Otherwise Maladroit

13 October 2002 Riddle

13 October 2002

Riddle

The Fountainhead is all but my favorite book. It is like a spoiled child - demanding, difficult, exasperating and grating. In fact, I consider it a small miracle that I was able to finish it at all since I somewhat despised it from the start! However, take note that "somewhat" is the operative word in the last sentence. Somewhat deterred, yes, but a lingering curiosity to answer why Rand's celebrated work is so controversial propelled me to read a third of it. By then, I had confirmed my suspicions that it is a truly despicable piece of crap and I abandoned it for more interesting reading, but damn the harpy authoress she had sneakily planted a kernel of thought in my head!

Every loneliness is a pinnacle.

Digest that arrogant phrase above. Isn't it awful how it proudly declares, how contemptuous it adjudicates, how severe it analyzes? The phrase encapsulates the anti-hero's analysis of Howard Roark's ideology, or rather, the lack of Roark's adherence to ideology.

Who is Howard Roark you ask? He is the most one-dimensional and uninteresting of all characters I have ever encountered in the literary world. He is, to the novel's misfortune, the hero. And the anti-hero? He is Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, the "conscience", nucleus and catalyst of the story.

"Then why submit this essay at all?" I add to the questions posed. Well, aren't YOU intrigued to know why "every loneliness is a pinnacle"? When our convoluted logic dictates that a celebration is not one without a platoon of fawning admirers? When achievement is without, if there is no contribution of effort? When no one gets to the top of Mt. Everest, without the rope manufactured by an underpaid and overworked laborer?

Is it fair of me to answer that question here? No. If you want to know how that reasoning works in Rand's skewed universe, then it is up to you to find out! Mt. Everest is conquered by sheer will for the simple pleasure of enriching life! There, I have conceded part of the answer already, but if you wish to understand how the sum was arrived at, then you must work out the equation itself.

Perhaps, this essay would be better if I revealed the work's effect to my life, but haven't you been paying attention? It has made me mad! I'm certified and ripe for the loony bin! Haven't I been intrusive in ordering you to read the book for yourself to discover why it is wonderful? Haven't I been tiresome in asking all these questions instead of giving you the answers? Haven't I wasted this space in insisting that you make an effort? That is, if you haven't left already and you wouldn't be reading this sentence.

All right, just to keep you few stalwart readers who have come this far interested, not only does the Fountainhead have a love triangle, it has a love rectangle. Even a pentagon! A hexagon! A heptagon! On final count, the novel is a veritable love fest! An orgy even!

Shockingly, the object of all the characters' desire whether evasive, clear, stirring, masochistic, or sadistic is not even a character or a thing in the book itself. Believe it or not, all of them are pursuing a relationship with that lonesome phrase above! Yes, the one without any sentences surrounding it. To reiterate:

Every loneliness is a pinnacle.

I bet that those that have read the book have lost their eyebrows to the stratosphere. Maybe they expected me to wax poetic about the tele-novela proportions of the complications between Howard and Dominique, then Peter, and then the publisher guy whose name isn't worth mentioning here since he is completely despicable and unworthy of forgiveness. Read between the lines! Howard, Dominique and the publisher guy aren't in love with each other. Their relationship is actually based on the creation of a mutual admiration society of like-minded individuals who crowned Peter as their mascot for their amusement. For those uninitiated keep your eyes peeled for the scene where Dominique accidentally slips out that she found Roark handsome and reveals a chink in her armor to Toohey, who was more than delighted to discover that Achilles heel. How can she find the gangly, fiery haired, and wide-mouthed architect who has the social grace of a slug attractive?

"You can't possible consider Toohey's situation to be the same?" you cry out incredulously. But I counter-pose, could he have been able to admit that every loneliness is a pinnacle if he had not acknowledged his respect for that idea? He is a spurned lover.

posted by Otherwise Maladroit @ 5:29 PM