The Intuitionist
Ratings11
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings11
Average rating3.3
Who tampered with the elevator?
The mundane job of elevator inspection becomes a mysterious tale of intrigue. Whitehead weaves a beautiful narrative featuring an independent protagonist who elevates herself from the racism she faces in this noir mystery.
Reviews with the most likes.
The noir aspects of this book, along with the the audacity of making elevator inspectors heroic, push this close to five-star territory for me. A joy of a book, with a black woman protagonist(!), a murder mystery where the victim is an empty elevator car; the joy comes when you slowly realize you're reading a fairly nuanced book on race relations in the United States.
This is Colson Whitehead's debut novel, and much more fanciful than his most recent books - not that that's a complaint. The Intuitionist is a hard-boiled, pulpy noir, almost postmodern story about conflict and corruption in the world of elevator inspectors as an allegory for the struggle for racial and gender equality, framed in a conflict between the two main factions of elevator inspecting, The Empiricists and the Intuitionists, and underpinned by the search for a legendary book about theoretical elevators. It's just as bizarre as it sounds, incredibly clever, and unexpectedly funny. Thank you @russell for the recommendation <3
It took me in terribly long time to finish this very short book. I liked the style of writing, but it moved slowly, and didn't really go anywhere interesting. This is more about politics/corruption with racial undertones. Was hoping for some science twist with the elevators but there was NONE.
The plot, social commentary, noir vibes, and intrigue of this book were all spot on for me. The only miss, for which I docked a star, was the main character. I found Lila Mae a character who lacks personality and was unable to connect with her intentions or understand why she follows the path she does throughout the book.
