TIMECODE | Blog

Since high school people have recommended that I read Ayn Rand. In eleventh grade, and later in college, I remember friends reading The Fountainhead— actually, I remember friends carrying around a copy of the book because now that I think about it I can’t actually recall anyone sitting and reading that hefty tome. Mind you, I’m not averse to reading long books; one of my favorites is Haruki Murakami’s amazing novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. But The Fountainhead never seemed inviting; the cheap paperback version reminded me more of a brick than a book, and Rand’s dry, repetitively dull writing didn’t even make me want to turn the first page. Writing, for me, is as much about the way a writer uses language as it is about what he or she says. A good writer has a strong sense of rhythm, pacing, word choice; a great writer shows wit and lyricism, writes in a way that’s emotionally honest, and couples intelligence with imagination. With Rand, language seems secondary, a mere tool used didactically to get across a point. Since I couldn’t make it through her book, I figured why not a movie. After all, two hours trumps 752 boring pages anytime…