VA R IE T·Y
But he is also given to philosophiz–
ing about the fit and the unfit,
functional architecture, and "in–
tegrity." In fact many of the char–
acters in
The Fountainhead
are
great talkers, and despite the vio–
lence and lust and sadism and
masochism glowing fitfully through
hundreds of murky pages,
The
Fountainhead,
compared to
The
Manatee
or
The Turquoise,
is an
intellectual book. It is built around
an idea. It carries a message.
If
we follow the main lines of
the story and ignore the seductive
byways , the plot is roughly this.
Howard Roark (for Roark read
"the male principle," "the creative
urge," Individualism, Thoreau,
Frank Lloyd Wright, Carlyle, Wil–
liam Graham Sumner, Alexis Car–
rel, Tom Girdler; Priapus) is fired
out of the Stanton Institute of
Technology because his ideas about
architecture don't happen to jibe
'"'-ith the administration's. Like most
solipsists Roark is a little hard to
deal with, but the reader knows
from the beginning that no mis–
fortune can make a dent on his
flinty personality. He cuts through
the obstacles of authority, institu–
tions, society, convention as easily
as Superman,
to
whom he bears an
esoteric relationship, and sustained
by Nature and by a high-powered
unabashed ego, he ultimately
achieves an unsought-for success.
Indeed Roark is so omnipotent, his
unblushing indifference to the most
formidable barriers is so colossal,
that Miss Rand must work very
hard to set up counterforces which
will even temporarily stall her jug–
gernaut.
443
The Iliad
or, The Poem of Force
by
Simone Weil
This remarkable essay, written
during the Nazi occupation of
France, is now available in pamph–
let form at 2Sc a copy, ISc in
quantitie~
of
I 0
or more.
The July-August issue of "Politics"
will be wholly devoted to
FRENCH
POLITICAL WRITING
Partial list of contents:
Simone de Beauvoir: "An Eye for
,an Eye"
Albert Camus: "Neither Victims
nor Executioners" (full text of
the recent series in "Combat")
Henri Michaux: "La Marche dans
le TunNel" (poems)
Jules Monnerot: "On Revolution–
ary Justice"
David Rousset: "Days of our
Death"
Jean-Paul Sartre: "Materialism
and Revolution"
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