love is...

i'm re-reading the fountainhead; i like to do this every few years to "get back to my roots." it's hard to maintain optimal selfishness and general all-around assholeness without consulting my bible once in awhile. this time through i find myself fixating on the love triangle contained in the book. more specifically, the way dominique francon, howard roark, and gail wynand approach the concept and reality of love.

dominique is seriously flawed. she'll whore herself out to her true love's greatest enemies in order to defile herself and to see how much roark can take. it seems cruel but she does this to keep roark for herself. what? basically dominique is afraid that roark's principles will break so she sets out to destroy him before she can be with him. it's very melrose place. in-between all of this, of course, they engage in violent love making that is the equivalent of "the greatest love of all time."

for her, love is about making exceptions since she'd never give of herself this way or bow her head for anyone except roark. of course, roark rejects her exactly for this reason, due to his own thoughts on love.

gail wynand, the powerful entrepreneur, has essentially sold his soul to the devil (in this case, the "mindless masses") in order to achieve fame and fortune. now his idea of fun is to break idealistic young men/women by any means possible. since he sold his selfish desires and beliefs, he feels like he must make others do it too -- he's the devil's right hand man. his idea of love is to own someone. once he decides he wants something, he doesn't want anyone else to have it.

he has an art gallery full of priceless works that he purchases and then keeps private. he does the same with dominique. after he marries her, he just wants to keep her locked up and in his possession. behind those castle walls he can be soft, sweet, cuddly, and real. this is how gail wynand loves. notice how similar it is to how dominique expresses her love; love as exception -- but gail adds in ownership on top of that.

howard roark, our hero and rand's ideal man, thinks of love in a totally different way. i'll let roark tell it. the following speech occurs right after dominique has offered herself to roark as his wife, as his love slave, as his personal valet, as his everything -- at the same time having just told him that she's to be married to one of his mortal enemies unless he tells her not to. roark says he'll pass on her offer and responds with this:

"i love you, dominique. as selfishly as the fact that i exist. as selfishly as my lungs breath air. i breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. i've given you not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need.

this is the only way you can wish to be loved. this is the only way i can want you to love me. if you married me now, i would become your whole existence. but i would not want you then. you would not want yourself -- and so you would not love me long. to say 'i love you' one must first know how to say the 'i'."

to summarize, roark's idea of love is not about exception making, it's not about owning, it's about... shit, i'm not sure what it's about. but i know it's not about what most people think it's about. love is a many splendored thing but i don't think people give enough thought to it, even if it seems like all we do is talk about it.

"the novel extols the virtues of science and logic and argues personal relationships can exist within these virtues. as long as relationships help people maximize their potential, then the novel sees love as a version of logic, and therefore approves of it."
-fountainhead, spark notes-