Recently I've been re-reading to The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. Actually, to be completely accurate I'm listening to it in audiobook format during my daily commutes to and from work.
I first read The Fountainhead in high school and remember liking it very much and finding it inspirational. I aspired to be like Howard Roark, to be an artist with integrity.
As I re-read it now, with several decades of experience between me and that first reading, I see things that I didn't see the first time through. Firstly, Ayn Rand is not the most subtle writer. In a way, The Fountainhead is to philosophy what The Goal (Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox) is to factory planning; the characters are drawn in broad coarse strokes and exist primarily to move the book's argument forward.
The book is, of course, at least nominally about architecture and architects and as someone who fancies himself a bit of a software architect, it's interesting to consider what Howard Roark would be like if instead of buildings he designed software. I'm not yet ready to pass a verdict as I'm at about the middle point and Howard Roark could yet turn out to be quite a different person than he now appears.
After a bit of research I did find that I'm not alone, though. Joel On Software mentions Ayn Rand and there are some interesting comments. Here is the link: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=147596.
I also discovered that there was a movie made of The Fountainhead. IMDB and Netflix commenters generally agree that it is not best of genre. I am planning to see it when I have the chance but after I finish the book. One interesting tidbit I picked up from reading movie reviews was that Ayn Rand had wanted Frank Llyod Wright to design the architectural models featured in the film but had relented when Wright's fees were too high. This led me then to compare the life of Wright to Rand's character Roark. Short answer: Not much alike.
I first read The Fountainhead in high school and remember liking it very much and finding it inspirational. I aspired to be like Howard Roark, to be an artist with integrity.
As I re-read it now, with several decades of experience between me and that first reading, I see things that I didn't see the first time through. Firstly, Ayn Rand is not the most subtle writer. In a way, The Fountainhead is to philosophy what The Goal (Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox) is to factory planning; the characters are drawn in broad coarse strokes and exist primarily to move the book's argument forward.
The book is, of course, at least nominally about architecture and architects and as someone who fancies himself a bit of a software architect, it's interesting to consider what Howard Roark would be like if instead of buildings he designed software. I'm not yet ready to pass a verdict as I'm at about the middle point and Howard Roark could yet turn out to be quite a different person than he now appears.
After a bit of research I did find that I'm not alone, though. Joel On Software mentions Ayn Rand and there are some interesting comments. Here is the link: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=147596.
I also discovered that there was a movie made of The Fountainhead. IMDB and Netflix commenters generally agree that it is not best of genre. I am planning to see it when I have the chance but after I finish the book. One interesting tidbit I picked up from reading movie reviews was that Ayn Rand had wanted Frank Llyod Wright to design the architectural models featured in the film but had relented when Wright's fees were too high. This led me then to compare the life of Wright to Rand's character Roark. Short answer: Not much alike.