So, the past few days at work, it has been so slow, that I’ve read 340 pgs of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Yes, I read that much at work. in 3 days.
It’s good. I like it. 1920s New York architects. It’s a little depressing. The way some of the characters treat architecture in the novel reminds me of Americans and all the awful reality TV shows that are out there.
It’s unnecessarily long. It’s really long. I’m halfway through and just got to the event that is probably central to the novel as a whole. After 340 pages. Ayn Rand tends to … preach. Not exactly, but a lot of her novel (and in Atlas Shrugged from what I remember) is dialogue between characters extolling their beliefs. Telling people what they think about society, about art, about the soul, about capitalism, etc. There must be a better way to do that. I know there’s a speech coming up in the novel that is exactly that. Saying, rather than doing or showing (i.e. in Atlas Shrugged, there’s a radio speech that goes on for — I kid you not — 100+ pages)
But, if you have the patience and discipline for a 700 page novel about ideas, you should read it.
From what I understand of her the point of her novels was to get her objectivist or objectionalist or whatever philosophy across, so it makes sense that there’d be a lot of deep, misplaced dialogue.
you guys are great. not only that but your mom and dad are also great. I felt like I could just be me. which sometimes is not so great. This is me trying to say the word great which might be greater then great, that’s an old phrase from my pal andrew, your husband. awesome.
many thanks for the shout-out. i’ve never had the courage…or was it desire…courage gives a break to ayn, so we’ll go with that…to pick up anything by rand. the better part of this story is that you have a job that allows you to read several hundred pages of a book over a few-day span. there are certainly downers to mindless jobs, but sometimes there are some damn sweet perks too.