Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

Most of the 15 essays are very good, yet a few are better left unread.The best for me, by far, was Onkar Ghate's "The Basic Motivation of the Creators and the Masses in The Fountainhead." He summed up the story brilliantly and I think his essay should be considered as an afterword to a future edition of the novel.The worst, by far, were Tore Boeckmann's two essays. Unnecessarily convoluted and very repetitive (both should be combined and heavily edited) Especially the 2nd one "Aristotle's Poetics and The Fountainhead" where he actually gives away the ending to "We The Living." (pg. 171 in the hardcover)Thankfully, I'm reading Ayn Rand's novels in order, so I've already read "We The Living" but if I hadn't, I would be extremely pissed off. Along with his written spaghetti and repetitive ideas, the fact that he spoils an ending like that, left a very bad impression.The remainder were very good with several fun facts and insights I found interesting.I have to take one star off for the blemish of Tore Boeckmann's obvious faux-pas on an otherwise great collection of studies.

Excellent collection of essays on The Fountainhead and a perfect complement for the book. The essays cover the historical background of the novel as well as delve deeper into the underlying philosophic message and the characters who espouse it, as well as their contrasts. I enjoyed Onkar Ghate's essay the most and his analysis of the different characters and the psychology behind them. Tara Smith's contribution was also very helpful in explaining the greatness behind Roark in more detail. And lastly, Shoshana MIlgram's opening essay describing the historical background was fascinating as she discusses some surprising evolutions in Miss Rand's thoughts leading up to the publication of The Fountainhead.There were some slight redundancies but overall each essay contributes interesting additional information about this superb novel. I highly recommend if you enjoyed reading The Fountainhead- this will help explain some of the deeper reasons for the book's appeal. Plus the personal interview with Leonard Peikoff at the end is very entertaining.

A superb collection of essays on Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead". I read it specifically for its philosophical essays. The essay on Independence by UT Austin Professor, Dr Tara Smith, is worth the price of the book itself. Onkar Ghate's essay on the Creators and their basic motivation is stellar, too. The essays by Tore Boeckman, discussing Issues in aesthetics, are great but slightly difficult to digest, given that he is doing original work in this field.The essays on the novel's history are worth reading, though I wasn't too Interested in them. All in all, this is the kind of scholarship that is deserved by this great classic. Two thumbs up!!

Robert Mayhew's collection of essays is a fine addition to the growing literature on the fiction of Ayn Rand, next to his previous Essays on Anthem and Essays on We the Living (and the upcoming Essays on Atlas Shrugged). I've read most of the essays in this volume and can particularly recommend Onkar Ghate's, which I think really captures the essence and meaning of the novel. Ghate discusses the novel from the perspective of the conflict between the creators and the second handers and makes many excellent points. Highly recommended.

This is the third of four volumes edited by Robert Mayhew on Ayn Rand's four major works of fiction. As with the other volumes the essays are not particularly critical (all the authors are associated with Leonard Peikoff's Ayn Rand Institute, a quasi religious organization) but are valuable nonetheless. Shoshana Milgram's essay on Rand's writing The Fountainhead is excellent. Milgram demonstrates that Rand did in fact go through a Nietzschean phase in her work. Michael Berliner's essay on Howard Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright is also quite good.

Most people don't read literary criticism for pleasure. With good reason: most of it's pretentious, muddle-headed, even corrupt, spouting the poisonous dogma that your mind can't see facts, all it sees is warped by "class, race, and gender." (Then how can they claim that as fact?)This book is a glowing exception.It's a clear, straightforward, helpful, and fascinating look at Ayn Rand's immortal classic, written by noted scholars. Here are partial contents:"The Fountainhead" from Notebook to Novel: The Composition of Ayn Rand's First Ideal Man, by Shoshana MilgramHoward Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright, by Michael BerlinerAdapting "The Fountainhead" to Film, by Jeff Britting"The Fountainhead" as a Romantic Novel, by Tore BoeckmannWhat Might Be and Ought to Be: Aristotle's "Poetics" and "The Fountainhead," by Tore BoeckmannThree Inspirations for the Ideal Man: Cyrus Paltons, Enjolras, and Cyrano de Bergerac, by Shoshana MilgramUnborrowed Vision: Independence and Egoism in "The Fountainhead," by Tara SmithRorak's Integrity, by Dina ScheinA Moral Dynamiting, by Amy PeikoffHighly recommended! Don't miss it!

The first essay, Shoshana Milgram's tells us about many items Rand wrote and then didn't use. They are available to scholars to study. In this essay you can read what Rand wrote...in her early, unused drafts, telling us what Roark and Dominique thought during their first "meetings."

This collection focuses mostly on philosophical argument and textual interpretation, which is fine -- but anyone studying the novel would probably benefit from more historical and contextual detail. Unfortunately, the only chapter which goes into this at all (Amy Peikoff's short essay on copyright law) is a rather poorly done piece of scholarship. There are several essays here that don't back up their claims with reference to the text, and a great deal of the quotations are of comments Rand made about her own novel.If you had difficulty understanding the philosophy of The Fountainhead, some essays in this collection will be useful to you. Nine of the thirteen contributors are philosophers. As a literature student, it was a disappointment, though Tore Boeckmann's essay "The Fountainhead as a Romantic Novel" is an interesting look at the author's craft.