VARIETY
the results." The jury hardly bo–
thers to deliberate. Not guilty, the
foreman says.
Lest the point of the book be
missed by her fans, Miss Rand ex–
plains in her letter that she is of–
fering "a new code of ethics," a
"morality of individualism." What
it amounts to is a kind of watered–
down existentialism: don't live
through other people. The Great
Heresy may be seen in the squashy
submissiveness of Dominique's first
husband, Peter Keating, and in the
power-loving spirit of her second,
the arrogant publisher, Gail Wy–
nand. The equilibrium is main–
tained in the. unsullied egoism of
Roark who neither seeks to repress
his ego for the sake of the herd
nor to live through the herd b;
ruling it.
So
much for the philosophy of
The Fountainhead.
One can only
guess whether Miss Rand's reflec–
tions helped to sell her book or
whether her insights were sub–
merged by the glamour of Domi–
nique's boudoir and the long de–
scriptiom of "frozen music" that
read like the program notes of Olin
Downes. Part of its appeal must
lie in its charm for young readers
obsessed by thoughts
of
their own
identities; they can respond, per–
hotps, to its vision of power and
sex, to its particular brand of ro–
m.antic anarchism, shot through
w1th an equally spurious idealism
which inspire dormitory
bull-ses~
sions and stimulate adolescent rev–
eries.
A_nd yet this dreary and vulgar
eqmvalent of Carlyle or Nietzsche
445
is symptomatic of certain post–
war attitudes that have become
more sharply outlined in the last
few years. It is indiscriminately
anticollectivist, antidemocratic, an–
tihumanitarian. Howard Roark's
challenge to the bureaucrats and
the system-makers-"I don't work
with collectives. I don't consult. I
don't co-operate. I don't collabor–
ate"-becomes in this novel more
than a cry against authoritarian–
ism; it is a glorification of the
solitary Titans, a polemic against
the collaborating, co-operating
masses. This is the book that thou–
sands of readers, many of them of
the more literate variety, have
found inspiring. It is significant, if
not portentous, that a woman like
Ayn Rand can write a best seller
in which the word "collectivism"
is distorted beyond all recognition
and "democracy" becomes another
n~~e
for vulgarity, stupidity, and
VICiousness.
DANIEL AARoN
Now published
What Is Existentialism?
ROYAL MURDOCH'S
New Book
·
GARGANTUA'S
MOUTH
l!'rovocative and arresting poems
1n
the modern vein.
$3.00
THE FINE EDITIONS PRESS
227 EAsT 45TH ST., NEw YoRK
