Trinity

I just finished Leon Uris' Trinity a few days ago. What a story! All about the Catholics' fight for freedom from British oppression and Protestant bigotry in Ireland. At first I was loving it so much because it seemed to be "the other side" after I've read so much from the British/Industrialist/Capitalist point of view. But there's a courtroom scene (aren't they always the best?) where Conor is put on trial after a gunrunning blunder at Sixmilecross, and the British just make a complete farce of the hearing. Conor then, without the help of any counsel or resources whatsoever, uses English common law to show how English presence on Irish soil is unlawful. Awesome!

The more that I read and the more that I thought about it, the more similar I began to see not only Conor Larkin and Howard Roark, but Trinity and The Fountainhead overall. Extremely long, detailed epics, both tell the plight of a man who puts his virutes and values above anything and everything else in the world. Neither allow the world, nor a single individual in it, to compromise him or his values at any point for any thing. Both have a singular, virtuous, passionate affair. My favorite: both give incredible courtroom speeches that encompass and embody the heart of their respective novels. Both novels focus on scenarios which I was previously quite ignorant of and now greatly revere. Indeed, I now wish I would have visited Ireland during my tenure in Britain last summer, in precisely the same way I longed to have studied architecture more upon completion of The Fountainhead. I also now contemplate yet mildly fear reading another of this author's works. (Although I doubt this author has ever published anything near the calibre of Atlas Shrugged!)