When a favorite isn't anymore

I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead for the first time my senior year of high school. It was for a scholarship essay competition. My government teacher organized a group to read it and discuss it. She was thrilled to realize that I had already started reading it because I intended to write the essay before she set up the group. Honestly, it was fairly hurtful that she then promptly forgot about me and never invited me to the sessions. After that, I did finish the novel, but it was just another book for school to me.

It earned a rereading when I was in a summer research program at a university in Michigan. My room didn't have a TV so I heavily relied on the campus library. Because it was a university library, most of my options were classic literature, not so much contemporary fiction. After a failed attempt to enjoy Franny and Zooey, I gave The Fountainhead a second chance. I ate it up.

Once I returned home, I bought all of Ayn Rand's works. It took me about a year to get through Atlas Shrugged, but I made it. Digesting a 50 page monologue turned out to be quite trying.

I officially declared The Fountainhead my favorite book. When I started dating Dan, he was interested in what I was interested in and wanted to try to read it. Since he's not much of a reader, I gave him one of Rand's shorter, happier stories while I enjoyed my favorite again.

That was almost three years ago. Over the past couple of months, there wasn't anything interesting at the library so the novel got its fourth reading. Every night, I would crawl into bed and absorb a chapter or two. At first, it was good bedtime reading, but as the nights went on, I began to dread it. I skipped paragraphs and skimmed speeches and was incredibly happy when I was done.

I still haven't figured out what changed on the fourth reading. Maybe the element of surprise was gone, maybe I knew the characters too well, maybe the plot didn't resonate anymore, I don't know. Nothing clicked with me this time. My only theory is that I can't find the characters believable anymore. On my first reading, I was 18. I was still new and shiny and naive to the world. Howard Roark could be real. There could be people out there so committed to their ideals that they would risk everything. However, at 24, it just seems one dimensional. How could someone be so obsessed with one thing that they would sacrifice themselves for it? And Dominique. Oh, Dominique. The only way she can be happy is to torture herself and the ones who care about her? I do believe people like that exist, but I've done everything I can to keep people like that out of my life. I guess that's just Rand though: the men are ideologies and the women are wilting beauties who abuse themselves for the men.

The Fountainhead doesn't resonate with me anymore. It's not my favorite. I still enjoy it, but I can't declare it my favorite to the world. Does this mean I don't have a favorite book? Do I have to declare another one I've read my favorite? Do I get to put off picking a new favorite until I've finally read my new favorite?

I don't know why this is bugging me so much, but it is. It feels like some sort of literary identity crisis.