We Built This City

Current book: The Fountainhead
Pages read: 225 - 320

In today's installment, Roark and Dominque continue their bizarre control and loathing-fueled relationship, and Roark gets some more commissions, though Dominique tries as hard as she can to destroy his career, which she tells him she is doing. Peter becomes more and more successful, and finally meets and earns the great acclaim of Ellsworth Toohey, his theoretical father-in-law. We also learn that Toohey has always been a slimy manipulator of people, and is, basically, trying to bring all of society down to his level, since he has no real talents of his own.

I don't have a lot of patience for analysis right now, so I'll just say that the main problem when reading this part of the book is figuring out why Dominique is trying so hard to destroy Roark. She obviously admires him and his work a great deal, so there must be a reason. Since she hates dependence and the falseness of society, I'm going to interpret it as an attempt, on her part, to save Roark from the inevitable corruption that fame and success with bring him. She must be reasoning that, eventually, his success will cause him to compromise his morals (which are, in this case, only to do precisely what his artistic vision requires of him), and she can't bear to see that happen to him.

Probably? More tomorrow.