Krishna
This is an old classic. It is a rather big book (some 700 pages) and follows the life of Howard Roark, an architect who has an innate talent as an architect that is greater than any in the world but who also is a rebel and does not follow any rule common to man. He is expelled from his college for his rebellious views and insulting words to the dean. He then joins Henry Cameron, a talented architect who is a has been because he cannot compromise his principles enough to follow the crowd. When his remaining business collapses, Roark is forced to look for a job.
He joins Peter Keating, his ex classmate who now rises to the pinnacle of the architectural world and is feted by all as brilliant. Only Peter is insecure in front of Roark’s remarkable assurance. Roark manages to get himself fired due to insolence and ends up in a quarry, breaking stones. Peter rises to become partner and then sole owner of the company he works for, owned by Francon.
Roark’s greatness is recognized by a few but most shun him and revile his work. Dominique Francon, daughter of Francon, falls for Roark but marries Peter Keating. Peter betrays his then love, Catherine, to marry her.
Enter another character in this already complex tale, Gail Wynand, a rags to riches owner of a newspaper empire, who falls for and marries Dominique. In all this, Dominique’s love of Roark was never extinguished…
It is a complex tale and in parts, the conversation is crisp and clear. But my problem is this: all the characters behave completely unpredictably, and do the strangest of things all of a sudden. No amount of explanation seems to suffice to unravel this arbitrariness. And they all live in this rigid idealistic world of black and white to such an exaggerated extent that they seem mad and unable to even function as normal human beings in this world of ours. Idealistic, yes, this is normal in the world, but insane with idealism? This is what their passion feels like to read.
According to the book, here is a synopsis of the rules of life. If you like a girl, go and rape her, and she will fall for you, if she is the right woman for you. If you are a good builder, you will insult your clients in the name of architectural purity. You will not defer to anyone, even your clients, though you are building for them and they are paying you for your work. You will profess not to care for others, preach that dictators, thiefs and murderers are bad but think nothing of blowing up a building of others and be hauled into court – for the sake of an architectural principle!
OK, what if you are a woman? Then you will love someone deeply and will sleep with him at night while vilifying him and his work by day, to put him down. When he is down and out, professing love for him, you will walk out and marry his rival, not for love but to ‘suffer for your love‘. Huh? Come again? Then you will agree to be sold to a higher bidder, and stay married to that man. When you find out that the second man you married is a good person, contrary to what you thought, you will be shocked, and relent enough to care for him – for a while of course. When he is down and out, you will fight with him; but let him just make one compromise, you will scandalize him, ruin his life, and run back to your original lover.
The preachy tone hurts too – Everyone is either fantastically clever or able or like a bunch of sheep follow blindly others. There is no one who is, say, slightly above average, good enough but not brilliant. If you are clever and a fake, you will manipulate the whole world with good words. All others will form a chorus of similar views, expressed one after the other to fill two pages, every time. They all talk a lot, in the fashion of a university lecturer teaching morals as a subject.
And if you are virtuous, the whole world will vilify you; one misfortune after another will be reserved for you. Even if you try to bounce back, your benefactor is a puppet of an evil man and he will betray you. If you try to talk sense to the public, they will spurn you and force you to go back to your evil ways.
Preachy enough for you? For anyone, I should think.
It sees the world in annoying black and white and is like reading an elaborately plotted moral lecture and the value of unbridled capitalism. Here a disclaimer is in order: I am not a socialist in my personal views and so this is not an ideological rant.
Just because it has some interesting conversations – I will give it a 3/10
— Krishna