The Journals of Ayn Rand Read online

  Change which Roark would not make and which ruined contractor? (?)

  What libel could really be dangerous to an architect’s career? (Unsafety of construction.)

  March 4, 1940

  Part II: Revised Schedule of Chapters

  Chapters I and II: written (Roark-Dominique in quarry)

  III

  October, 1928. Peter—his high standing. (Peter enters office. The newspaper. Story of Toohey’s inheritance. Peter—on not meeting Toohey and no write-up.) The Cosmo-Slotnick building and incident of sculptor— past—and sculptor has just been fired. Peter looking for another one. Review of Cosmo-Slotnick building and note from Toohey. News of attempt at Toohey’s life. The story of the attempt. Peter’s meeting with Toohey. (Toohey knows Peter did not design all of Cosmo-Slotnick building—and is pleased by it.) Peter accepting Toohey’s ideas on his building. Toohey hints about his “committee of architects”—in the future. Toohey and Gertrude’s commission. Toohey about Peter’s romance with Catherine.

  IV

  Sketches in papers and accounts of Roark’s building for Enright. Peter-Catherine, her first “social worker” job. Peter meets Gertrude—her house. Gertrude’s literary career. Their romance. Toohey’s reference to Roark’s building—“if it were important, I would have remembered it.” Toohey questions Peter most significantly about Roark. Peter is surprised that all the questions are personal about Roark, not architectural at all. The meeting of the “committee of architects.” Peter is president.

  V

  Dominique’s return to New York. Dominique-Toohey. Meeting of youth group. Peter—her looking for him.

  VI

  Roark, the Enright Building, Austen Heller. The prospective client. The party. Roark-Dominique. Roark-Toohey. Toohey-Dominique.

  VII

  Dominique’s article against Roark—Toohey objects. Toohey-Dominique about past relationship of Roark-Peter. Dominique getting important commission for Peter. Interview: Roark-owner. Roark-Dominique—their night together.

  VIII

  Early winter, 1929. Commission for “Unfinished Symphony.” Reactions to that. Toohey and writer. Dominique-Roark. Dominique helping Peter. Toohey throwing Dominique and Peter together.

  IX

  Campaign against “Symphony.” Dominique-stockholder. Toohey makes Dominique lose her column. Dominique votes against Symphony. Work stopped (Fall, 1929). [Note that the chapter on Toohey’s background is missing here.]

  X

  Peter-Catherine. Dominique at “Symphony.” Next day—Dominique marries Peter. Her night with Roark. Next morning—their break. [The main events that AR planned in connection with the “Unfinished Symphony” were later transferred to the Stoddard Temple sequence.]

  XI

  Winter, 1929-1930. Toohey and old millionaire [Hopton Stoddard]. Roark gets commission for Temple. Roark and sculptor. Life of Peter-Dominique. Roark calls on her. Dominique posing for statue.

  XII

  Fall, 1930. Temple finished. The scandal. The lawsuit. Cameron’s death. [In the novel, Cameron dies much earlier (towards the end of Part I).]

  XIII

  Early winter, 1931. Roark loses suit and everything. Goes to live in “Unfinished Symphony.” Temple altered by Peter. The Wynand real estate project. Toohey’s plans for Peter. Dominique is to meet Wynand. Scene of Roark on steps of Temple.

  March 1940

  Main Questions

  1. Unfinished Symphony—example of the triumph of second-handedness.

  2. Toohey-Dominique.

  3. How Dominique loses her column (possible connection with Wynand).

  4. Toohey and the Wynand papers.

  5. Dominique-Roark: why she leaves him.

  Subordinate Questions

  a. Wynand. (Prepare him as a complete scoundrel. The oddness of his villainies. His passion for art.)

  b. Toohey-Heller. (The beginnings of the break. The parting of the ways. The two kinds of liberals.)

  Heller’s foundation for relationships—Toohey objects. In connection with (b) above.

  Dominique at Unfinished Symphony, sees man and his dirty action, sees all of society that will hurt her as this act has hurt her—decides to marry Peter. (Before this—tying at Roark’s feet—in silence, in complete sincerity.) [In connection with] (5).

  Toohey, knowing Wynand’s tricks, deliberately builds up a writer of integrity, creates the occasion for a great display of integrity, in order to tempt Wynand to [crush] it—which Wynand does. (In connection with Unfinished Symphony? Heller?) [In connection with] (4) and (a).

  Toohey, knowing what Wynand has prohibited, deliberately tells Dominique that it’s prohibited—and she changes her mind to the opposite of what she intended to write and is fired. (Unfinished Symphony and Heller?) [In connection with] (2) and (3).

  Toohey has to eliminate the top off the papers—Dominique and the writer whom Wynand ruins. [In connection with] (4).

  April 22, 1940

  [For Kiki Holcombe’s party, where Dominique discovers that Roark is the architect who designed the Enright House.]

  What do I wish to show by the party (besides the meeting of Roark and Dominique)? Second-handedness. What kind? The social kind. Which is?

  A desperate desire to make an impression on others. They are not there to see but to be seen. Each wants to dominate the other and will crawl, lick feet, and make a fool of himself for that domination. They cannot talk shop. They cannot raise controversial subjects. Don’t antagonize—above all. You’ve got to please them all. Don’t mention what you’re really interested in; it makes you too important. You gain importance here by being unimportant—in inverse ratio. Others are not interested in you as your own self; you offend them by presuming that they are. Become only a mirror for them, while they’re trying to be a mirror for you. The vicious circle. Toohey as the one to start the circle rolling, because he [provides] a direction compatible with all those people’s hidden aims. They all want importance—they can find it only in others. They want to be invited in order to get work in order to be invited here. (Use people to make money to use to impress people with.) There are no values—that is why they cling so desperately to people.

  I show this by (?):

  Attitude toward Howard Roark. (“The Enright House is almost as good as the Cosmo-Slotnick Building.” “He will be another Peter Keating.”) They know nothing about his work and are nothing. They are interested in: the cost of the Enright House, how did he get the commission from Enright, is he related to the Roarks of Schetwick? Don’t give a person reality by inquiring into his ideas, i.e., into what he is. Detract from his importance by confining your interest to other people around him: tie him to family, acquaintances, bosses.

  The conversations are about facts, not thoughts or opinions. Thoughts and opinions give personality to the one expressing them and require personality to be expressed. Facts are impersonal. They want it kept impersonal, because personality is dangerous. Or—they express opinions that are so bromidic as to be public property and safe. Resentment if anyone takes it out of that class. (On the one hand, things must be impersonal. On the other—utterly personal, that is, they want everybody to agree with them, because what is personal to them is tied irrevocably to others. They have no personality apart from others—so others must not have it either.)

  Toohey’s social technique: he insults the person, but includes himself in being insulted, points out a real weakness, but excuses it.

  1940

  [With one third of the manuscript completed, AR began to submit The Fountainhead to prospective publishers. She wrote a synopsis, apparently intended to be sent with the manuscript, which contains a surprising idea for the climax. There is no evidence that this synopsis was ever sent to a publisher, and no other mention of the idea in AR’s notes. Many years later, she remembered hesitating over her original idea for the climax (the dynamiting of Cortlandt Homes). She was concerned that it might be difficult to make it “plausible objectively” why Roark would be justified in such dynamiting. It may have been this doubt that prompted her to consider—perhaps only for a single day—an alternative climax.]

  Toohey has risen to a position of great power in society. He is the undeclared dictator of the intellectual and cultural life of the country. He has “collectivized” all the arts with his various “organizations,” and he allows no prominence to anyone save to mediocrities of his choice, such as Keating, Lois Cook, and others of the same quality. He has to stop Roark. And when events come to a point where he can destroy Roark’s career once more, it is Dominique who comes to Roark’s assistance. She has learned a great deal from her strange marriage to Wynand. Dominique kills Toohey. It is more than a murder—it is the destruction of everything Toohey stood for. Roark takes the murder upon himself—the circumstances are such that either one of them can be accused and Roark forces her to remain silent; she agrees, but only until the outcome of the trial—she will speak if he is convicted.

  This, then, is the sensational trial—Roark against society. There is a great deal of public indignation at the murder of a “humanitarian” and a “saint” such as Toohey. Wynand alone tries to stand by Roark—but public clamor forces him to betray Roark, to reverse the policy of his papers and demand Roark’s conviction (see character outline). During the trial, the affair between Roark and Dominique is made public (though not her part in the murder).

  Roark is acquitted—through the efforts of Austen Heller and his other loyal followers. Wynand is forced to divorce Dominique—his prestige with his respectable “Ladies’ Club-home-church-family” audience demands it. He betrays and loses the only two human beings who had ever meant anything to him.

  All his life, Wynand has dreamed of erecting a “Wynand Building” to house
his newspapers, a monument to his achievement. Now, left alone and broken in spirit, his journalistic empire tottering, knowing that this empire will not survive him, Wynand makes one last gesture. He decides to erect the Wynand Building as his swan song. And he gives the commission to Roark. He barely speaks to Roark now, he wants no personal contact, no feeling between them; he gives the assignment to Roark in a short, blunt, business-like interview, in cold, impersonal words. And only when Roark accepts and turns to leave the office, does Wynand add: “Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours—and could have been mine.”

  When Dominique is freed of all ties to Wynand and comes back to Roark, never to leave him again, she finds him at the construction site of the Wynand Building, where the skeleton of Roark’s greatest achievement is beginning to rise into the sky.

  [One can guess the reasons why AR quickly rejected the idea of Dominique murdering Toohey. First, the climactic action is taken by a secondary character rather than the hero. Second, such a climax would undercut the novel’s theme by implying that Roark must be saved by a lesser character acting on the “malevolent universe” premise. Since Roark is the ideal, both morally and practically, his victory must result from his premises and his actions.]

  December II, 1941

  For Toohey-Dominique: “Don’t fool yourself. You’re not a bitch—you’re a saint, which is much worse.” A saint can’t help but turn into a destructive, vicious monster like Dominique in the world as it is-consequently down with the saints, they make the world much too uncomfortable by seeing it too clearly.

  For Roark-Dominique: His love for her declared for the first time when she leaves him—after she tells him that she’s married. “I won’t tell you that it’s unselfish love—it’s much greater because it’s selfish, because it’s my need.” Power over another person is clean only when you can be proud of the person that you have in your power—perhaps love is the only place to know and exercise power. “You have much to learn—yourself—I can’t help you.” “Not until you come back, of your own will, completely, forever, and on your knees.”

  December 17, 1941

  [On this date, AR made her final chapter outline for the second half of Part II (she seems to have written up to Chapter VIII). She had recently contracted with Bobbs-Merrill to complete the novel by January 1, 1943.]

  December 31, 1941

  For Roark: “The first man entering a fresh, clean world for the first time.”

  1942

  [The following notes pertain to the description of Gail Wynand’s background in Chapter I, Part III.]

  Gail Wynand

  Gun—indifference.

  His day. (Incident with Toohey and housing development.) Incident to show Wynand’s powers, luxury, arbitrariness and his particular methods of pleasure.

  Back to gun—thinks of his life.

  First scene—tight figure against wall—fight—show his will to rule—his parents—relationship with father. Left alone at twelve.

  1. Incidents to show: will to dominate, impatience with stupidity and being forced to obey stupidity, knowing that he knows best—and showing that he does. Ferocious independence.

  2. Incidents to show: disappointment in human integrity and desire “not to be a sucker.” Idealism turned to utter cynicism.

  3. Forces his way into a newspaper. His rise. Unscrupulous incident of getting money to buy the newspaper.

  4. Development of newspaper empire, stock market speculations, real estate speculations.

  5. Wynand at the top—his public reputation, his private life. Incidents to show the constant use of his power. (The secret art gallery.) Back to gun—drops it. Finds [Toohey’s gift]—scene with Toohey.

  Incidents:1. Childhood will to power and fight against stupidity. 1. First fight.

  2. Beating by longshoreman and later revenge.

  2. Disappointment in human integrity. 1. Columnist (?)

  3. Brilliant and unscrupulous methods of rise. 1. Starving while working free in newspaper office.

  4. Same—later

  5. Typical Wynand attitude now 1. The contest.

  2. The reversal of destinies (the suicide).

  3. Murder over a woman he didn’t want.

  4. Attitude on women.

  Gun—indifference.

  The bedroom and the apartment and his appearance. (Cynicism.)

  His day: breakfast, arrival at office, scene with his type operator, crossed-out copy, talk to coast editor, phone call to Senator, board meeting, housing project, Alvah Scarret about Toohey, lunch at Women’s Club, editorial on prohibition, talk with Toohey—about [gift]. Dinner with mistress.

  Back to gun—decides to think of his past.

  Fist fight—over looting and gang leadership.

  His father and mother.

  Delivers newspapers—incident of advice to employer—“You don’t run things around here.”

  Bootblack on ferry boat—dreams of future New York—“You don’t run this place.”

  Incident in school—“You’re not the only one here.”

  Walks through fallen parts of city—stolen book—looting of bookstore.

  Scene with beating by longshoreman. (Only time he asks for help.)

  Goes to work for Banner—incident of dime.

  The woman. (He never needs a lesson twice.)

  The idealistic editor (only time he thanks anyone).

  Put in charge of paper by political gang—owns paper and destroys gang.

  Success through sensationalism. (“It is not my function to help people preserve a self-respect they haven’t got.”)

  Newspaper war—incident of ruthlessness.

  Rise: real estate, chain of papers, magazines.

  (People who want to use him.)

  At his height—power. Private art gallery.

  After forty-five-fight against integrity. (Power for power’s sake.)

  Back to gun, drops it, goes for drink, sees statue, calls Toohey, agrees to meet Dominique.

  July 2, 1942

  [AR wrote her final chapter outline for Part IV on this date. ]

  Undated

  [It seems that AR once considered prefacing each part of The Fountainhead with a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche. The first two quotations below were copied into her journal and may have been intended for Parts I and II; the last was placed after the title page to Part IV.]

  Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for the noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it, where another kind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The problem for him is to represent to his mind beings who seek to arouse a good opinion of themselves which they do not possess—and consequently also do not “deserve”—and who yet believe in this good opinion afterwards.

  Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in you for “equality”: your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue words!

  But from time to time do ye grant me—one glimpse, grant me but one glimpse only, of something perfect, fully realized, happy, mighty, triumphant, of something that still gives cause for fear! A glimpse of man that justifies the existence of man, a glimpse of an incarnate human happiness that realizes and redeems, for the sake of which one may hold fast to the belief in man!

  Undated

  [Regarding Roark:]

  A whole life lived on a certain principle. The highlights of that life. The quality of that life, proceeding from that principle—with the result of grandeur, heroism, beauty, pride, honor, truth, joy. Not for anyone, but in itself, in the man—and secondarily in those he touches and in his benefit to society—only secondarily and precisely because of the first, because of his disregard for society. (Steel-will, hardness, cruelty—the cruelty turning into his own brand of almost unbearable beauty.)