Book Review: The Fountainhead ( Part 2: Ellsworth M. Toohey)
I read the second part of Fountainhead with trepidation given that I had structured my understanding in part 1. I was warned about losing the pure joy of reading the novel — but Ayn Rand is anything but pure joy. She tickles my philosophical dimension, so I pause and reflect on the long diatribe of her characters — mostly Toohey. In this part, Toohey steals the limelight by emerging as an antagonist and becoming the third pillar of the narrative after Howard Roark and Peter Keating.
I would summarize my observations in perspectives, principles, and pitstops. The perspectives of one character about another determine the flow of events, some smooth and some abrupt and sudden. Still, the entire chapter culminates in each character reaching a ‘position’ or a pitstop at the end of the chapter.
Perspectives — The Dominique Falcon POV:
I will go back to the four pillars and interconnecting beams. In the Part 1 review, I suggested that this book is best reviewed from Dominique’s point of view. That still holds except for the last scene when Toohey meets Roark.
Toohey vs Roark is the most important thread in the storyline for Part 2. Roark stands like the rock through Part 2 when waves of passion, powerplay, and penury hit him hard. He represents the core philosophy of individualism. That is the end of Part 2, which is so important to understand.
Let us go back to Dominique. You can never see Dominique alone — her gender plays a key part amid the various male characters, so it is important to understand her role in furthering the plot and creating the interplays between them.
Dominique entwines herself physically, romantically, and in principle with Roark, maritally with Keating, and does a near-Faustian deal with Toohey. This is a complex weave, but she is the one who goes through a transformation in the end. Here is where the perspectives come into play.
The Episodic Metaphor:
Dominique emerges as the candle that burns, seeks, and brings light, by melting (sacrificing itself), the light — the spark, the flame, and the fire being Roark himself (who kindles her physically and spiritually); Elsworth being the darkness that before and after burns; Peter Keating being the weak and vacillating embers that becomes the inevitable remains of the chapter that Dominique ends up with.
a) Dominique and Roark
Ayn Rand is a different author in the first fifteen pages of Part 2, sounding like Danielle Steele. The pulsating tension between the quarry worker and the quarry owner who lives in a sprawling house, her thin body aching for his hard muscles, his restrained and carefree attitude inciting her ache within — held back in silence and reticence, their souls and bodies wanting each other.
They meet often as souls that know each other, with a deep sense of familiarity. Till she met him, she was independent with no obligation to the world and vice versa, a person with originality that parallels Roark, except that it is incomplete — she does not seek validation from her father or her editor, for that matter from her audience. But a sense of incompleteness opens up in her when she meets Roark, and surrenders to him. But she does not accept or acknowledge it, turning into a blow-hot, blow-cold relationship.
She is his perfect match — soul and body, but she turns away from him by denying him his well-deserved contracts, yet melting with him like how molten lava meets the depths of the ocean water; she colludes with Elsworth and canoodles with Keating, albeit like a stoic, wooden doll.
The Stoddard Temple trial, however, changes her, during which she understands who Roark is and what he stands for. She gives a compelling testimony while agreeing with all other witnesses, including Toohey. But the reason for her turning the table is that she knew what Roark was and stood for.
Before marrying Keating, she expresses her love to Roark and tries to reason her decision with him. Surprisingly, he agrees.
‘I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me … To say ’I love you’ one must know first how to say the ’I.’ … If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why I won’t stop you.’ ~Roark to Dominique
One can surmise that Dominique’s destination is Roark, the epitome of individualistic and principled human existence. At the same time, her journey moves away from him, based on her denial and the punitory terms she imposes on herself.
b) Dominique and Toohey
Ellsworth Toohey writes a column called ‘One Small Voice’ which extolls the virtues of traditional architecture, more so where the architect is not visible, but the artifact is. He starts as Dominique’s colleague in Banner, but they cross paths in the social circuit.
Dominique’s tryst with Roark pushes her back into social circles, resulting in more frequent engagements with Toohey. Her initial discussion with him at Kiki Halcombe’s party inevitably lands about the Enright building and Roark — while appreciating Peter Keating’s work on the Cosmo-Slotnick building. A semblance of partnership emerges — Dominique recommending Keating for building contracts and Toohey goading her to do so; It seems to work well, for it satiates the ‘revenge’ that Dominique wants, denying him business while making love as victory. Toohey, with his aim set on Roark, goads her.
“This is a pact, my dear. An alliance. Allies never trust each other, but that
doesn’t spoil their effectiveness. Our motives might be quite opposite. They are. But it doesn’t matter. The result will be the same. It is not necessary to have a noble aim in common. It is necessary only to have a common enemy. We have.” Toohey to Dominique
Then, the opportunity comes when Toohey goes directly after Roark, through the Stoddard Temple. The paths split here, for Dominique unravels the real reason for her blow-hot ( making love) and blow-cold ( pushing opportunities away from Roark) relationship with Roark. She understands his appeal and responds with her primal instincts while denying herself the appeal that deconstructed her as a person with no expectation from this world to the one who has identified the purpose of the human spirit.
As she sees the devolution of the Toohey-crafted plan come into play, first the article in ‘The Banner’, then the accelerated bashing in public by various religious and demographic groups, while she leans into and contributes as the epitomic symbol as she poses naked for Steve Mallory; She provides clear and open response during her turn as a witness, that she has broken rank out in the open with Toohey.
Toohey persuades Keating to marry Dominique while Dominique comes to the same conclusion of her own volition, mainly due to her inability to reconcile with Roark, leading to disenchantment and a decision to take a punitive recourse.
Toohey’s ploy of using others as pawns ( he succeeds with Keating) seems to work with Dominique at first parse, as he wanted to relate to Roark in a primitive way, like how Dominique was satiating her angst, instead, she dumps him like an unintelligent worm.
“Is that what you thought? Wasn’t it obvious? The woman scorned. As obvious as the fact that Roark had to be the man you’d want. That you’d want him in the most primitive way. And that he’d never know you existed. I overestimated you, Ellsworth” — Dominique to Toohey
I am sure that Toohey is not the one who will stop at this… Part 3 becomes interesting.
c) Dominique and Keating:
Keating rides on the success of the Cosmo-Slotnick building and builds a robust relationship with Toohey. Toohey likes him for a placebo against his strategy against Roark — he reads Keating like an open book and then, Keating eats out of Toohey’s hand.
Meanwhile, Dominique had figured out Keating’s low esteem and lack of principles. Following Kiki Halcombe’s party, she refers Keating to potential projects and recommends Keating for architecture, not because he is good but because he is the willing pawn of the Dominique — Toohey ploy. Once in a while, he approaches Dominique (because of his inherent self-doubt), but she dismisses him to make the hay, and not question why the sun is shining on him.
Finally, when she is grappling for a whiplash, she remembers Keating, proposes, and rushes through a marriage, a more self-deprecating and punitive ritual. He agrees to her proposal, having resolved to marry her, even if it means to be bashful and nakedly shameless. She leads and he follows — they get married quietly.
But just before her marriage, Dominique goes to Roark and explains her state of mind as she reasons with him.
I will live in the world as it is, in the manner of life it demands. Not halfway, but completely. Not pleading and running from it, but walking out to meet it, beating it to the pain and the ugliness, being first to choose the worst it can do to me. Not as the wife of some half-decent human being, but as the wife of Peter Keating. ~ Dominique to Roark, about her marriage with Peter Keating
Ellsworth Toohey:
The depth of Toohey’s character is the highlight of Part 2. While I have covered Toohey in this review, I will share two specific character attributes that caught my attention.
First, Toohey’s incredible focus and force of his intellect applied while going after a person who he believes is his antagonist — whether it was his remorseless directing of the jet from his garden hose on Johnny, who he mentioned as a bully, or directing Hopton Stoddard on Howard Roark, who he mentioned as ‘fraudulent’ in his scathing article at the end.
Second, Elsworth had this clear, rich, commanding, and persuasive voice, that did not fit his puny figure, but came into effect in dominating his household, including his parents. He was erudite and grew into a strong orator, attracting the meek and vulnerable, who would follow his beck and call — he would act like a smiling snob, without much effort. He liked the little people around him and felt powerful pulling their strings without letting them know they were his puppets. He was a listening, supportive, caring bottomfeeder, thereby aligning his superiority over them in the form of altruism — and he advocated a sense of benevolence as he walked among the miserable souls and the poor, and anything that reflected the shining aspects of the human spirit.
“I,” said Toohey, “play the stock market of the spirit. And I sell short.”
He meets his match in Howard Roark, which we will explore below in the Reckoning.
The Reckoning: The Stoddard Temple
The Hopton Stoddard Temple becomes the battlefield of Ayn Rand’s philosophical confrontation. It brings forth the manipulative genius of Toohey and his hatred for individualism (embodied by Roark).
The Hook and the Bait
Hopton Stoddard, a conservative businessman endowed with a triple inheritance, plans to build a non-denominational, non-sectarian monument of faith, a worthy memorial in his name and a grand climax of his generosity. Toohey recommends Stoddard consider creating a ‘home for subnormal children’; he then suggests that Roark construct such a temple and he be given a brief but full freedom to design, architect, and build the temple, while Stoddard goes away on his pilgrimage.
The Temple becomes the epitome of Roark’s free expression of his understanding of Stoddard’s egalitarianism. Going by Toohey’s playbook, Stoddard vests the responsibility to Roark.
‘He will tell you he doesn’t believe in God. You don’t believe him. He is a profoundly religious man — in his own way. You can see that in his buildings.’- Toohey to Stoddard on Roark.
The manipulation starts with Toohey’s advice of anticipation to Stoddard to get Roark to say yes while swearing Stoddard to secrecy. Roark’s moral behavior is predictable, making him an easy subject for manipulation, as Stoddard plays out Toohey’s script to perfection.
‘Let it be your spirit in the name of the building — and it will have that meaning, whether you know it or not.’ — Stoddard to Roark.
In a sense, with a blank cheque of leaving the ‘spirit’ to Roark’s interpretation, the temple becomes the bait for Toohey’s confrontation with Roark.
The Bite
While many instances bring out Roark’s principles, Roark’s philosophy of ‘celebrating humanity’ becomes embedded in the temple’s architecture. Ayn Rand does not describe the building anywhere but through Roark’s view.
‘There is nothing before him in the darkness except the first stones, but Roark thought of the finished building…’~ Roark looking at the upcoming Stoddard Temple
For Roark, the temple is a celebration of the human spirit.
Unlike a temple or any place of worship that is closed and gigantic, Roark’s version was to be —
a small building of gray limestone. The lines were horizontal, not the lines reaching to heaven, but to the lines of the earth. … It was scaled to human height in such a manner that it did not dwarf man but stood as a setting that made his figure the only absolute, the gauge of perfection by which all dimensions were to be judged. When a man entered this temple, he would feel space molded around him, for him, as if it had waited for his entrance to be completed… The place was not sealed under vaults, but thrown open to the earth around it… the shapes of human achievements on earth. At the end of the room… stood the figure of a naked human body.
— human-centric. The human body was modeled by Steve Mallory and posed for by Dominique Francon. The core of Ayn Rand’s philosophy is summarized in the eulogy of individualism. I will cover the philosophical element of the review in the fifth and final part of my review of Fountainhead.
The temple is open to the elements of the earth: horizontal lines and open spaces. Human spirit and endeavor are exalted. A deeper understanding of this individualism and celebration of the human soul is the culmination of Roark’s expression in architecture.
On his return, Stoddard finds Roark’s work appalling. It is against the convention of his understanding of religion and of course, he has been influenced by Toohey. The inauguration is stalled and Toohey writes a scathing piece in his column ‘One Small Voice’.
The Article and the Trial
The article opens a front that goes to the dialogue from the television series — The Suits.
‘I don’t play the odds, I play the man.’ — Harvey Specter, in Suits.
At first principles, Toohey knows well that it is hard to undermine Roark’s credentials as an architect, instead, he goes after the religious aspects of the Stoddard Temple. The core difference in philosophies — Roark’s exhibition of celebrating individuality vs the socialist shenanigans of Toohey cross paths — the article condones the essence of the architecture that decries the submission of humans to the venerated divine.
‘It seems as if deliberate malice…instead of being enclosed, the alleged temple is wide open… this building has a quality of loose, orgiastic elation…Instead of soaring lines reaching for heaven…this building is flauntingly horizontal..thus declaring allegiance to the carnal, glorifying the gross pleasures of the flesh to those of the spirit.
The deference of humans to the divine and the assertion of the insignificance of the human ego — both where the human spirit is cut down to size, submerging into the crowd of anonymity — are the key thrust points that Toohey brings out in his piece.
The place forbids it … It is not a house of God. It is a cell of a megalomaniac. It is not a temple, but a perfect antithesis, an insolent mockery of all religion…We felt that we must explain to the public the nature of this deliberate attack on religion.
Titled ‘sacrilege’, Toohey’s article fans the public and the mighty of New York City. The clamor for indignation rose against Roark — because it involved religion. Ministers damned the building in their sermons; actresses, and writers condemned the architecture as ‘decadent’.
What is important to note is that Roark’s work — the Stoddard Temple turns out to be an antithetic artifact that did not appeal to its patron Stoddard and the public. The ensuing trial brings out charges of breach of contract and fraud against Roark.
The ensemble of witnesses — Toohey, Keating, Holcombe, Prescott, Eric Synte — throws their last dime into the cesspool of insinuations, launching their versions against Roark, who they avoid looking at. Roark looks at them and passes without any questions. It is clear that Roark is the accused, but it is he who stands unperturbed.
Finally — the star witness is called. Dominique Francon takes the stand. She agrees with every word spoken against Roark but brings out a contradicting reason.
‘The Stoddard Temple is a threat to many things. If it were allowed to exist, nobody would dare to look at himself in the mirror…Ask anything of men… but don’t ask them to achieve self-respect…Such are men as they are…What is the purpose of the world that does not exist…The Stoddard Temple must be destroyed. Not to save men from it, but to save it from men. This is my Stoddard Temple — my first and last…That’s all your honor.’
Dominique plays the Marc Antony speech while agreeing that the Stoddard Temple should not exist but for a different reason — it symbolizes self-respect versus the self-effacing men who appeared on the stand.
Her frustrations lead to a sequence of transformative actions from her side (refer to Sections on Dominique). The case concludes in favor of Hopton Stoddard.
The Socialist wins, yet …the Stoic is unvanquished
Roark’s most important quality is his stoic approach to life. Besides being the true blue representative of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, his approach to the Stoddard Temple’s outcome ensures that he emerges unscathed from the vile machinations of Toohey.
During the trial, he does not question witnesses except for submitting ten photographs on the judge’s desk. He loses the case, and his office shrinks to one room, just like his struggling days. He still keeps his counsel, avoiding help.
When Dominique meets him after the lost court case and marrying Peter Keating, she expresses her love to Roark. In the end, Roark utters the most revealing words to her ( you can read more in the Dominique and Roark section).
You must learn not to be afraid of the world, Dominique. Not to be held by it as you are now… They won’t destroy me.
Toohey encounters him when he visits the reconstructed Stoddard Temple at the end — the epitome of Toohey’s success and Roark’s fall ( not failure). He does not utter a single word. Toohey goads him, trying to find his machinations to create his ‘relevance’ to Roark ( we will cover this in the Perfect Pitstop), but is dismissed by Roark instead. Toohey did everything to Roark — besmirch his reputation, and make him debt-laden, but he could not invade Roark’s mental space.
But I don’t think of you — Roark to Toohey
The Stoic in Roark remained unvanquished, even when the Socialist in Toohey succeeded in bringing down Roark and his version of the Stoddard temple.
I can’t but not quote Marcus Aurelius’ legendary quote:
“For great is the prize of war and of victory — a prize such as no one among men has ever won — of which I shall be deprived. And what is that? To forgive a man who has done wrong, to be still a friend to one who has trodden friendship underfoot, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith.”
Roark stands tall amid his ruins — the perfect example of a Stoic.
Mallorys Need Roarks.
Somebody asked me ‘Have you come across Steve Mallory?’. Since then, we haven’t spoken to each other. So yes, I came across Steve Mallory.
Keating first considers Mallory for the Cosmo-Slotnick building, originally referred by Slotnick because of Mallory’s tryst with Dimple Williams. At 24, Mallory does not have a folio to showcase, and his sculpture ‘Industry’ — a naked male that would stand like a raw gash against the elegant design. It would have made people look smaller in relative terms, and Keating feels that the design is ‘heroic’ and challenging. He neither likes Mallory nor his version of ‘Industry’. The point is that Keating is a conformist, while Mallory is about cognitive dissonance. Keating’s decision is influenced by words from ‘One Small Voice’, Toohey’s column, which derides Mallory’s creation as —
‘if we are to judge what he passes as human bodies in stone, but we assume that God created the world and human form’ — Toohey about Mallory
— a rebuke reminding that the divine (ancient, propriety, conventions — add all that) is to be feared, and the human spirit should cringe and covet the divine.
Mallory keeps quiet during the interrogation in which he is the identified assailant in the attack on Toohey.
‘I have never liked Mallory. Never liked his work either.’ — Keating on Mallory.
‘Just an exhibitionist. Won’t amount to much.’ — Toohey
Mallory is temperamental and lives in revolting conditions. His fortune turns when Roark remembers him. Mallory’s dilapidated condition aside, when Roark offers him a break-down fee of a million dollars, Mallory insists on knowing the reason for Roark’s selection. ( Even I have been asked what I see in people that they don’t see, and my answers are never popular — so this answer is not surprising.)
You have no right to care what I think of your work, what I am or why I’m here. You’re too good for that. But if you want to know it — I think you’re the best sculptor we’ve got. I think it, because your figures are not what men are, but what men could be — and should be. Because you’ve gone beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. Because your figures are the heroic in man. — Roark to Mallory
Roark excels in two aspects here. He has seen the isolation and penury himself in his journey, throughout which his principled position on creating exalting artifacts of the human spirit rather than what his clients or society perceives. He is the epitome of the creator’s autonomy, and he sees that in Mallory too.
Apart from the similarities, the idea of unfiltered and unhinged merit, and also the subtle empathy that Roark displays toward Mallory enhance Roark’s exemplary character.
Abrupt Beginnings, Loose ends.
Sudden attack of Roark on Dominique
Her frail vulnerability is an odd presence amid the rocks and the blasts of the quarry, and in the same sense, against his angry, insolent demeanor.
There was no laughing understanding in his face…Then he walked to her. He held her as if his flesh had cut through hers…
While one can understand the primal attraction between the insolence of the man and the wanton vulnerability of the woman, his attack on her ( which she deems as even…rape) is abrupt, while it flows fell from the suddenness of the event itself.
Sudden hate of Toohey vs Roark
Keating is curious to know about Toohey’s view of Roark, which in turn, prompts a barrage of questions from Toohey to Keating in turn. After that, Toohey sees Roark — his orange flame hair and is attracted by some ‘force’.
But between smiles and sentences, his eyes went back to the man with the orange hair … it was not a man to him, but only a force; Toohey never saw men. Perhaps it was the fascination of seeing that particular force so explicitly personified in a human body.
While Toohey connects Roark’s name to the face subsequently, there is a seeming abruptness when they cross paths, despite not meeting each other.
The sudden mellowness of Catherine
I’ll be here at nine o’clock in the morning, day after tomorrow. You must be ready to start then.” “Yes, Peter.” After he had gone, she lay on her bed, sobbing aloud, without restraint, without dignity, without a care in the world.
For a woman who was asked to quit her job and wait for her husband-to-be the next morning, there is no mention of her till this footnote like mention.
Catherine Halsey was put in charge of the children’s occupational therapy, and she moved into the Home as a permanent resident. She took up her work with a fierce zeal. She spoke about it insistently to anyone who would listen.
The Perfect Pitstop ( End of Chapter 2)
As we close the review of Chapter 2, we see the characters reaching their
Dominique is in self-torture, she loves Roark but denies herself the chance to be with him; he loves her but vindicates her decision by asking her to discover her self-esteem. It is clear that both stand for the integrity and principles of the individual human spirit, yet he is the pillar and she is the shifting beam. She is the candle in self-immolation, and he is the fire that burns her.
Keating, like that worm, is elated because Dominique chose him as her placebo, yet happy with her being his wife, like a trophy that he has attained. He is happy yet hollow, and happy to the puppet in Toohey’s hands.
Based on his two sublime qualities — the hawk-eyed focus on his antagonistic targets and his principle of socialism which disclaims individualistic success, Toohey successfully discredits Roark in the eyes of the society yet is defeated by Roark’s stoic response.
Will Toohey go for more? Will Dominique continue to be his next victim? Will there be a new character that he will go after? What happens to Roark given that society has outcasted him after the Stoddard Temple debacle?
Wait for Part 3…
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024
