Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist is a mystery about…elevator inspectors? Or is it about an ideological conflict between opposing schools of elevator theory (the Empiricists and the Intuitionists) which surfaces when an elevator deemed safe by elevator inspector, Lila Mae Watson (an Intuitionist) goes into freefall? Whitehead’s novel has the feel of a noir detective story replete with intrigue and espionage. His urban landscape is filled with characters you’d expect to see in such a novel and

Posted at Heradas ReviewThe time period is difficult to pin down. 1950s, 1960s? The setting is never explicitly said to be New York City, but it is. There are clues peppered here and there but the whole thing also has a timeless, every-major-city quality to it. This world is exactly like ours, except elevators are a big, big deal. Their creation has shaped the form and structure of cities; buildings with arrangements of floors vertically stacked ad infinitum up into the sky, a concept itself onl...

I came to Colson Whitehead by way of zombies.Colson Whitehead, writer of award-nominated books, including National Book Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and New York Times Notable Book of the Year; contributer to the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Harper's; and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.Yes, that Colson Whitehead. Zombies. I'd like to pause for a moment and just admire the mind-twist for those that deride zombie books. The...

This book was recommended to me off a list. I read some reviews before I dove in. Some said "it's about elevators" others said "it's all about race". Well...they're both kind of right, but I think they've missed the point. This is an excellent book. It's an old fashioned murder mystery wrapped in a philosophical discussion wrapped in a metaphor. Colson Whitehead has created a wonderful "film noir" urban landscape completely centered around the world of elevator inspectors. This world of elevator...

I'll hold off rating this one until I think about it a bit... there is a lot to like about it; but a lot I just didn't understand. My elevator sometimes doesn't go all the way to the top._____________Here's the thing: at another time and place, I would probably rate this a 4. However, in this current time and place, the complexity of the structure, an allegory that I never really "got" and the flat affect of the central character all kept me at arm's length when what I wanted, most, was to be im...

In an interview with Salon.com following the publication of his 1999 debut novel The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead discusses the freedom he has as an African American writer of the late 20th century. He says, "decades ago, there was the protest novel, and then there was 'tell the untold story, find our unerased history.' Then there's the militant novel of insurrection from the '60s. There were two rigid camps in the '60s: the Black Arts movement, denouncing James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison for b...

A seriously strange read. It seems that there are 2 ways to check an elevator's safety: Intuitionist and Empiricist ones. Basically, the elevators are central thing to the plot: theoretical elevators, the history of elevators, etc etc etc.Way too much importance is put on the protagonist's race: I've no remotest idea why the inspector's skin color should be important in 1999? Hope it's all a metaphor for smth else entirely.And all the ragtag weirdos? John and Jim? Gah. The whole thing is hypnoti...

There's a rich strain of American literature dealing with this nation's original sin, slavery and its residue. In fact, there's so much literature on the topic that I've heard quite a few times that there's nothing left to say. Enter Colson Whitehead's the Intuitionist, a book that manages to make the entire problem seem both familiar and alien at once.Whitehead's strategy is a brilliant one, the kind of idea that must have struck him at an odd moment, like in the dentist's chair or while listen...

There was no one else to blame. The Intuitionist was my pick for a tandem read with my wife. We read it in a single day, one which left us bruised from all the cliches and the noir tropes which were further wrinkled with the riddle of race. I recall Mr. Whitehead was reported to have been spit upon by novelist Richard Ford. No, I wouldn't go that far. . .

Unusual mix of crime mystery, science fiction, and speculative fiction. The setting is unnamed, likely an alternate version of mid twentieth century New York. Protagonist Lila Mae Watson, a graduate of the Institute for Vertical Transport, is the first black female elevator inspector in a society in which elevator operations are considered of utmost importance, as the future lies in verticality. An elevator inspector is a valued position, approaching celebrity status. Lila Mae is an Intuitionist...

This isn't just an allegory of race, as the many glowing reviews in the prefatory pages state. It's an allegory of everything. "Elevators" and "intuitionism" variously represent upward social mobility and its limits, the threatened gains of the civil rights movement, the anxiety of a post-rational worldview, challenges to good-old-boy cronyism, the enabling factor of the modern urban center and the possibility of its transcendence ... the list goes on. In the interest of thematic expansiveness,

I am reading this for a class that I am taking on black postmodern fiction. The hallmarks of the postmodern style are there. It is clear that Whitehead read a fair amount of Pynchon and Barth due to the extensive presence of half-thoughts, sentence fragments, and commentary from the narrator. So, with regards to the class, I understand why it was assigned. On a personal level, I haven't been this bored reading a book in a while. I don't particularly like any of the characters. Lila Mae is rather...

There are many things to like about Colson Whitehead’s first novel, The Institutionist: the prospect of reading about elevator inspectors (a subject, I’m pretty sure, no one has ever written about in fiction), the idealogical split between institutionist and empiricist inspectors (one group inspects elevators by observation and scrutiny, the other by ‘feel’. I’ll let you guess who does what), and elevators being a metaphor for almost everything important in life—“They go up, they go down. You ju...

http://www.weather.com/travel/worlds-...I read Whitehead's 'Zone One' for post-apocalyptic book club, and liked it - someone at our meeting recommended 'The Intuitionist' to me - but all they would say is 'Well, it's about elevator repairmen. But I think you would like it.'Admittedly, I didn't immediately think that reading about elevator repair sounded like the most thrilling activity. You may not be instantly hooked by that description. You might even think it sounds dull. Well, you would be w...

"There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to be as near to hell as they can." The Intuitionist is definitely a debut novel, with all the good and bad stuff that usually entails. You can tell from page one that Whitehead is super smart, high on the beauty and versatility of language, and like a lot of first-time novelists (or musicians or filmmakers or whatever) he seems determined to squeeze everything he's learned so far about the ways

Colson Whitehead builds The Intuitionist on a great cityscape and faux urban history and one great character. The development of elevators in big cities seems like an unlikely subject for a novel, but Whitehead succeeds in combining unions, the mob, government bureaucracy, and race into a gripping mélange. The Intuitionist is a remarkable debut novel, foretelling both the many strengths and the occasional weaknesses of some of his later novels: building intriguing characters in imagined yet conv...

Unusual, LONG and a bit slow A debut novel by an author whose popularity has grown since, he demonstrates his ability to merge mystery within the context of elevators, which admittedly is unique in itself. Like all Colson's stories, race plays a role in the plot, characters and time frame. He sends the reader on the journey of Lila Mae, an elevator inspector and member of the Intuitionist sect, which for the unfamiliar, stands apart from Industry mainstream. Without missing a beat he sends us di...

All of the typical noir elements are here - the big, industrial city, menacing boss(es) playing dirty politics, muckraking reporter, servant with a trick up his sleeve, small-town girl in the big city. But nothing, not even a single description, is cliche. The main character is principled and smart, but she's so reserved that even the reader has to make some guesses at her emotional life. The plot is unpredictable - whimsical, jarring and scary, abstract for a while, mundane. I'm not sure the pa...

When Adam asked me what I was reading the other day, I responded, “It's called The Intuitionist. It's about race. And elevators.” He made a noise expressing both surprise and confusion, but pretty much left it alone. Like any good husband would, he reads my site. He knows he'll get better information out of me if he waits for the written version of my bookish thoughts. So here it is: Lila Mae Watson is an elevator inspector in a New York-ish city full of high rises. The time period is as murky a...

Really interesting book. It is set in what seems a lot like New York City, though in what decade (or even century) is a little mysterious. Lila Mae Watson is the first black female elevator inspector (there is one older man who is the first black elevator inspector), working at a time when the Department of Elevator Inspectors is sharply divided between two approaches to the inspection of elevators: the Empirical approach, and the Intuitionist approach. When the unthinkable happens and an elevat...