Ayn Rand reception history.

I was talking with an older professor I met at a reception at the art school the other month, and like I often do, I started talking about Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

She then told me that she’s read her novels in the past decade, and had gotten them used.

The first one she read, she said, was a copy of “The Fountainhead” that she got at a charity used booksale.

The binding had one single sharp crease, and the copy fell open to the rape scene.

At that, another, very old and very small and very white in skin and hair painting professor chimed in that back in the day, everyone read Ayn Rand for the sex scenes, it was all anyone ever talked about her about.