"The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand Book Review 9/24/2013

Title: The Fountainhead

Author: Ayn Rand

Genre: Philosophical Fiction

Year Published: 1943

*Happy Banned Books Week!!! This post has nothing to do with Banned Books Week but I thought I'd be festive right here*

I'm baaaaack! Yes it has literally been months since I have posted... and I have really missed this! I attribute my absence to this 694-page monster, The Fountainhead. This novel is required reading for my A.P. English Language and Composition class that I am taking in 11th grade. As well as read it, I had to annotate every page and keep a list of vocabulary words to define. As if that wasn't time-consuming enough, my soon-to-be teacher heaped on 12 reflective response essays. I can honestly say that I have never taken so long to read a book in my entire life. I started around the beginning of July an have finished at the close of August. Fountainhead was my second Ayn Rand work. The first was Anthem, a novella, that I read for school in freshman year which I enjoyed. It was short, concise, and to the point. Fountainhead however was drawn-out, repetitive, dry, and terribly boring. I'd say it was 200-300 pages too long. The book is divided into four sub-books and each contains like 20 chapters. So enough about the size, time to get to the good stuff; the story. 

To make a LONG story short, the book starts off with the expulsion of protagonist Howard Roark from the Stanton architectural school. Roark is a stubborn individualist whose nonconformist values get him booted out of college. Enter Peter Keating, the polar opposite of Roark: a 'goody-two-shoes' type with a charm, good looks, and conformist nature. Keating graduates Stanton and immediately takes a job offer at the acclaimed Francon & Heyer architectural firm. Roark goes on to struggle financially and fails numerous times during his architectural endeavors because he refuses to be a people-pleaser. Even though Keating hates Roark (as result of his intense jealousy of him), he still comes to him for help and Roark always gives it to him. All of Keating's notable works are actually designed by Roark but he takes the credit for it. Keating falls prey to the cunning Ellsworth M. Toohey, a journalist with hopes of one day ruling the world through Collectivism. Keating 'sells his soul' to Toohey in exchange for success. Toohey writes articles praising Keating's 'achievements'. Then Dominique Francon comes along, Guy Francon from Francon & Heyer's daughter. She's beautiful, mysterious, and cold. After seeing Roark working at a granite quarry because he is financial trouble, she falls in love with him. Roark and Dominique proceed to have a really creepy/weird relationship that made me feel uncomfortable and that I will never truly understand... and Dominique, the weirdo that she is, insists she will try her hardest to destroy Roark.  At first this made absolutely no sense to me. But then I figured out that since Dominique admires Roark's work so much and feels it is brilliant in reflecting the human spirit, she feels the world does not deserve him because it is a corrupt place. Really, Dominique only has intentions of protecting Roark by destroying him... yeah I know it's strange. It gets worse I assure you. So Dominique ends up marrying Peter Keating. Like, legit. Bet you didn't see that coming! Her rationale for doing this is that it is her way of punishing herself because society has rejected Howard Roark... do y'all understand that wacky logic or is just me? This Dominique girl really does confuse the life out of me. Especially when she dumps Keating and marries yet again; her new husband being ruthless businessman Gail Wynand who owns a popular newspaper called The Banner. The Banner caters to the mass populace appeal which is why it is so successful. When Gail and Dominique marry, he is impacted by her way of thinking and he  sees life in a different perspective. Roark comes along again as expected and develops a friendship with Gail who is married to the woman he loves whom is just pretending to love Gail when really she's gaga over Roark... thus you end up with an awkward love-triangle thing and Ayn Rand goes all Twilight on us. 

But seriously... this story just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Roark dynamites a building he designed because it was 'defiled' by some other architects and he has a total diva meltdown. There's a trial and Roark engages in like a hundred page speech preaching the gospel about individualism and all that fun stuff. Guess what happens next? He wins the trial! I know, I was dying of happiness too. Peter becomes a failure because his time of success has expired or something like that because Toohey dumped him as a friend. Heavy stuff, huh? So Roark wins the in the end because Dominique marries him at last! AW THE HAPPY COUPLE. How warm and fuzzy. The book closes with Roark constructing a glorious skyscraper to prove to the world that he has risen from the ashes mwahaha... 

So here's my take on the book... I have organized them into numbered points for your convenience:
1. I like what Roark stands for, but I'm not too sure I like him per se. He's so sure of himself but in almost cocky way... and anyone that would put up with that Dominique has to be a little off.
2. As much of an irritating baby Peter Keating is, I felt a little bad for him at the end of the book because he honestly does resemble an innocent child at times.
3. Dominique... I don't even know what to say...
4. Gail Wynand was all right I guess. He was kind of bossy. Yes I get that he is indeed a boss (in a literal sense) but I was hoping he'd have this hidden sensitive side and it'd be all emotional...
4. Ellsworth Toohey, why do people like you exist? You give me headaches.
5. Ayn Rand... oh Ms. Rosenbaum... couldn't you have cut this book down to like 300 pages and I'd be okay with that. But 700? Woman, ain't nobody got time for that! Also, you're not a priest so please don't try to preach to me... you could have summarized your philosophy in 2-3 sentences and I would have been on my way. You repeated yourself easily over a thousand times and we certainly heard you the first time so really you could have saved a lot of ink. Another thing, um no offense but I didn't know what the heck you were talking about when you rambled on and on about the architecture of the Parthenon... yeah it just wasn't clicking in my brain. I praise you for being such an expert in accelerated vocabulary though, you sure do know your stuff!

Overall, Fountainhead was an exhausting read and I'm relieved that I've read and annotated it and I never have to look at it ever again... besides when I receive my grade on it. What could have easily been a 300-page (or even less) novel turned into The Odyssey. I did agree with a lot of the themes presented in the book, but I would have preferred if it wasn't so preachy. Would I recommend this literary work? Not in particular. If you read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's Anthem as I did, don't bother with Fountainhead because your feelings towards Rand will most likely become hostile. 

Thanks for reading and always remember...

Stay in school, be a Potterhead, soar like a Mockingjay, respect the nature and above all... be your magickal self! 
~Sam
AKA The Black Rose Librarian ^_^

AP Biology Notes/Study Guide Chapters 1-5

AP Biology Chapters 1-5 Notes

Emergent properties=hierarchical organization of biological processes.

MoleculeàOrganelleàCellàTissueàOrganism

Prokaryotes (lack nucleus)= Domains Bacteria (blue-green algae, cyanobacteria, and E. Coli) and Archaea (halophiles which love salt and thermophiles which love hot places such as geysers).

Eukaryotes (have nucleus)= Kingdoms Protista (Euglena, paramecia, amoeba; unicellular; 20-50 micrometers), Fungi (heterotrophs which means they cannot make their own food, cell wall made of chitin, saprophytes aka mushrooms, think decomposers, multicellular), Plantae (autotrophs which means they can make their own food using the process of photosynthesis), Animalia (heterotrophs).

Feedback Mechanisms= help regulate the body and maintain homeostasis which is a stable, internal environment. 2 types: negative and positive. Negative feedback is when there is not enough of something and the body says to make more. Positive is the response when the product is being made of enough.

Evolution= Charles Darwin and his studies on the Galapagos Islands (remember beaks of finches lab). Natural selection is the altering of traits from parent to offspring to better adapt to environment.

CNHOPS= elements most abundant in life. Stands for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, sulfur.

Types of Chemical Bonds:

·        Covalent bonds=sharing of electrons between 2 atoms.

o   Nonpolar covalent= equal sharing such as hydrogen, oxygen, and methane.

o   Polar covalent= not equal such as water.

Water molecules are comprised of two hydrogen atoms bonded covalently to a single oxygen.

A single hydrogen bond is weak. Together, hydrogen bonds are STRONG.

Surface tension is the measure of how difficult it is to stretch or break the surface of a liquid. Think of it this way—the surface is tense meaning hard to penetrate.

Specific heat is the amount of heat it takes to either warm or cool a liquid by one degree Celsius. Think of it this way-the ocean has a great specific heat because it takes so long for it to get cold or warm.

High specific heat of H2O allows aquatic/terrestrial organisms to live in a relatively constant internal temp.

Vaporization is going from a liquid to a gas.

Freezing is going from a liquid to a solid.

Solution is a mixture of 2 or more substances.

Solvent is the dissolving agent such as tea. Water is an excellent solvent.

Solute is the substance that is dissolved such as the sugar you pour into your tea.

Polar molecules that dissolve in H2O are hydrophilic which means they LOVE water.

Fat molecules don’t dissolve in H2O…they cluster together and are hydrophobic (have a phobia of water).

Ionization of water—think acids and bases!

In H2O, hydrogen can jump from the oxygen to which it is covalently bonded to the one it is hydrogen bonded.

Hydrogen bonding occurs when a hydrogen atom is bonded to a highly electronegative atom. Electronegativity is the tendency to attract electrons.

Two ions form= hydronium H+, H3O+ (acidic) and hydroxyl which is OH- (basic).

Solutions are acidic when there are more hydronium ions than there are hydroxyl ones.

Ex. HCl (if it starts with H, it’s an acid)

They’re basic when there are more hydroxyl ions than there are hydroniums.

Ex. NaOH (…and if it ends with an OH that means it’s a base).

Organic chemistry deals with CARBON !!! (hydrogen too).

The heterotroph hypothesis deals with the primitive days of Earth… back before the cavemen… it explains how life could have started on Earth. If certain circumstances exist on Earth, then a cell can be born… or something to that extent.

Ionic bonds-transfer of electrons between atoms (as opposed to sharing in covalent).

Example: NaCl aka salt or if you want to get fancy, sodium chloride.

Hydrogen Bonds are (again) formed when a hydrogen atom is covalently bonded to one electronegative atom and is also attached to another one of those.

Isomers (not isoTOPES which differ in the number of nuetrons) are compounds that have the same molecular formula (written out with letters and numbers such as NaCl) but different structural formulas (drawn out).

Structural Isomer—differs in covalent arrangement.

*Geometric Isomer—differ in spatial arrangements…? Yeah instead think of the model molecules we played with in chemistry. 3D for the win.

Enantiomers—molecules that are mirror images of each other. Cannot be overlapped.

Functional Groups are attached the carbon skeleton and gives molecules their chemical properties (think ketones, aldehydes, all that jazz from the Chemistry reference tables).

Organic molecules are made up of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.

1.     Carbohydrates

2.     Lipids

3.     Proteins

4.     Nucleic acids

Carbohydrates are SRONG. They are polymers of sugar. Polymers are long chains. It’s principle energy storage molecule. The cell wall of a plant is made up of cellulose.

Number of Sugar Molecules Classification (still on carbohydrates):

Monosaccharide’s (one): single sugars like glucose, galactose, and fructose. (CH2O)n. ‘n’ can range from 3-8. Classified by hydroxyl groups (-OH) and an aldehyde or ketone group.

Disaccharides (two): lactose, sucrose. Transport sugars. Principal way sugars are transported in invertebrates (lack a spine). Sucrose is made by adding fructose and glucose together and also adding water in a process called hydrolysis (digestion).

Polysaccharides (more than two): many molecules called polymers like starch and chitin (makes up cell wall of fungi). Starch is the principal storage molecule in plants. Starch is made up of amylose and amylopectin. Glycogen is the principal sugar storage form in animals… when there is an excess of glucose in the bloodstream, it is stored by the liver as glycogen. If there is a lack of glucose, then the glycogen hormone causes the liver to release glucose into the blood.

Structural Polysaccharides:

·        Cellulose= cell wall. Flexible while plant is young to allow for growth but becomes harder and more rigid as time goes on.

·        Cellulose is a polymer made of glucose but can only be used as fuel.

Quick Exam Review

CHNOPS stands for the elements most abundant in life.

Atomic number=number of protons.

Mass number=number of protons and neutrons; may also be referred to as atomic weight.

Isotopes=protons give an element its identity but sometimes the number of neutrons differ creating isotopes.

Electron configuration and orbitals—valence shells (outermost shell of any atom; When the valence electron in any atom gains sufficient energy from some outside force, it can break away from the parent atom and become what is called a free electron), spatial arrangement (think geometric isomers).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcKilE9CdaA

When writing an electron configuration follow these steps:

1.     Number of shell.

2.     Letter of orbital.

3.     Number of electrons in that orbital.

Orbitals are S, P, D, and F.

Make sure exponents add up to number of electrons.

Chemical bonds are covalent (sharing of electrons between 2 atoms), polar (equal sharing), nonpolar (not equal sharing), ionic (transfer of electrons between 2 atoms), hydrogen (bonded to more electronegative and another electronegative), Van der Waals (cool and hot spots, electrons being repelled and attracted by nucleus).

In a solvent (dissolving agent), like dissolves like… in other words, polar dissolves polar and nonpolar dissolves nonpolar.

Dissociation is when water molecules break up into ions (hydronium and hydroxyl).

Organic chemistryàcarbon!

Heterotroph hypothesis: methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), CO2, H2, H2O.

Molecular formula is written out using letters/numbers; structural formula is drawn out.

Fatty acids are long chains of carbon.

Structural isomers have the same molecular formula but a different structure.

Geometric isomers (think 3D models of molecules).

Enantiomers are molecule mirror images that cannot be laid on top of each other.

Polymers are large molecules consisting of similar/identical building blocks or monomers.

Assembled= condensation or dehydration synthesis (coming together)

Disassembled= hydrolysis (add H2O, digestion)

Glucose forms a ring, can form alpha or beta.

Certain enzymes can break down alpha and beta in polysaccharides.

Alpha=hydroxyl upward, opposite sides of the ring.

Beta=hydroxyl downward.

Fats and lipids/oils=3 fatty acids and glycerol molecule; LONG carbon chains.

Phospholipid=polar head, nonpolar tails.

Proteins are polymers composed of amino acid monomers.

Covalent peptide bonds