Gluten-intolerant socialists stop alcoholic barber
from ranting about the end of capitalism
to his captive clients

A few months ago my son and I read Ayn Rand's classic novel, The Fountainhead, for the first time. Then we read it again in Spanish. It was that good. I agree with much of the praise and the controversy.

The "consensual" rape scene, for an example of the controversy, is a head scratcher that could have destroyed Samson. I bet Rand's editor wished she omitted it, but I also can't imagine anyone telling Rand what to do.

I won't even try to untangle Ayn Rand's views on romance, sex and marriage. Needless to say, it made for an interesting story.

After raping her, Dominique becomes Roark's mistress, only to later elope with the man she hates, Peter Keating. Then on her wedding night, she sleeps one last time with Roark. Years later, she divorces Keating and marries another man she hateth, only to have an affair with Roark, and, then, finally, marry Roark.

I sure hope it worked out for Roark.

Dominique must have been a very attractive woman, as I have no idea what he saw in her. She spends a lot of the story sitting around smoking, drinking and complaining that the world wasn't good enough for anything great. It was only at the end of the novel when she does some real work to save her second husband's newspaper company that I thought she seemed at all desirable.

Nonetheless, I see this type of attitude in the freedom movement a lot: a sort of nihilistic resolve to not try because the world, the government, the WHO, the media, the school system, and their triple-jabbed next-door neighbour, are all too corrupt, numerous, stupid and powerful.

I had a barber like this. He'd rant up and down, while he cut my hair, about how the world was going to a socialist hell catering to a bunch of gluten-intolerant vegetarians (little did he know I don't eat meat and do rather poorly with wheat). When my hair was finally trimmed (which always took more time with him) he'd look at me and say, "Well, nothing to do about it but drink up."

I rather suspect he followed his own advice when those freedom-intolerant socialists told him to shut down his barber shop during lockdown. When I biked to his shop, he had a big "closed for lockdown" sign taped to his window with another even bigger sign saying: "Damn coronavirus!"

Not: "Damn politicians!"

Anyway, back to Dominique Francon in The Fountainhead: Of course, she turns around by the end of the novel. She learns from Roark to get busy doing your best and not waste a second worrying about those who would destroy you.

When Roark finally meets the villain Toohey (who was neither gluten-intolerant nor vegetarian) about halfway through the story, Toohey asks him:

"Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us."

Roark's reply is worth the entire price of the book: "But I don't think of you."

He was too busy thinking about the great things he was working to accomplish.

Now, while I agree 100% with Rand's views on the morality of hard work, I couldn't comprehend her extreme views on the execution of hard work. I'll write about this in a follow-up post.

Despite my general dislike for the hero's relationship with Ms. Dominique Francon, I still give the novel five stars. And I rarely give a book five stars. If you haven't yet, you can purchase a gluten-free copy here: https://blazingpinecone.com/shop/the-fountainhead/ 

—John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/