Book review : The Fountainhead

A spectacle. This book is one of the strongest and heaviest books that I've read. Its strength is evident in almost each of its dialogue. Heavier on the mind with each page. It is not the one that you can while away your time with. It requires your full attention, if you are to understand it.

It has a good plot. One that brings out the virtues of the hero easily and shows at the same time how difficult it is to have them. The hero is portrayed brilliantly. I cannot think of anything else I've read that depicts the hero so wonderfully. It is conspicuous that each of the characters are built with a lot of thinking. The things written are not an outcome of a passing thought, but of one that took quite an effort on the part of Miss Rand, or no effort at all if one can be born with such rare talent.

There are five chief characters according to me. A simple plot, if one looks only on the outset. You have a victim, the man who wants only publicity. There is a villain, the one who pulls down all the things of greatness to mediocrity and with such ease that almost appears effortless. He is a power seeker and the worst bilge rat amongst the many that he rules over. There is a helpless bystander, who could well have been the hero but couldn't endure the path nor the resistance in the path. Not at the cost of his life's greatest work. Then there is the hero, the noble soul, the fountainhead of all achievement. And the heroine, the one who believes in the hero and suffers and endures it, though many times I felt she is deranged.

This is the story of a man against the world and its prejudice, human will against a blind majority. I do not believe in everything that has been said in this book, but I can say with conviction that what has been said was someone's greatest beliefs. You can see it in the way in which it is told.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book, though in the middle and at more than a couple of occasions I felt quite annoyed. I must say that I couldn't put this book down even then.

There are some books that I can't compare to anything else, books that I don't feel should be compared with anything else and that it would only be an insult to it, and the mind behind it, if that were done. This one would go without any doubt into that category and I am glad that I've had the chance to read it. It is not often that one comes against something spectacular and notices that even after 49 years of its first release, it still is a best seller and that it has a long way to go.