The Fountainhead

This novel was published in 1943 in the USA. It is about the life of Howard Roarke from the day in 1922 when he was expelled from the Stanton Institute of Technology, shortly before his graduation. He was expelled because of his uncompromizing way of designing buildings. In spite of this, he followed his vision of being an architect and a designer of buildings.
Howard Roarke was loner. But being an architect, though without a degree, he needed klients giving him commisions to make a living. We are presented for the provincial and hypocritical New York of the 20-ies. In this context the design of a building was not considered the choice of the architect. The design of a building should rather reflect the position and place of the owner. This was of course a conflict for Howard Roarke. If he got a comission, he made it clear that he also should have his way as to the design or not having the comission at all.

The novel presents this as a principle. Howard Roarke is an architectural genius. He finds a way around any problem where state-of-the-art architects have no answers. In the trial at the end of the novel Howard Roarke finally shapes these thoughts in words. The speech he gives at the trial is the program of individualism, the program of Ayn Rand, the reason for her writing this novel.
Ayn Rand is much admired by right-wing politicians in Norway, and I can see why.

The political aspects are better discussed elswhere on the net. Though having a poor conduct of the English language, I enjoyed very much reading the book. It is a fascinating story with great characters. Though I read it more than 60 years later I found this story both interesting and necessary.