To feel the joy of salvation!

In all my 21 years, I have read many books, nay; I devoured them, with the appetite to shame a demon. And today, I stand shamed, for in all this time, I never found it necessary to read the one book that stands apart from all the others, and yet identifies with each and every one of them. I speak, in the most reverential tone, of Ayn Rand’s ‘THE FOUNTAINHEAD’.
The stark presence of the protagonist Howard Roark somehow is so irritating, and yet so calming. His refusal to step down from his pedestal is reminiscent of the courage the Olympians possessed, and yet I would not be so wrong as to say that maybe even they may falter in his company. His personality is like Prometheus, resigned to a doom worse than Hades, and yet determined to do his God-given task with truth and integrity. Yet, although I have termed Roark as the protagonist, there are so many characters with which one empathizes, some in a positive sense, some negatively, but empathizes nonetheless. The most powerful anti-hero, if I be permitted the usage of the term, is without doubt Ellsworth Toohey, who through his calm and composed machinations, travels from being a respected figure to one who merits the hatred and scorn reserved for the most deplorable and abominable individuals in society. Toohey, as one of the characters in the book remarks, bears so much resemblance to his homophones, as in gooey, phooey, etc. That in the end he is only booted out of a comfortable job and no more causes some despair, but one figures that even the villain is deemed to have human rights. The heroine of the book, Dominique Wynand nee Francon, at first comes across as a most irritating and disagreeable person, given to tearing down exactly all that she loves the most, merely for the pleasure of doing so, somewhat like the pleasures of the Marquis de Sade, but as the book progresses, one can only express a most heartfelt admiration, even adulation for her strength of character, for even through the most troubling of circumstances, she never abandons her love for Roark. Her husband, the newspaper tycoon, Gail Wynand, at first seems like the invisible phantom, tormenting the world with his newsprint, a despicable and appalling man. And yet, by the end of the book, one reserves a special affection for him, as a man who has been projected, and who chose to be projected as a villain merely because the world was insensitive to his ideals and sought exactly that which he sought not to give. He gives the world the thrill it seeks, because now he sees himself not as a man of the masses, but a man above the masses. It is only sad that in the end, and I do not commit any heresy for this, for there can be no better end, Wynand must lose his beautiful Muse, but fittingly to Roark.
In all this discussion about the remaining characters, I pray I do not do injustice to my adulation of Roark himself, and even as I write this, I wistfully feel that even if it were to be my intention, I could never do so. For Roark is like the font of all that a man must aspire to: a fanatical devotion to one’s ideals, a seemingly stupid, yet awe-inspiring reluctance to abandon these beliefs, even when one’s very existence is at stake, a detachment from one’s creations in that the creator is entitled to his/her attachment/s only so long as the process of creation is underway. Amongst the finest points in the book are his anguished defense of the rights of a creator to differ from the norm, to break with convention, and his proclamation that only those who attempt to escape the commonplace are assured of a permanent place in the annals of history; all the rest are second-handers, living on the carcasses of societal favor and opinion, incapable of changing when the times change, merely because they never possessed the merit in the first place.
Each and every idea emanating from this book is like an eternal message to the world, worthy of being engraved in each and every stone adorning our most decorated and most valued temples of human spirit and achievement. Howard Roark, from this day forth, shall symbolize to me, an indomitable spirit, a spirited soul, imbued with the values of truth, integrity and strength of character much beyond the grasp of imagination. Each message that Rand presents in this book is worth every word she expends on it, and worthy of a patient understanding, if not on the merits of the message itself, but for the salvation of the soul.
Before I end this blog, I cannot but help express my most exultant and eternal gratitude to my dear friend, Winny, whose incessant and sincere praise for this book finally led me to buying it, and I must say, her praise was fully justified not once, but many times over.