By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog
Last night, my pre-ordered copy of Robert Mayhew’s new anthology Essays on Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead arrived. It looks quite excellent. Here’s the table of contents from the publisher’s web site:
Part 1: The History of The Fountainhead
Part 2: The Fountainhead as Literature and as Philosophy
I was very impressed with the two prior volumes in the series – Essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living – so I’m really looking forward to reading this new collection. Speaking of the other two volumes, I found their tables of contents on the publisher’s web site too. Here’s Essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem:
Part 1: The History of Anthem
Part 2: Anthem as Literature and as Philosophy
While I enjoyed the whole anthology, I thought the essays by Tore Boeckmann, Darryl Wright, Onkar Ghate, and Greg Salmieri in this volume were particularly excellent. I learned more about Anthem (and Objectivism) from reading these essays than I thought possible, and I appreciated the novella more than ever before.
Last but not least is the anthology on my favorite novel by Ayn Rand: Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living.
Part 1: The History of We the Living
Part 2:We the Living as Literature and as Philosophy
While this volume didn’t have as much new and exciting philosophy as the anthology on Anthem, I did very much enjoy many of the essays, particularly the literary analyses. (The historical essays on the publication of the novel weren’t of much interest to me, I must admit. That’s just a matter of my personal taste though, as those essays were well-written.)