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The Intuitionist
The Intuitionist
The Intuitionist
Audiobook9 hours

The Intuitionist

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

This debut novel by the two time Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys wowed critics and readers everywhere and marked the debut of an important American writer.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

It is a time of calamity in a major metropolitan city’s Department of Elevator Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it. There are two warring factions within the department: the Empiricists, who work
by the book and dutifully check for striations on the winch cable and such; and the Intuitionists, who are simply able to enter the elevator cab in question, meditate, and intuit any defects.

Lila Mae is an Intuitionist and, it just so happens, has the highest accuracy rate in the entire department. But when an elevator in a new city building goes into total freefall on Lila Mae’s watch, chaos ensues. It’s an election year in the Elevator Guild, and the good-old-boy Empiricists would
love nothing more than to assign the blame to an Intuitionist. But Lila Mae is never wrong.

The sudden appearance of excerpts from the lost notebooks of Intuitionism’s founder, James Fulton, has also caused quite a stir. The notebooks describe Fulton’s work on the “black box,” a perfect elevator that could reinvent the city as radically as the first passenger elevator did when patented
by Elisha Otis in the nineteenth century. When Lila Mae goes underground to investigate the crash, she becomes involved in the search for the portions of the notebooks that are still missing and uncovers a secret that will change her life forever.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 25, 2008
ISBN9781436135863
The Intuitionist
Author

Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead was born in New York City in 1969 and graduated from Harvard College in 1991. He has written four novels, including the Pulitzer-Prize-nominated ‘John Henry Days.’ He has written for, amongst others, The New York Times, Salon and The Village Voice.

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Reviews for The Intuitionist

Rating: 3.760154749709865 out of 5 stars
4/5

517 ratings29 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So, on the jacket, it's called "sidesplittingly funny", and I don't know if I totally missed the humor or the person writing the cover copy just read it completely differently to me (or didn't read it at all), because I don't know what they're talking about. Anyway, it was definitely interesting, even if I couldn't totally get into the whole "in this universe elevators are the biggest thing ever" premise. I liked the intrigue, though was a little disappointed with the ending. I see a lot of people in reviews raving over Whitehead's prose, but I found his style really off-putting. It seems like it might be one of those love it or hate it things. Still, I'm interested in reading more by him.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A peculiar halting noir with two main features. The story is one of mid-twentieth century type bigotry set in a Steampunk-like world where there are two battling philosophies on the nature and function of elevators, the Empiricists and the Intuitionists. The protagonist is an African-American Intuitionist elevator inspector-ess who takes the role of the detective and becomes something more than that. Among the author’s various accomplishments are the avoidance of all the puns and simple metaphors that spring to mind, including who is taking the fall when an elevator plunges to its destruction and the significance of the elevation of the African-American characters to become elevator inspectors. Ultimately, I think the reader’s question will be, “Is there some other message for me here in this complex construction?” If I knew, I would rate this more highly.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Whitehead's book is well written, and it is fascinating at first. But as the overly complicated plot meanders and the implausible incidents pile up, the strength of the individual scenes becomes less important and the reader is happy to see the end of the novel approaching. Like most of Whitehead's work, this one has all the right elements, but it is lacking the little something extra that makes it a classic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is where it all began. I read this when first published, when East Coast authors of a certain age were experimenting with, and not being constrained by, literary genres. I was, understandably, impressed by the audacity of its concept, and only in retrospect does one see the germination of all that Colson was to explore in the following twenty years.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I quite enjoyed this book. I heard about it on the PBS Great American Read, and though it finished near last it intrigued me. Still does.

    Though it's sometimes described as an alternate reality, I wouldn't call it that. I'd call it another angle of view on our own world, opening up another way of seeing history. I really enjoyed the author's voice and writing style and will look for more by him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm going to have to read this one again, I think. There were parts of it I absolutely loved, but I also had a hard time staying engaged and I must have missed some important pieces. The slightly-alternate world is fascinating, though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Intuitionist by Coulson Whitehead I read this years ago then "lost" it...couldn't remember the tile or the author only that it was about lifts! After many fruitless Google searches I finally found it and re-read it. It was as good as I remembered.

    One of those books that come from left field and take you somewhere else completely.

    Remarkable
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Colson Whitehead is one of our best current novelists. The Intuitionist was his first novel written 20 years ago. It is a complex story that involves elements of an alternative reality while dealing with issues of technology, power, politics, and race. The story is set in a city that may be New York at a time where black people are colored and treated very much like the story is set in the 1940's. In this world elevators are the height of technology and Lila Mae Watson is the first black female elevator inspector. Whitehead creates a world that builds a mythology around elevators and their role in the world. The plot of the story surrounds 2 schools of thought as it relates to elevators-the empiricists who look at elevators strictly through its technology and the intuitionists that attribute a mystical quality to elevator inspection. The leaders are vying for control of the guild and an election is coming up for leadership. Lila as an intuitionist and has a perfect inspection record and suddenly an elevator that she inspected has an accident. Her involvement is trying to clear her name gives the novel a noir detective feel to it. Whitehead's prose is wonderful and he deals with almost too many issues so that this is not an easy read. If you have never read Whitehead before, then I would not start with this book but instead read "The Underground Railroad" first, but ultimately if you become a Whitehead fan then you should read this first novel by one our great writers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In a parallel world the Department of Elevator Inspectors are very important and influential. It is a commentary and metephore about morality, politics, race and greed. What it does to a person when they put on a persona to fit in. The searching for the perfect elevator.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The idea of the book is whimsical, but I didn’t like it as much as Whitehead’s second novel, The Underground Railroad. There’s nothing that I could pinpoint as “wrong” with this one; it just didn’t grab me like other books in recent memory.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    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. . .
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead is included in the list of 100 titles chosen by American citizens for The Great American Read hosted by PBS. (More info on the books on the list and how you can vote for America's favorite novel can be found here.) In an effort to read more diversely (and to have the ability to recommend books for the adults in my branch) I started with this book as I had never heard of it despite it being listed as a 'classic'. The story follows Lila Mae Watson who is the first female person of color to be an Elevator Inspector. In the world created by Whitehead elevators are the height (ha!) of technology and the majority of the population see them as somewhat mystical and beyond the realm of ordinary comprehension. (There are even guilds which seek to elevate the status of Elevator Inspectors in society to those in political office.) Even more confusing to discern are the two distinct sects of theory as to the maintenance and future of these machines. One school of thought is firmly rooted in the reality of the technology while the other views them as metaphysical creations that can be 'sensed'. Lila Mae belongs to the second school of thought which further compounds the problems that she faces among her coworkers and the public that she encounters on her daily rotations. This sci-fi novel is rooted in the reality of race. What drives the story are the veiled discussions of race but it is told through the lens of technology innovations. It is ultimately a story of hope for a better world where we are 'elevated' from the weaknesses and barbarisms of our current reality. Whitehead challenges our perceptions of our accepted reality as he argues that established views are not solely based on what we see with our eyes. This is a book with a seemingly simple premise about elevator manufacture and maintenance in a world so very similar (and familiar) to our own but instead what we get is a complex discussion of race and how we can (hopefully) rise above. 9/10
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What an oddball story! The author has succeeded in bringing racial tensions to the fore in a yarn about the mundane subject of the elevator. Our society is not ready for the perfect elevator which allows all its citizens to rise.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sentence by sentence, Whitehead is a dang master. Lila Mae is an elevator inspector and a new elevator that she just inspected, using a new method called Intuitionism, has crashed. Political intrigue ensues. A wonderful allegory about race and misogyny.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This started out really interesting, but as I went on I had a harder and harder time staying focused and into it. I barely finished it. I think the author was trying too hard to make it allegorical--more specific details about the time and place and world the characters inhabited would have made it better. As it was, I had a hard time picturing the story and setting in my head and couldn't keep a lot of the characters straight.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I wanted to like this book set in the unlikely environment of the elevator inspector business, but id did not do so much for me. Did not finish it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This debut novel is absolutely brilliant! Whitehead's writing reminds me of Ayn Rand, of Millhauser and Auster. Under the guise of a political battle amongst factions of the guild of elevator repairmen, Whitehouse is able to at one and the same time tell a gripping, suspenseful story and also offer up scathing commentary on racism, on human striving and lack thereof, of man's fear of lack of control, and the ups and downs, so to speak, of the human imagination. At once witty, yet raging, at once absurd and profound. I will definitely read more of this author's work!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This clever novel tells a very suspenseful and gripping story that centers on … the city's Department of Elevator Inspectors!? Throughout the book, the mystery of which city, and what time period, are both in the back of your mind. But your mind is more perplexed about the huge role that elevators and elevator inspectors play in this society. The dark moody world of the Department is constantly reported upon in the major popular elevator magazines and on the front page of the city's newspapers. The department is split into two rival camps which are separated by their methods of inspection. There is the one group of inspectors that crawl above, below, around, and through each elevator to determine its condition. The other group, the Intuitionists, simply stands nearby and sort of reads the vibes of an elevator, to determine what repairs and adjustments are needed. These two factions don't get along, and the friction between them has grown lately because it's an election year. There is plenty of political intrigue swirling around a young black woman, the first in the department. Disaster strikes, and all hell breaks loose.This description must sound rather in-bred and focused on some small little world in an elevator, but if you read The Intuitionist you will see that Whitehead has used a fictional setting to allow himself to write about some very large issues. The real world may philosophically view the issues of race, politics, and spirituality on a grander scale, but no issue is ever really about anything larger than how two people relate to each other. Using the incredible depth, heart, and humor of his writing, Colson Whitehead shows a world not that different from our own—we just get to see it from a fresh angle. There are several mysteries that play major roles in this book, but I'm not telling. This review isn't here to ruin the fun of a good story, just to try to get you to check it out. (6/99)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    An odd novel set in a universe in which elevators seem to be the highest form of technology, and there are disputes between two schools of inspectors, the Intuitionists and the Empiricists. Lila Mae Watson, the city's first female black inspector, is being framed for an elevator crash designed to show up the Intuitionists.It's kind of a whodunit about a search for lost blueprints from a visionary Intuitionist designer, with thugs and spys. I'm not sure I got all the subtext. I liked its quirkiness, the alternate universe, but ultimately I was bored and disappointed. I probably missed its subtleties and metaphysics.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It doesn't take long to realize that this book is about a parallel universe, a universe with a city similar to New York and a social class structure full of racism and union struggles. It is a parallel universe of gender inequity and stereotypes similar to our own. It is a parallel universe where ideologies begin to take on a life of their own, directing human thought and perception, until the ideologies are put to the test of reality. It is a good read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Lila Mae Watson is the one! I loved this book, from start to finish it took the reader on an elevator ride to a world where things are different enough to open your mind to the previously unseen. Isn't that what a good book is supposed to do? Riding an elevator will never seem the same again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was my introduction to Colson Whitehead and I was impressed. The Intuitionist takes place in a city (implicitly, New York) full of skyscrapers and other buildings requiring vertical transportation in the form of elevators. The time, never identified explicitly, is one when black people are called "colored" and integration is a current topic. The protagonist is Lila Mae Watson, an elevator inspector of the "Intuitionist" school. The Intuitionists practice an inspecting method by which they ride in an elevator and intuit the state of the elevator and its related systems. The competing school, the "Empiricists," insists upon traditional instrument-based verification of the condition of the elevator. Watson is the second black inspector and the first black female inspector in the city. The failure of an elevator the Lila Mae had inspected leads to a search for the roots of intuitionism. The result is a metaphysical meditation on the possibility of a perfect elevator. For those, like this reader, who are interested in ideas this is a great read and an auspicious start for the author.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A strange tale that is not really what it seems; deserves more than one read. It's about more than elevators.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Imagine a world where elevator inspectors are among the most important civil servants out there. They have there own widely read trade magazines and the elections for their guild leadership are widely covered. Lila Mae is the first African American female inspector and when an elevator fails on her watch its up to her to uncover the truth about what happened.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found this mesmerizing. It's a noir-ish novel set in a very vaguely alternate version of New York City in a time that seems mostly like the 1950s. We have a mystery closely connected with two rival schools of thought about the fine art of elevator inspecting. The events surrounding an elevator accident implicate Lila Mae Watson, the city's first female colored elevator inspector, who then sets out to clear her name and ends up discovering a much larger, more profound conspiracy.The writing is amazingly vivid. Whitehead is so successful at crafting a very visual, tactile environment that I kept imagining how this could be presented as a graphic novel or on film (which would, naturally, defeat the purpose, but still). The experience of reading it is like borrowing Fritz Lang's eyes. If it were not so impeccably well done, it might veer a tiny, tiny bit into an excess of world-building.Grade: ARecommended: To readers who enjoy very writerly novels and those who like vertical transportation. It nicely combines an allegorical setting (which does create a very sharp awareness of reading while you are reading) with characters who are compelling and believably emotional
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In a startlingly well-done piece, Colson Whitehead creates a real-enough reflection of America, in which we focus on a quirky discipline. The realists struggle against the intuitionists to see who will construct the perfect elevator. We find ourselves in a reality in which blacks are working against all odds to raise their lot. The elevator here takes on a thought-provoking significance - who will carry the day and ultimately decide how to construct the perfect elevator? What will be the elevator which carries the downtrodden above their current station?Whitehead takes a unique look at relations between and within races and asks us to consider from a black's perspective, the means by which race issues may be resolved. I found this to be a profound, reverberating work, stunningly conceived, and brilliantly executed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I think this novel is brilliant, really, and many of the reviews here explain why. So why only 4 stars? Because, while I enjoyed it immensely, I felt un-satisfied by the ending (though I understand why the author should choose to end it that way.) Still, this is certainly the product of a Great Writer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Both my wife and I read this book and enjoyed it.The story follows the journey of a female African-American elevator inspector at some point in vaguely defined recent history.This book has a style and content that borders on surrealism, magical realism, and outright fantasy; but yet it never quite crosses over into any of those genres entirely, and I found it remained quite down to earth in it's tone.While I just found it an enjoyable read, my wife found a certain degree of correlation between the visualizations experienced by the protagonist as part of her intuitive approach to inspection, and her own apprehension of certain complex systems or situations.- Peter K.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It is so, so rare to find a novel that is truly original, but The Intuitionist is that and more. Allegory, but with such a twisted premise. Brilliant prose, bizarre characters and a truly surprising plot. I loved every word. Whitehead's riffing on race, culture and religion are so offbeat, so fresh you can't come away unchanged. Plus the guy is a scream! (John Henry Days is funnier, tho.) On my "read again" list for sure.