The Early Ayn Rand

By 1929, Ayn Rand had a fund of observations on this subject: she had been working in and around Hollywood for three years. She respected the potential of the film medium, and she loved certain movies (her favorites were the great German Romantic silent films, with stars such as Conrad Veidt and Hans Albers, and directors such as Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang). But she rejected out of hand the syrupy, platitudinous stories enshrining mediocrity, offering odes to "the boy next door" or "the sweet maiden next door." She despised what she saw as Hollywood's trite values, its undiscriminating taste, its "incommunicable vulgarity of spirit," as she put it in The Romantic Manifesto.

Unlike most critics, however, Ayn Rand did not ascribe the movies' low estate to "commercialism" or "box-office chasing." She singled out as the basic cause an inner mental practice or default, described by the hero in this story as follows:

There's no one in this business with an honest idea of what's good and what's bad. And there's no one who's not scared green of having such an idea for himself. They're all sitting around waiting for someone to tell them. Begging someone to tell them. Anyone, just so they won't have to take the awful responsibility of judging and valuing on their own. So merit doesn't exist here.

The Fountainhead would not appear in print for fourteen years; but here is its author's first recognition in writing of the psychology of Peter Keating, the secondhander, the man who abdicates his inner sovereignty, then lives without real thought or values, as a parasite on the souls of others. Claire Nash in this story — again, a woman in the central role — is Peter Keating's earliest ancestor; she is the antonym of Irene in "The Husband I Bought"; she is the woman who does not even know that values exist.

"Her Second Career" is not, however, a psychological study or a serious analysis of secondhandedness. It is a satire and, like "Good Copy," an essentially jovial, lighthearted piece. (This story, too, is signed by "O. O. Lyons.") Claire, despite her character, is a mixed case, with enough virtue to be attracted to the hero. Moreover, events reveal that there is, after all, a place for merit, even in Hollywood, and this functions as a redeeming note, making the satire a relatively gentle element in the context of a romantic story, rather than a biting denunciation or a bitter commentary.

This story, I believe, is the last of the preliminary pieces composed by Miss Rand before she turned to her first major literary undertaking, her novel We the Living. Several signs of her increasing maturity are apparent. Winston Ayers and Heddy Leland are more recognizably Ayn Rand types of hero and heroine than any of the figures in earlier stories. Though there is still a certain foreign awkwardness and, as in "Good Copy," an overly broad tone at times, the writing as a whole is more assured. Parts of the story, especially on the set during the filming, are genuinely funny. Above all, "Her Second Career" presents, for the first time in the early pieces, an element essential to the mature Ayn Rand: an intriguing plot situation, integrated with the broader theme. On the whole, the logic of the events has been carefully worked out (although I have some doubt about Claire's motivation in accepting Ayers' wager, and about an element of chance that occurs near the end).

With developments such as these, the period of private writing exercises draws to a close. Ayn Rand is now ready for professional work.

A note on the text: three pages of the original manuscript are missing. To preserve the continuity, I have inserted in their place several paragraphs — about one-third the length of the missing pages — from an earlier version of the story which happens to have been preserved. The inserted material runs from the sentence "She reached the little hotel she was living in" through the sentence "... I am sure that I could not have found a better interpreter for my story."

L. P.

Her Second Career

"Heart's Desire narrowly misses being the worst picture of the year. The story is mossgrown and the direction something we had better keep charitably silent about. BUT... but Claire Nash is the star. And when this is said, everything has been said. Her exquisite personality illuminates the picture and makes you forget everything but her own matchless magic. Her portrayal of the innocent country maiden will make a lump rise in the most sophisticated throat. Hers is the genius that makes Screen History..."

The newspaper hanging lightly, rustling between two pink-nailed fingertips, Claire Nash handed it to Winston Ayers. Her mouth, bright, pink, and round as a strawberry, smiled lightly her subtlest smile of indulgent pity. But her eyes, soft violets hidden among pine needles of mascara, watched closely the great Winston Ayers reading.