Jun 03, 2007 03:13 PM
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If books were measured by the anarchy that they could cause in a zeitgeist of the communist world, this book would rank 10 on a Richter scale.
This book has personally taken me through a roller coaster ride. An iconoclast and "egotist”, in search of an identity, the author helps me to identity myself as Roark of the financial world.
I have been delving with philosophy and religion over the past few months. As a Hindu, I naturally picked up what was the most easily accessible, "The Bhagvad Gita". I have been reading this in parallel with the fountainhead and I am stunned at the similarities between the two. I suspect that the author; a self-confessed atheist, drew some of her inspiration from eastern philosophy or religion. The philosophies propounded in the Gita for example state that God resides in you and you are God, learn to love yourself and only then will you love others; karma yog - is nothing but another way of reaching The One, or to put it more subtly, work is worship . All these are qualities that Howard Roark believed in. So even though The fountainhead clearly states that Roark had no "religious brain centre", I think Roark was nothing short of probably the most conscientious character in the whole book.
The profound effect that the book has had on me can be summed up by saying that I am at a crossroad in my career. I can either go the Keating way, or the Roark way, and today I chose to take the latter path, and I know that when the going gets tough, The Fountainhead will stand as beacon of light, as I navigate the chasm of darkness.
This is truly my Gita. God has spoken to me through the Author.
