"The Fountainhead": The Fine Print Quiz

Answer: Architecture

"The Fountainhead" was first published in Great Britain in 1947. Ayn Rand called "The Fountainhead" the overture to "Atlas Shrugged". She also said, about "Atlas Shrugged", "I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written -- and published -- is my proof that they do."

Answer: He laughed

"Howard Roark laughed" is the first sentence of the book. Then he goes for a swim, and then he walks back to the house where he stays with the Keatings. That is the day he has found out that he has been expelled, and to Mrs. Keating's surprise, he seems almost relieved.

Answer: Peter Keating, Ellsworth M. Toohey, Gail Wynand, Howard Roark

Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, Gail Wynand and Roark are the main male characters of the novel, with Dominique Francon as the sole female force. Incidentally, "Atlas Shrugged" also has four male protagonists, namely, Francisco D'Anconia, Hank Rearden, John Galt and Ragnar Dannesjkold (though he doesn't have too many chapters devoted to him), with Dagny Taggart as the only female. "Atlas Shrugged" has more abstract (appropriate?) names to its three parts: Non-Contradiction, Either-Or, and A Is A.

Answer: 'Your House'

Dominique's column was supposed to be on home decoration, but sometimes she ventured into architecture. 'One Small House' is the name of Toohey's column. 'The Gallant Gallstone' was a book written by Lois Cook, supposedly against free will, plugged endlessly by Toohey on the 'Banner'. Wynand stopped this as soon as he discovered it. 'No Skin Off Your Nose' was an equally obnoxious, and strangely disturbing, play that Dominique made Wynand watch because it was his paper that was promoting it.

Answer: about sixteen years

At the beginning of the novel, Roark tells the Dean he is twenty-two years old. "How old are you?" "Twenty-two." "Quite excusable." Towards the end, Roark tells Keating he is thirty-seven years old. Eighteen months after this, in the very last chapter of the book, Dominique goes to meet Roark at the 'Wynand Building'.

Answer: the 'Wynand Building'

The 'Enright House' was the house which Roark was recalled from the granite quarry, where he first met Dominique, to build. Roark called the 'Aquitania' his favourite building, though he built many more later which were probably dearer to him. It was nicknamed the "Unfinished Symphony". Dominique posed for a statue for the 'Stoddard Temple'.

The Temple however turned out to be misinterpreted and misunderstood and had nearly disastrous consequences. Roark was sued by his client, Dominique was fired, and the Temple was remodelled into a home for subnormal children.

The 'Wynand Building', however, is where everything comes to a harmonious conclusion. Dominique describes it thus: "They say the heart of the earth is made of fire. It is held imprisoned and silent.

But at times it breaks through the clay, the iron, the granite, and shoots out to freedom. Then it becomes a thing like this."

Answer: Sean

His real name was Sean Xavier Donnigan, and he met Roark on the construction site of a apartment hotel Roark was sent to inspect. Roark was working as a draftsman for Francon & Heyer then. Mike was trying to bend conduits around a beam, and Roark showed him how to cut a hole through the beam, instead. Mike never missed employment on any of Roark's buildings.

Answer: I Do

He never told anyone what the name meant, except Dominique. This was his explanation: "It's an answer to people long since dead.... You see, the sentence I heard most often in my childhood was 'You don't run things around here'."

Answer: Ellsworth Toohey

Nobody knew, until Toohey gifted it to Wynand to tempt him to meet Dominique. It worked.

Answer: Rachmaninoff

Wynand mentions it towards the end of the book, when he is busy trying to deal with his employees' strike, and has told Dominique to stay away from the city. He tells her to listen to the radio that night, because they would be playing "her pet - 'Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto'".

Answer: Boston

When Roark tells Wynand he liked catching rivets, Wynand answers that he liked being a bootblack most among all his older jobs. They became very good friends, and Roark had been willing to make the only compromise he had ever come close to making for Wynand. Dominique doesn't let him do it, however.

Answer: Austen Heller

Roark built Heller his house, which came to be called the "booby hatch" because no one thought it would stand. He built the 'Enright House' on his return from the granite quarry. Henry Cameron was his first reluctant employer, who came to look upon him almost as his son. Roark built the ill-fated 'Temple of the Human Spirit' for Hopton Stoddard.

Answer: 3

He starts out with Henry Cameron. When Cameron retires, he goes to work for Francon & Heyer. When Guy Francon fires him, he finally finds employment with John Erik Snyte, where he is referred to as "Modernistic". It is at Snyte's office that he meets Austen Heller, and proceeds to start his own firm. "Howard Roark, Architect."

Answer: a star sapphire

When Roark suggests that she should have told him which of her star sapphires he gave her, she remarks she never had any, because she didn't like them.

Answer: Holding a gun to his head

He didn't shoot himself though.