Ayn Rand is a writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly. "The Fountainhead" … is a long but absorbing story of man's enduring battle with evil. It has drama …; it has poetry, sometimes a bit too lush; and it has a challenging conception. Good novels of ideas are rare at any time. This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall.
The background is architecture, a field relatively new to the fiction writer, and admirably adapted to the presentation of "the creator" and "the secondhander." Howard Roark is the creator, a tough guy who works cheerfully in the quarries if he is not allowed to build in his own way…. Against him is the charming lad who went to school with him and won all the prizes. Peter Keating continues to win all the prizes, to use his good looks, his personality and his lack of morals to make a rapid and fraudulent success. Against him, too, is Dominque Francon, because she loves him and fears and hates the corrupting, engulfing world.
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