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3+/5 (reread) Okay, so, you guys, there's a lot of fanfic out there, and some of it is quite good. And some of it is terribly, terribly indulgent. (These two categories are not mutually exclusive, though they tend to be somewhat.) Now, especially when I'm busy, sometimes I get in a rut of reading extremely indulgent fanfic. And I was doing this recently, and in the middle of it started reading The Fountainhead, which I do every five years or so, because I like it (the non-(stultifyingly-boring-and-a-little-silly)-philosophy parts) and because it's an easy fast read (when you skip the philosophy), and because of another reason that I articulate differently every time. Last time I said the reason was "it's a great red-headed trashy romance."
This time, I will say about that same reason... The Fountainhead totally struck me, on this reading, as an incredibly indulgent fanfic of itself. Seriously, it totally reads to me as if there were some ur-text somewhere with a perfectly nice reasonable Peter Keating, Howard Roark, Dominique Francon, and Gail Wynand, having vaguely realistic characters and interacting like grownups and stuff... but who somehow got twisted in an extraordinarily indulgently fanficcy sort of way into AlphaMaleGaryStu!Roark, BetaMalePuppyDog!Keating (I swear to you, if Ayn Rand lived right now and knew about slash, instead of living decades ago and being homophobic, Keating would be so slashed with Roark), MakesNoSenseButIsTragicallyBeautifulAndLivesForHerMan!Dominique (who actually poses for a goddess sculpture halfway through the book, yes, thank you for that subtle symbolism Ayn!), and TragicallyFlawedAndEvenMoreTotallyRoarkSlashyThanKeating!Wynand.
With, of course, that awesome Roark-Dominique-Wynand love-friendship triangle With Oodles and Oodles of Angst, mostly on Dominique's side (and notice how Dominique is the only one who is called by her first name? Yeah, I did too), and a Manly Man Friendship that is just so girly. (Well. Roark mostly grunts or Is Concisely Wise, as befits an Alpha Male Superman, but Wynand is all about talking about his feeeelings! In a manly way, of course!) Ayn Rand also wrote all the deleted scenes another book might have left out (part of the reason the book is freaking 1500 pages -- the other reason is all the Objectivist junk, which I always skip, it being not useful for the indulgent reading I'm looking for). It turns out pretty much no one has written any actual fanfic for this book (oh, the research I do for these posts!), and my theory is that it's because Rand already wrote it.
Anyway. I find this book hilarious, as you can tell. As super-indulgent fanfic goes, it is well-written and quite entertaining. As original fic, of course, I'd recommend a whole load of other stuff rather than this, but sometimes what you want is the super-indulgent fic, and this hits all those buttons.
This time, I will say about that same reason... The Fountainhead totally struck me, on this reading, as an incredibly indulgent fanfic of itself. Seriously, it totally reads to me as if there were some ur-text somewhere with a perfectly nice reasonable Peter Keating, Howard Roark, Dominique Francon, and Gail Wynand, having vaguely realistic characters and interacting like grownups and stuff... but who somehow got twisted in an extraordinarily indulgently fanficcy sort of way into AlphaMaleGaryStu!Roark, BetaMalePuppyDog!Keating (I swear to you, if Ayn Rand lived right now and knew about slash, instead of living decades ago and being homophobic, Keating would be so slashed with Roark), MakesNoSenseButIsTragicallyBeautifulAndLivesForHerMan!Dominique (who actually poses for a goddess sculpture halfway through the book, yes, thank you for that subtle symbolism Ayn!), and TragicallyFlawedAndEvenMoreTotallyRoarkSlashyThanKeating!Wynand.
With, of course, that awesome Roark-Dominique-Wynand love-friendship triangle With Oodles and Oodles of Angst, mostly on Dominique's side (and notice how Dominique is the only one who is called by her first name? Yeah, I did too), and a Manly Man Friendship that is just so girly. (Well. Roark mostly grunts or Is Concisely Wise, as befits an Alpha Male Superman, but Wynand is all about talking about his feeeelings! In a manly way, of course!) Ayn Rand also wrote all the deleted scenes another book might have left out (part of the reason the book is freaking 1500 pages -- the other reason is all the Objectivist junk, which I always skip, it being not useful for the indulgent reading I'm looking for). It turns out pretty much no one has written any actual fanfic for this book (oh, the research I do for these posts!), and my theory is that it's because Rand already wrote it.
Anyway. I find this book hilarious, as you can tell. As super-indulgent fanfic goes, it is well-written and quite entertaining. As original fic, of course, I'd recommend a whole load of other stuff rather than this, but sometimes what you want is the super-indulgent fic, and this hits all those buttons.
