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Comments

• [1] Bob Kern from Avon November 05, 2009 - 12:49PM

  All of Rand's heroes (John Galt, Howard Roark, Hank Reardon, Ellis Wyatt) all created something to make their fortune.

  Would that Rand (not as she became later in life as a worship-loving grand dame) have approved of the current mindset in business that making money is an end in itself, not creating something and earning the money?

  Also, Rand has had characters speak of the legitimacy of unions (Dominique Francon wans Gail Wynand that workers have a right to unionize for better wages, but Ellsworth Toohey's unions serve no purpose). Why is she seen as anti-union?

  Also, Rand's corporate giants (Reardon and Wynand) pay their employees top dollar to attract and keep the best people. How does this reconcile with today's thinking of getting minimally qualified people for the lowest wages and expecting success?

  
  
• [2] Tonky from Brooklyn November 05, 2009 - 12:55PM

  Howard Roark based on Frank Lloyd Wright?

  I don't think so.

  Wright: Diminutive, mousy, dreamer. Who made building that defied reason and fell apart.

  Roark: Sweaty, muscular, rapist. Who's building were pure reason, made to stand forever.

  
  
• [3] David from Pawling November 05, 2009 - 12:57PM

  When I was in school for architecture, a collegue insisted that I read the Fountainhead. I never finished the book it was too lame.

  
  
• [4] David Hume from Staten Island, NY November 05, 2009 - 12:59PM

  Cardboard characters and simplistic philosophy. This is for the young and then you grow out of it.

  You don't determine you're own fate, most of life is about luck and chance.

  Dave

  
  
• [5] Connie from NJ November 05, 2009 - 01:00PM

  I read a bit of Rand when I was much younger--I hated her immediately. I can't stand anyone who doesn't suffer fools.

  
  
• [6] Bob Kern from Avon November 05, 2009 - 01:01PM

  Like most things in rand's work, she idealized her heroes. I think she took the "mythology" surrounding Wright's career and designs and created a character she felt better fit her needs.

  
  
• [7] Robert T. from NYC November 05, 2009 - 01:12PM

  Mid-century middle-brow. How this tripe ever got lumped in with great literature is a mystery. Like the ideology it espouses, it's populist ideology wrapped in an attractive cover, giving people license to be as greed and selfish as they want to be. Fabio was sadly too young to appear on the cover.

  
  
• [8] pordy from NJ November 06, 2009 - 12:24PM

  Does anybody know the name of the book the author mentioned as Rand's favorite? Kalamut Kay or some such?

  
  
• [9] Harry Binswanger from NYC November 06, 2009 - 12:42PM

  Rand's greatness as a philosopher and a novelist is too obvious to require argumentation (and I speak as a professional philosopher). Apparently, some people can't separate "I disagree" from "This is well argued and well expressed."

  But to answer the question about her favorite *popular* novel, it was Calumet K, by Merwin & Webster. (Her favorite novel of serious literature was Victor Hugo's Man Who Laughs).