent thinker, the individualist who lives on his own terms. The individualist creates his own standards and adheres to them regardless of what others do or think. He has a commitment to reason and facts. Roark represents the great innovator struggling against a profoundly conservative society against the traditionalist who says, “It was never done this way, so it can’t be good.” The climax of the book is Roark’s speech to the court when he is on trial. “I wish to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others. . . The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.” He represents a complete rejection of altruism, “the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.”

It’s truly a shame when books and authors get labeled as “conservative” or “liberal,” “communist” or “democrat” and then judged on the basis of the label. Read the book; make up your own mind!

I'll confess I seem to be among the few literate souls who did not read this book in high school or college, so I come to it fresh in middle age. And while it is a novel of ideas, including many ideas I don't particularly agree with, I decided to take the work on its own terms. I'll leave others to decide its merits as a work of philosophy. As a novel, it is deeply flawed and displays glaring shortcomings in plot and characterization, as well as serious issues with pacing and, at times, prose as sharp as cookie batter. With those caveats, it's also clearly a major work of literature, a challenging and brilliant panoramic novel that defies categorization but not admiration or even awe.

Others -- more than 10,000 of them -- have already reviewed the book on this site, so there is little reason to offer any general impressions of the novel. Rather, I'd like to point out a few attributes that are often overlooked. One is that Rand is, on occasion, extremely funny -- Domnique Francon Keating Wynand's sham interview with a Banner columnist offering an excellent example of her wit. The story line of the ersatz novel, The Gallant Gallstone, is also rather entertaining. She has a gift for turning a clever and insightful phrase, as when Gail Wynand says, "Men differ in their virtues, if any...but they are alike in their vices" (Tolstoy not withstanding). Or "The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line, it's a middleman." And her descriptions can often rise to the level of Dickensian originality and precision, as in her physical renderings of Ellsworth M. Toohey and Wynand.

I'd also like to add the controversial proposition that this is, at an emotional level, much more Wynand's and Dominique's novel than Howard Roark's. They are the characters who have the capacity for change; an ideal, like Roark, does not. Part Three of the novel ("Gail Wynand") is the least idea-driven and reveals Rand as able to create a complex, three-dimension character who is both vulnerable and compelling. Other stellar moments are the plot around the Monadnock resort or the final meeting of Peter and Catherine.

Do not let the Objectivist philosophy scare you away. As it's possible to enjoy Sartre without becoming an existentialist or William Morris without becoming a utopian socialist, it is also possible to enjoy this novel without embracing all of its ideas.

A true masterpiece. Rich in details and philosophy, stunning in context and emotion. The novel reminds me of the purpose of living, of following the inside call, of not compromising with mediocre ways of living, but thriving for the excellent, for the best of human. It reminds me of my dreams, of the life I want but still not reach, of the ideal of my life and my battle for it. I need to fight, like Roak has fought, for the society that should be, for integrity, for creativity, for freedom, for the most beautiful qualities of human that are being forgotten.

There is a funny thing that at first I totally enjoyed reading the book with the strong sensation it brought about. But I curiously checked some Goodreads comments about the book, and later when reading the book I found myself affected by other opinions and couldn't enjoy it as before. Hence I decided that I would be faithful to my own feelings from then.

Một kiệt tác đúng nghĩa. Cảm xúc về quyển sách quá choáng ngợp đến nỗi tôi không biết tìm từ gì để diễn tả về nó. Đựng đầy trong nó những triết lý sâu sắc, những chi tiết sống động, những nhân vật đặc sắc, và những hình ảnh đậm chất thơ. Có nhiều đoạn tôi vừa đọc vừa trầm trồ thán phục tài năng của tác giả, vì những câu chữ được đặt chính xác ở nơi nó phải ở, vì chỉ cần một câu văn ngắn là đủ để hiện rõ bối cảnh, tính cách, tâm trạng, vì chỉ cần một dòng chữ là đủ để cảm xúc vỡ òa. Thực sự là một kiệt tác.

Bản dịch của NXB Trẻ khá tốt, cách dùng từ chuẩn xác và tinh tế, đem lại mạch cảm hứng nguyên vẹn cho độc giả. Không phát hiện ra lỗi dịch, mặc dù có nhiều lỗi đánh máy, cũng không thể tránh khỏi vì tác phẩm quá đồ sộ. Một trong những bản dịch tiếng Việt thực sự tốt mà tôi được đọc trong thời gian qua.

Có một điều buồn cười khi đọc Suối Nguồn là trong đoạn đầu, tôi thực sự ấn tượng và tận hưởng quyển sách. Nhưng vì tò mò, khi đang đọc sách, tôi có xem một vài bình luận trên Goodreads về nó. Thế là những đoạn sau tôi thấy mình bị ảnh hưởng bởi những bình luận đó và thấy mình không thưởng thức sách được trọn vẹn nữa. Do vậy, tôi quyết định lần sau chỉ trung thành với cảm giác của mình lúc đọc thôi, để không bị rớt mạch cảm xúc lần nữa.

"Изворът" има за цел да бъде извор на философските убеждения на Ранд.

Ранд има каноничен статут в Щатите, четена на второ място след Библията ... и е повлияла по някакъв начин милиони по света. Това означава, че си е свършила перфектно работата като творец и философ. Във философията й няма да навлизам подробно, защото ревюто ще прерасне в есе над лимита на формата тук ... но ще споделя, че съм съгласен с повечето й идеи, не с всички и не докрай. Идеите са верни сами по себе си, но недостатъчни в един момент, когато човекът живее в развито съзнателно общество ... е, не такова като в "Атлас", може би и не такова като днешното у нас, но това, което би трябвало да се стремим. Реално цивилизацията, философията, науката, технологията и обществото са се развивали като са стъпвали на раменете на предишните постижения и реално най-големите постижения на човечеството са колективни усилия, не индивидуални ..., но тури му пепел - обещах, че няма да пиша философско есе.

Книгата като такава:
Много ясно предава идеите й. Няма на къде по-ясно и категорично. А тематиката е общочовешка и всеки може да достигне до същността й. Това е добре за един автор. Прави го универсален, интернационален.

Много удачен е и изборът на професия на Х.Р. - архитект, човек, който ще гради с визия, творец. Много систематично и методично е разгърната идеята в тези 800 стр. Опредлено е задължително четиво. Имайте предвид, че в "Изворът" се гради образът на перфектния задвижващ двигател на едно общество, а в "Атлас" се изследват взаимоовръзките му с обществото. "Изворът" е за героя, "Атлас" е за героя в обществото. Най-грубо казано.

Книгата е много подходяща за изучаващи английски. Четох я за първи път именно за упражнение, докато бях в Английска гимназия. Сега, колко ... 15 г. по-късно я усещам по същия начин, което е признак на универсалност не само през култури и пространства, но и през времето.

Ik heb een kanjer gelezen. De roman The Fountainhead telt 805 pagina's en werd mij hartstochtelijk aangeraden door ondernemer en drie boeken-podcastgast Rudi De Kerpel. Zò hartstochtelijk, dat hij het kocht en mij cadeau deed. Hij vertelde dat dit boek zijn leven heeft veranderd.

The Fountainhead gaat over een architect, Howard Roark, die sinds zijn studententijd exact weet wat hij wil bouwen en op welke manier. Hij is eigenzinnig, op een extreme manier: hij wil dat er niets verandert aan wat hij bouwt. Dat is de enige voorwaarde waaronder hij wil werken, wat het erg moeilijk maakt om opdrachten te krijgen.

Zijn medestudent en collega-architect Peter Keating daarentegen maakt wat het publiek wil, hij buigt naar de trends van de tijd en waait met de wind, wat hem aanvankelijk veel succes oplevert. Het boek vertelt het levensverhaal van deze twee personages, aangevuld met mediamagnaat Gail Wynand en de merkwaardige vrouw Dominique Francon, die Roark tegelijk steunt en saboteert.

The Fountainhead is een roman uit 1943 die het individualisme, de sterke persoonlijkheid hoog in het vaandel voert. De roman bejubelt sterke individuen als drijvende kracht van alles wat de samenleving voortstuwt. De rest wordt 'tweedehands mensen' genoemd: mensen die drijven op prestige, dus op de mening van anderen. De afwezigheid van enig 'zelf' bij mensen is verschrikkelijk.

The Fountainhead is naast een ode aan de scheppende kracht van de mens vooral een kritiek op het collectivisme, op de gelijkschakeling van iedereen. Eén voorstander van het collectief in het boek, de socialist Ellsworth Toohey, doet in zijn werk als cultuurcriticus zijn best om het begrip 'kwaliteit' te vernietigen. In zijn krantenrubriek hemelt hij middelmatigheid op, probeert hij elke notie van excellentie te verdelgen. Niets mag uitsteken boven het maaiveld. Op die manier bekritiseert het boek ook de populaire media, die middelmatigheid ophemelen en hoogstaande artistieke prestaties belachelijk maken.

Delen van het boek deden mij hard denken aan wat ik bij Nietzsche las: The Fountainhead verkettert het concept zelfopoffering als een uiting van zwakte en bekritiseert een maatschappij waarin opoffering centraal staat. Volgens Nietzsche hebben we dit te danken aan het christendom.

The Fountainhead is een te lang, maar op zijn minst een interessant boek dat doet nadenken over de verhouding individu - maatschappij, over ambitie, liberalisme en de functie van een sociaal-maatschappelijk stelsel. Ook al ben je het niet honderd procent eens met het politiek-filosofische uitgangspunt. Howard Roark is een inspirerend personage, dat vanuit zijn ijzersterke wil niet in staat is om compromissen te sluiten, maar wel snoeihard zijn eigen weg volgt.

Volledig leesverslag: https://wimoosterlinck.wordpress.com/...