Still reading The Fountainhead, even though I feel I should not be. In one way, I'm glad to be reading it, because I'm a different person now than I was the first time I read it. I'm paying more attention to the struggles that Roark is experiencing. I'm paying more attention to the language Rand uses to describe his struggles.
Right now I'm at the part in the book where he's done plans for the Manhattan Bank. They're telling him they'll accept the plans, with just a few changes. Previously, Roark was in his office, doing nothing but waiting for the phone to ring, or a letter to drop through the mail slot. The only thing he had left was this building.
Now that I've entered the work force and become an office drone, and read a number of books on how to get along with people, how to speedread people, how to understand others, how to succeed in life, it must be sinking in slowly but surely. I'm not sure I like this process, any more than I like the process I underwent on my mission. I was a different person at the end of my mission, and while it was a good learning experience, I had become someone I did not like.
Now, the person I am, views Roark as an oddball, and I pick up on what the other people around him are saying. I pick up on what Keating is doing, and what he's saying to Roark. I pick up on what Keating's mother is saying to Keating. I pick up on what Francon is doing with his firm. I pick up on the way the youths feel as they drive past the Booby House on their way to fun and escape.
Roark is too much like the part of me that was raised away from normal people, and never learned how to be normal. I'm tired of being different, and I don't even have the excuse he has, that he has a vision, a belief in something. Without that, there's nothing to keep me from slipping into normalcy, nothing to keep me from playing the game.
However, I'm reminded of a movie called Cool Hand Luke where that character is driven, not by any vision or ideal, but simply by what he is. It got him killed, but that's because society could not stomach what he was.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Roark
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1 comment:
This is a seriously interesting comment/analysis on the Fountainhead and its characters. It's also a window into your thinking, how you preceive yourself, and how you stop and look around at what you've learned. I hope I can do that more myself, and write it down the way you do. I loved the Fountainhead as it introduced me to new concepts I'd never considered, and redefined the word "selfless" in a whole new way. It's interesting... whether true, false, real, or imagined we get a chance to think about it. And even more so, as you noted that reading it as you're older with more experience gives it a whole new perspective. Hmm... very interesting.
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