Art or literary creation like any other human artifact needs to be sufficiently innovative, different, timely and must target mass audience in order to be successful. By innovation in literature I mean that the writer must use his work to put forward a new problem or solution or, an old problem or solution with a fresh outlook.The settings should be described vividly and the content must add some different angle to the readers' paradigms and must leave them pondering.
One such piece of literature that I have read and admire a lot is the novel written by Ayn Rand "The Fountainhead". Ayn Rand puts forward the philosophy of objectivism which such flawless style and befitting characters that you feel as if you are living the novel. Howard Roark represents the zenith of human spirit and Dominique represents the prefect contrast to Roark. If Roark is an architect, Dominique has a fancy for crossing the boundaries. If Roark is perfectly predictable in his brievity of speech and indomitable determination Dominique is very unpredictable. Both of them represent the same flow of force of human will but run in opposite directions. Gail Wynand is the third form of this spirit, only that he wanted to be rich more than being himself! But these are such strong characters that they force the reader to look at ego from a different perspective and reexamine the principles of altruism.
People like Ellseworth Toohey are those parasites of society who do not want ego to rise, as then people would grow self reliant and self dependent making people like Toohey useless. Peter Keating is the character which I guess is most prevalent in the society, people who start wonderfully and fast as well but fail to sustain their growth as they soon come to realise that they are living someone else's life and pursuing someone else's aims. They turn to people like Toohey and they in turn, turn them to religion making them believe that, that's life and that's how weak man is, infront of destiny. Tooheys of the society know that the Roarks can bring about revolution and set a social system of self respect. Where people take pride in their existence and are driven by passion rather than money or mercy! People who donot take things for granted and are always ready to cross check past beliefs. They are strong enough to set their own standards that are far more complete and relevant than the past prejudices. These people have the courage to challenge any authority and stand firm even when the whole system decides to crush them down. In the end the system adjusts to accommodate such people and not vice-versa. Is it arrogance? far from it. Rather this is the very essence of Ayn Rand's philosophy who wants to make people realise that believing in oneself is not same as disbelieving in God or religion or society, rather it is just a simple outcome of the principle of self respect which, by all standards, is a desirable trait!
Because of this solid base and such pertinent issue, I guess, this novel has been able to cross the boundaries of space and time. This in turn proves that many people identified themselves with the characters of the novel and with the highly relevant questions put forward by the novel. In this wonderful literary attempt every character has its own standing, every setting has a worthy description, every room find a place in the readers' minds and every event adds a wave in their thought streams. The novel rightly and firmly establishes human ego as the fountainhead of all progress. It also makes the fatalists to delve into their hearts and see the reality one last time, that it is they who made a conscious choice of being slaves of their destinies even when they could have very well been in command!!