A review by sarakomo
The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead
3.0
2021: Fascinating to read Whitehead's early work, but it doesn't hold a candle to his later efforts.
The premise here is that elevators are VERY IMPORTANT in this world. It's kinda New York, it's almost Chicago, it's maybe the 1960's, we are never clear, but it's not OUR world. In their world, elevators are literally what make the world go round (or up. You get it.) Things are never clearly defined or explained, which of course frustrated me, but the world's set up to be this noir, old school, highly factional society. They are at the precipice of change and acceptance, but certainly not quite all the way there yet.
Whitehead spends the entire novel exploring dichotomies: black versus white, old school versus new school, empiricists versus intuitionists, and they are all metaphors for the binaries we interact with on a daily basis. I understood the allegory that Whitehead was setting up here, and I was on board until the very end (where one paragraph essentially destroys all of the symbolism). I even respect the decision of highlighting the elevator in his metaphor, as emphasis on the social uplift / upward mobility / Black elevation. But I just couldn't get on board with CARING about the elevators!
There's a line where Lila Mae says something like, "it had been nine days since she last inspected Number Eleven. It was the longest she'd ever gone without visiting the elevator" and I think I was supposed to feel sad about that? I just think that the allegory only works if I am also invested in what Lila Mae was working towards / fighting for. Unfortunately, Whitehead fell short of that for me.
It was also a little strange to not have any other races depicted in the novel? I don't mean to say that I need Whitehead to cover the everyone's experiences in this one book, but it seemed odd that no one else was discussed. Maybe that's because I wasn't alive in the 60's to understand how much it was very Black versus White at that point in time, and I'm approaching it too much from a 2021 perspective.
I feel like I've had a lot of 3 star books recently. This book wasn't BAD, but it just also didn't do it for me. I would not recommend starting here if this is your first time reading Whitehead - go for [b:The Underground Railroad|30555488|The Underground Railroad|Colson Whitehead|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493178362l/30555488._SX50_.jpg|48287641]. I'm still really excited to get my hands on [b:Harlem Shuffle|54626223|Harlem Shuffle|Colson Whitehead|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612449660l/54626223._SY75_.jpg|85227984]!
The premise here is that elevators are VERY IMPORTANT in this world. It's kinda New York, it's almost Chicago, it's maybe the 1960's, we are never clear, but it's not OUR world. In their world, elevators are literally what make the world go round (or up. You get it.) Things are never clearly defined or explained, which of course frustrated me, but the world's set up to be this noir, old school, highly factional society. They are at the precipice of change and acceptance, but certainly not quite all the way there yet.
Whitehead spends the entire novel exploring dichotomies: black versus white, old school versus new school, empiricists versus intuitionists, and they are all metaphors for the binaries we interact with on a daily basis. I understood the allegory that Whitehead was setting up here, and I was on board until the very end (where one paragraph essentially destroys all of the symbolism). I even respect the decision of highlighting the elevator in his metaphor, as emphasis on the social uplift / upward mobility / Black elevation. But I just couldn't get on board with CARING about the elevators!
There's a line where Lila Mae says something like, "it had been nine days since she last inspected Number Eleven. It was the longest she'd ever gone without visiting the elevator" and I think I was supposed to feel sad about that? I just think that the allegory only works if I am also invested in what Lila Mae was working towards / fighting for. Unfortunately, Whitehead fell short of that for me.
It was also a little strange to not have any other races depicted in the novel? I don't mean to say that I need Whitehead to cover the everyone's experiences in this one book, but it seemed odd that no one else was discussed. Maybe that's because I wasn't alive in the 60's to understand how much it was very Black versus White at that point in time, and I'm approaching it too much from a 2021 perspective.
I feel like I've had a lot of 3 star books recently. This book wasn't BAD, but it just also didn't do it for me. I would not recommend starting here if this is your first time reading Whitehead - go for [b:The Underground Railroad|30555488|The Underground Railroad|Colson Whitehead|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493178362l/30555488._SX50_.jpg|48287641]. I'm still really excited to get my hands on [b:Harlem Shuffle|54626223|Harlem Shuffle|Colson Whitehead|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612449660l/54626223._SY75_.jpg|85227984]!