Ideal: The Novel and the Play (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Rand, Ayn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451473175 ISBN 13: 9780451473172

Verlag: Penguin Classics, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Originally conceived as a novel but then transformed into a play by Ayn Rand, Ideal is the story of beautiful but tormented actress Kay Gonda. Accused of murder, she is on the run, and she turns for help to six fans who have written letters to her, each telling her that she represents their ideal-a respectable family man, a farleft activist, a cynical artist, an evangelist, a playboy, and a lost soul. Each reacts to her plight in his own way, their reactions a glimpse into their secret selves and their true values. In the end their responses to her pleas give Kay the answers she has been seeking.

Ideal was written in 1934 as a novel, but Ayn Rand thought the theme of the piece would be better realized as a play and put the novel aside. Now, both versions of Ideal are available for the first time ever to the millions of Ayn Rand fans around the world, giving them a unique opportunity to explore the creative process of Rand as she wrote first a book, then a play, and the differences between the two.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LEONARD PEIKOFF

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) is best known for her philosophy of Objectivism and her novels We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged.

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In print for the first time ever, author and philosopher Ayn Rand's novel Ideal.

Originally conceived as a novel but then transformed into a play by Ayn Rand, Ideal is the story of beautiful but tormented actress Kay Gonda. Accused of murder, she is on the run, and she turns for help to six fans who have written letters to her, each telling her that she represents their ideal-a respectable family man, a far-left activist, a cynical artist, an evangelist, a playboy, and a lost soul. Each reacts to her plight in his own way, their reactions a glimpse into their secret selves and their true values. In the end their responses to her pleas give Kay the answers she has been seeking.

Ideal was written in 1934 as a novel, but Ayn Rand thought the theme of the piece would be better realized as a play and put the novel aside. Now, both versions of Ideal are available for the first time ever to the millions of Ayn Rand fans around the world, giving them a unique opportunity to explore the creative process of Rand as she wrote first a book, then a play, and the differences between the two.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

“If it’s murder—why don’t we hear more about it? If it’s not— why do we hear so much? When interviewed on the subject, Miss Frederica Sayers didn’t say yes, and she didn’t say no. She has refused to give out the slightest hint as to the manner of her brother’s sudden death. Granton Sayers died in his Santa Bar­bara mansion two days ago, on the night of May 3rd. On the evening of May 3rd Granton Sayers had dinner with a famous—oh, very famous—screen star. That is all we know.

“Sorry we can’t give you any lower low-down— but we can suggest a few questions—if they have not occurred to you al­ready. It would be interesting to know where that enchanting siren of the screen was on the night of May 3rd—after dinner. Or where she has been ever since. And if—as Miss Frederica Sayers maintains--there is nothing to whisper about, why are there such persistent rumors linking that certain famous name with the death of the great oil king of the West? All of which leaves Miss Frederica in the position of the West’s oil queen and sole heiress to the Sayers millions—if any.

“Now, to change the subject. Many readers have called in inquiring as to the present whereabouts of Kay Gonda. This lovely lady of the screen has been absent from her Hollywood home for the last two days and the studio moguls refuse to re­veal the why and the where. Some suspicious persons are whis­pering that the said moguls do not know it themselves.”

The City Editor of the Los Angeles Courier sat down on the desk of Irving Ponts. Irving Ponts wore an eternal smile, wrote “This and That,” star column of the Los Angeles Courier, and had a stomach which interfered with his comfort when he sat down. The City Editor trans­ferred his pencil from the right corner of his mouth to the left, and asked:

“On the level, Irv, do you know where she is?”

“Search me,” said Irving Ponts.

“Are they looking for her?”

“Ditto,” said Irving Ponts.

“Have they filed charges against her in Santa Barbara?”

“Ditto.”

“What did your police friends say?”

“That,” said Irving Ponts, “wouldn’t do you any good, because you couldn’t print where they told me to go.”

“You don’t really think she did it, do you, Irv? Because why the hell would she do it?”

“No reason,” said Irving Ponts. “Except, is there ever any reason for anything Kay Gonda does?”|

The City Editor called Morrison Pickens.

Morrison Pickens looked as if in the sparse six feet of his body there were not a single bone, and only a miracle kept it upright, preventing it from flopping softly into a huddle. He had a cigarette which only a miracle kept hanging listlessly in the corner of his mouth. He had a coat thrown over his shoulders, which only a miracle kept from sliding down his back, and a cap with a visor that stood like a halo halfway up his skull.

“Take a little trip to the Farrow Film Studios,” said the City Editor, “and see what you can see.”

“Kay Gonda?” asked Morrison Pickens.

“Kay Gonda, if you can,” said the City Editor. “If not, just try to pick up something about where she is at present.”

Morrison Pickens struck a match on the sole of the City Editor’s shoe, but changed his mind and threw the match into a wastebasket, picked up a pair of scissors, and cleaned his thumbnail thoughtfully.

“Uh- uh,” said Morrison Pickens. “Shall I also try to find out who killed Rothstein1 and whether there is any life after death?”

“Get there before lunch,” said the City Editor. “See what they say and how they say it.”

Morrison Pickens drove to the Farrow Film Studios. He drove down a crowded street of little shops, shrunken and dried in the sun, with dusty window panes ready to push one another out of the tight, grim row. Behind the panes he could see everything men needed, every­thing they lived for: stiff dresses with rhinestone butterflies, jars of strawberry jam and cans of tomatoes, floor mops and lawn mowers, cold cream and aspirin and a famous cure for gas in the stomach. Men passed by, weary, hurried, indifferent, hair sticking to hot, wet fore­heads. And it seemed as if the greatest of human miseries was not of those who could not afford to enter the shops and buy, but of those who could.

Over a little movie theater with a yellow brick front, a blank mar­quee, and a circle bearing a huge 15 cents in tarnished tinsel, stood the cardboard figure of a woman. She stood erect, her shoulders thrown back, and her short blond hair was like a bonfire snapped at the height of a furious storm— ferocious tangle of hair over a slim body. She had pale, transparent eyes and a large mouth that looked like the mouth of an idol of an animal that had been sacred. There was no name under the figure, but the name was not necessary, for every passerby on every street of the world knew the name and the wild blond hair and the fragile body. It was Kay Gonda.

The figure was half naked under its scant garment, but no one no­ticed that. No one looked at it conventionally and no one snickered. She stood, her head thrown back, her arms limp at her sides, palms up, helpless and frail, surrendering herself and imploring something far away, high over the blank marquee and over the roofs, as a flame held straight for an insight in an unknown wind, as a last plea rising from every roof, and every shop window, and every weary heart far under her feet. And passing the theater, no one did, but everyone wanted dimly to take off his hat.

Morrison Pickens had seen one of her pictures last evening. He had sat for an hour and a half without moving, and if breathing had re­quired attention, he would have forgotten to breathe. From the screen, a huge white face had looked at him, a face with a mouth one wished one could wish to kiss, and eyes that made one wonder— wonder which was pain—just what it was they were seeing. He felt as if there was something—deep in his brain, behind everything he thought and everything he was—which he did not know, but she knew, and he wished he did, and wondered whether he could ever know it, and should he, if he could, and why he wished it. He thought that she was just a woman and an actress, but he thought this only before he entered the theater and after he left it; while he looked at her on the screen, he thought differently; he thought that she was not a human being at all, not the kind of human being he’d seen around him all his life, but the kind no one ever knew—and should. When he looked at her, it made him feel guilty, but it also made him feel young—and clean—and very proud. When he looked at her, he understood why ancient peoples had made statues of gods in the image of man.

No one knew for certain who Kay Gonda was. There were people who said they remembered her when she was sixteen and working in a corset shop in Vienna. She wore a dress too short for her long, thin legs, with sleeves too short for her pale, thin arms. She moved behind the counter with a nervous swiftness that made people think that she be­longed in a zoo, rather than in a little shop with starched white curtains and a smell of stale lard. No one called her beautiful. Men never ap­proached her and landladies were eager to throw her out when she was behind in her rent. She spent long days fitting girdles to customers, her thin white fingers lacing strings tightly over...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Classics
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0451473175
• ISBN 13: 9780451473172
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland