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Excerpt from Classic Cult Fiction

In his 1992 book about novels that have "a devoted following," Classic Cult Fiction, Thomas Reed Whissen devotes a chapter to The Fountainhead.

If any author ever set out to write a book with the intention of rallying readers around a cause, that author was Ayn Rand, and that book is The Fountainhead.

The Fountainhead is a thesis novel. It illustrates a point. All the common fictional ingredients are there--strong narrative, well-defined characters, complex plot--but they are all subordinate to the idea that controls the novel: the absolute supremacy of the individual over the mob. Thus, the cult it inspired could be called the cult of sanctified selfishness, for Rand's individualists are totally convinced that they come first, that they know what is best for them, and that what is best for them is necessarily best for those beneath them. To continue to make this point throughout the novel, to keep the reader's mind constantly focused on it, and to make the idea stick, Rand manipulates all the techniques of fiction to that end.

Thus, situations are contrived in which the individual is pitted against the mob, characters make embarrassingly revealing speeches about their motivation, every plot device imaginable is employed--and the reader/ convert is seduced into a more than willing suspension of disbelief. Rand's critics say that she cannot write, but one senses in such an indictment more of a political than a literary posture; for surely the enduring success of The Fountainhead -- not to mention the enormously popular Atlas Shrugged -- cannot be attributed to her philosophy alone. Her style may be somewhat overwrought and her characters cardboard, but she is a genius at plotting, and she knows how to tell a story.

Literary history is strewn with forgotten thesis novels that had their day and then became embalmed in literary history, such as Rousseau's Emile, Samuel Butler's Erewohn, or Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. If The Fountainhead had been written by Upton Sinclair, for example, one doubts that it would still be on the shelves. Books like The Jungle become literary curiosities the moment the problems they confront are solved. The Fountainhead is a thesis novel that has become a curiosity largely because it has not suffered the fate of most thesis novels. Its detractors aside, part of the reason for the novel's enduring popularity must be attributed to its literary strengths. However, whatever literary strengths it has are not enough to account for the unique impact The Fountainhead has exerted on readers since its publication in 1943.

[...]

Ayn Rand usually casts her stories as myths, often setting them in the future when socialism has enslaved society, annihilating all vestiges of individuality, replacing names with social security numbers, and seeing to it that citizens devote most of their energy to the good of all. The Fountainhead, while closer to the reality of its times in terms of its architectural argument, actually takes place in a vague future, and the reality it depicts is a reality that has been so filtered through Rand's imagination as to become surrealistic. This is why the stylized movie sets of the film version work so well, with their blend of the art deco backdrops of the thirties and the famous Warner Brothers film noir moodiness of the forties, even though the picture preaches clearly of things to come.In Rand's world the contours are sharp and the sides clearly drawn. On one side is a handful of men of genius -- and the women who appreciate them. On the other is the crowd, the mob, the herd--ignorant, tasteless, gullible -- eager to be led by the arch fiends of mind control, those power-hungry manipulators who preach humanitarianism in an effort to dupe the masses into following them. Rand's heroes, while they may be unabashed egoists, show their respect for people by refusing to patronize them with handouts and bad art. Her villains are the megalomaniacs who show contempt for the people by catering to the lowest common denominator as a cheap political ploy. But their motivation runs deeper than this, for it is not merely victory over the masses that appeals to them. This is too easily gained to be of much enduring satisfaction. What excites them is the opportunity to destroy the men of genius of whom they are insanely jealous.

In giving victory to the men of genius, Rand is assuring us that the masses are, after all, capable of being enlightened, that their eyes can be opened to the condescension that lurks behind endeavors to provide them with the things their benefactors think good for them -- that behind the benign smile they can detect the snicker. The problem ordinary readers have with Roark's acquittal on charges of willful destruction of private property is that they find what he did indefensible and his justification for it smug. They would like to hang him for arrogance alone; thus, they cannot accept such a contrived conclusion. Cult readers, however, are willing to swallow Rand's optimism as an affirmation of their faith in the ultimate triumph of objectivism. While they may secretly wonder where such an enlightened jury might be found, they need to be told that it is worth holding out against the mob. For what good is the struggle without the hope of victory?

From Classic Cult Fiction, pp. 94-97. Omissions from the text are shown with bracketed ellipses. All other punctuation and spelling is from the original.

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