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by TeaBrain 600 days ago
Atlas Shrugged was her objectivist/philosophy of selfishness novel and it's a terribly wooden and poorly written work of literature. The Fountainhead and Anthem were both written before the formalizing of objectivism and are much more philosophical novels of individualism. While Anthem does lean a little towards her philosophy of selfishness called "objectivism", The Fountainhead is almost completely absent of this. It is the most similar to Clavell's novels, in the way of it's individualist protagonist. Running themes in it include shirking of orthodoxy and cultural norms, and finding success against the odds to achieve lofty unorthodox individual goals, despite much easier orthodox life paths existing. I find it somewhat bewildering that it is sometimes referred to as a conservative novel when a running theme of the novel is to cast away conservative tradition in pursuit of the new progress, as is done by the iconoclastic protagonist.