Colson Whitehead is a very
good writer, even if that sometimes gets in the way of the cool stories that he
has the potential to tell with his books. He isn’t as bad as Ben Marcus is;
whom I feel wastes story ideas in order to pepper up his prose, Whitehead has
more of a handle on his keen ear for description, and his first novel, The
Intuitionist, is proof of the potential he has to be a really great presence in
the world of modern American fiction. His last novel Zone One, which I read a
few years ago, showed the kinds of interesting ideas that Whitehead can bring
into a genre of fiction that really needs more interesting ideas, even though
that novel does not deal directly with themes of race in modern America. The
Intuitionist, on the other hand, does so, but in one of the most interesting
ways I have come across. Lila Mae Weston is the first black elevator inspector
in an alternate dystopian timeline where elevators are the lifelines of
metropolis cities such as New York. There are two kinds of elevator inspectors:
the Empiricists, who go by the book and actually look and search for what is
wrong in a damaged elevator, and the Intuitionists, who go by sound that they
hear while riding the elevator, when one crashes, she is blamed for the
destruction it caused since she was the person to last inspect it. Fearing she
was set up, she goes on the run to figure out who has it out for her. The plot
is a bit thin, but what it services is a little bit cool. I stumbled onto the
metaphor for what elevators mean in this story, and the few twists the book
offers add some poignant perspectives on how race is treated in the 21st
century. Like a futuristic Chandler, the real treats hear are not the story,
but in the place the author vividly depicts, and Whitehead does so marvelously.
Rating: 4/5
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