dispatches from quilt city

Ayn Rand is also sort of an assface

Praise baby Jesus! I finished The Fountainhead, and I actually I believe I'm worse because of it.

I used to feel that reading was always positive, and once I started a book I had to finish. I am now officially tossing those rules out the window. So, actually I guess something good did come out of reading The Fountainhead.

Seriously, ya'll, this book SUCKS. I hated it. I hated the characters. I hated her philosophy. I hated the whole freaking thing.

If you know anything about Ayn Rand, you know that she promoted her philosophy of objectivism. Basically, it's the belief that the only real moral purpose is the pursuit of happiness through individual achievement. No altruism. No achieving in order to make other's lives better. Only ego.

And she spends the entire novel forcing this philosophy down your throat.

Even if I agreed with her (which I don't), I still think I'd resent the constant barrage of six page monologues on the value of individual achievement and the danger of "the collective." (Never mind, that she formed a group of people called...get this..The Collective. Apparently, working toward a group goal is ok if you agree with her.) If you want to know the other hundred reason she's a big fat hypocrite, read this.

Plus, she wrote total drivel like this:
"My darling, do you see why I'm happy and why I'm free?"
He said:
"I'll never remind you afterward that you're crying, Dominique."

Good Lord! Excuse me, why I go vomit up my lunch.

Of course, the ultimate irony is Rand was a huge critical flop. All the intellectual elite she valued thought she sucked a big fat one. It was the public, which she busts on the entire time, that turned her book into a success. So, I guess it depends on how you look at it. Either she was wrong and the public does know art of value when they see (or read) it. OR she is right and the public does only like crap. ;)