The Intuitionist: A Novel

I'm not sure Whitehead's book is really ABOUT racism. Reading The Intuitionist would lead anyone to reflect on racism, both in the story and in our world, but I wonder if this isn't a case where the title of the book is revealing. So who is the Intuitionist? Is it Lila Mae Watson? James Fulton? And is the intuition about elevators, or something else? I think this is an amazing, wonderful, memorable book. It can be read as magic realism does suspense: Lila on the run from a false accusation, trying to clear her name in an alternate reality; or as an allegory dealing with lies, truth, power, and self determination; or something else? Going Up??? BTW, Thanks Mr. Whitehead for making your main character female, and then making her highly quirky-- but NOT in need of being either "fixed" OR "rescued." Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I'm a Whitehead fan. The Underground Railroad, The Nicole Boys, Zone one. Not so !ugh the two crime/furniture store Harlem books. Somehow never got around to The Intuition list -- or rather tried twice and didn't make it far either time. But decided to grit my teeth and do it. The elevator minutia I'd just power through like the Swedish stock market economics of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. So I did. And just wasn't enthralled with the non-minutia part. One wants a reward for making it through all the elevator facts and mechanics. And the payoff wasn't sufficient for me. Colon Whitehead can't write poorly and he doesn't. My goodness he made me enjoy a d appreciate as zombie novel!! But although his layered treatment of the cost of "passing"..The perspective of "colored" experience in the majority ruled world was well laid out and acted as an ostensible metaphor for so many other aspect of society's actions. If you decide to read it, approach with patience

This is the story of Lila Mae Watson, an engineer of highest caliber working in the highest expression of the art – elevator engineering. She is a government official in the most prestigious government office - she is an elevator inspector. She is a black (or “colored,” as the author calls her.) She is the first black woman to achieve such status. The time is uncertain, but it seems to run concurrently with that of The Maltese Falcon or Farewell My lovely. The dialog and the action seem to parallel a post great war mystery. You expect the desk clerks to be called Velma and the character cast is made up of thugs, patsies, crooks and seekers of the truth. The plot is a mystery – who caused the elevator in the newly christened Fanny Briggs building to fail? Clearly, all of this is symbol. Elevators are the mechanisms of ascension. We’re moving to a higher plane led by Lila Mae. The main engineering texts are the volumes of Theoretical Elevators. This is a book without equations and light on the diagrams. The text is full of life philosophy largely relating to the human condition. Now, Lila Mae is building on this, taking us higher but in a different direction. Her science is “intuitive” more human than that of the old, mechanistic, dominantly white society. There were a lot of really good set-ups in this novel that didn’t quite make it in the end. The period piece feel of the book was carried off well. Lila Mae was fairly well drawn, a mixture of hard and soft. The softness was that of the submissiveness Fanon attributed to colonial subjugation of black women. But there was hardness, a determination that was leading to elevation. Unfortunately, she is the only character with any depth. There were a lot of running jokes, like the importance of elevator engineering, that kind of fell flat in the end. But the main problem was with Lila Mae. Nothing in her character suggests a real break with or improvement on existing social norms. There was nothing to get you to really root for her (apart from her position as “victim.”) So the whole read seemed to lack a real point in the end.

"What does the perfect elevator look like, the one that will deliver us from the cities we suffer now, these stunted shacks?" -The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead This is a near perfect book with striking language - Colson Whitehead's metaphors are worth pausing over and re-reading. He writes such gems as "In person he is too flesh, a handful of raw meat. Dogs have been known to follow him, optimistic." Centering around the elevators we all must ride in to rise up, quite literally, allows for allegory on so many levels - the concept's brilliance comes from its simplicity. A black female elevator inspector tries make it in a white elevator inspector's world, intuitionist trying to make it in a rationalist's world, all of us built up on top of each other in these big cities waiting to take the ride up to that next level. I think this is a book that kids will be reading in high school in America when all of us are long gone.

Overlong and twisted plot that could have been more solidly delivered and after the hype about this writer, this is the third book of his that I’ve tried and I’ve noticed that with the three I’ve read this one, the underground railroad and zone one there is a definite lack of character development, and over emphasis on place as exposition that explains general character in relationship to time and situation as they might explain a general predicament. But the story instinct is solid. I will continue to read to see if I am missing something. I’ve purchased nickel boys and one other, which escapes me right now and hope that I have a more pleasant time with them than I did with this, but I give it a four star rating because the point from a vantage that is singular.

This story was unique from all of the other books I have read this week. I found myself amazed at how Colson Whitehead made the characters seem real in this fictious story. I would have never guessed the "who" but the whole plot twist was surprising. I gave this book five stars because It also included ten dollar words.

Spannender Roman über Aufzüge und Rassismus. Ein überraschendes Buch, unbedingt lesenswert.

Brilliant writer

Quite a unique style of writing. I read the words they flow and I get a sensory impression of what is happening. The words are sentences are like symbols and sign boards. They don't tell me for sure and I don't have to re read to check that what I think is what the author meant. Enjoyable read.

More intriguing than enjoyable, I can't declare it a favourite. However I did like the exploration of the gap between the empirical view of the world and those (like me) who find themselves reaching for a deeper understanding of the world that we are all an intricate part of.

Very well written & absorbing story showing inequality of black people in the USA, but i do not think I fully understand the allegory.