5. The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead

[rydra_wong]

There are books you can't put down, and then there are books you put down a third of the way through so that you can run to the computer and start ordering more books by the same author. The Intuitionist is that good

Comments

[cryptoxin]

I love this book! I'm so glad you posted about it -- I read it as soon as it came out in paperback, but I had nobody to talk about it with. I got two of my friends to read it -- one didn't like it and didn't finish it; the other liked it but didn't have much more to say and just nodded amiably at my enthusiastic babbling.

I remember being intrigued about how closely Whitehead was working within the terrain of what I think of as white boy postmodernism -- Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace (I'll also throw in Dean Motter's early work in comics, specifically Mister X). I couldn't readily connect it with the work of black writers where the term "postmodern" seems useful like Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison. I did see some attenuated affinities with Paul Beatty and Samuel Delaney (or, in retrospect because I hadn't read her yet, Zadie Smith) -- and I had the distinct feeling that The Intuitionist could be productively read alongside Ellison's Invisible Man. I have no idea which, if any, of these authors could be described as influences on Whitehead -- I'm citing them more as influences on me as a reader in how I approached his book. I'd need to think more about your Walter Mosley comparison; I think I can see it, but it never would have occurred to me.

I'm not sure I ever fully got a handle on how to read Lila Mae as a black woman -- and I ended up wondering if maybe that was the point. She seemed utterly real, completely compelling, and entirely resistant to misreading via conventional stereotypes of black women.

I remember thinking about how the book opened up an interesting space to think about the historical role of government/civil service jobs as occupational pathways and vehicles for class mobility for African Americans in the U.S. -- the post office being perhaps the prime example. And that raises all kinds of potentially intriguing issues and questions that I hadn't seen explored much in fiction.

I also enjoyed John Henry Days, though I vaguely remember having mixed feelings about it -- I can't recall why, or if they were resolved by the end of the book. I took a pass on Colossus -- I'm not sure why, I've heard great things about it, but it just wasn't calling out my name. I think I have a weird notion that I don't want to be the kind of New Yorker who reads books about New York? Apex sounds good, and I didn't realize that it had come out in paperback -- of course, now I want to reread The Intuitionist, like, right now....

(By the way, Colson Whitehead has an infrequently-updated blog)

[rydra_wong]

I'd need to think more about your Walter Mosley comparison; I think I can see it, but it never would have occurred to me.

It may have been partly the effect of reading this pretty much back-to-back with Devil In A Blue Dress, but I was definitely struck by certain similarities in how they handle prose, something in the style - I haven't quite been able to put my finger on it yet (other than that both of them make me want to reread with a pencil and try to study what they're doing, word by word).

Of course there's a more obvious thematic link too, in the way both Devil In A Blue Dress and The Intuitionist deal with the issue of passing, and are both riffing on noir tropes while focusing on issues of race that classic noir elided.

It'll be interesting to see if the comparison seems to hold up as I read more of both authors.

[cryptoxin]

Huh, I was going more with a recoding-urban-space theme.

But I'm a lousy reader for this kind of discussion -- I'm totally engaged while I'm reading, but within a few months I've forgotten most of what I read. Including crucial plot points, central characters, and how the book ends -- I only retain fragments and impressions. For example, I didn't -- and actually still don't -- recall anything about passing in those books, even though it's always been a major theme of interest to me in terms of how it gets represented (I have a whole tl;dr riff in my head about how 20th c. passing narratives -- across literary & popular fiction, books & film -- entwined questions of race with gender & sexuality in all kinds of complicated ways).

(tangential rec if you haven't read her: Nella Larsen's novel(la)s, Quicksand and Passing -- she's associated with the Harlem Renaissance, and they're both amazing)