
Join us for The Village Zendo Book Discussion of
The Intuitionist
By Colson Whitehead
Writing in Bookpage, Mark Luce described “The Intuitionist” as ‘the most innovative, creative and visionary new novel in a few years.” John Updike’s review for The New Yorker observed that “Whitehead can try too hard, but generally his writing does what writing should do; it refreshes our sense of the world.”
ChoGaku will lead the discussion. She writes:
I read “The Intuitionist” soon after finishing our own Soten Theise’s also-stunning “Notes on Complexity.” I emailed Soten immediately, suggesting “The Intuitionist” is the fictional version of his groundbreaking work on complexity theory. Later, when this winter’s Ango text was announced, I told our Shuso that this novel channels Dogen’s “Uji” in its depictions of being, time, space, presence and flow.
Starting with the opening sentence – “It’s a new elevator, freshly pressed to the rails, and it’s not built to fall this fast” – the first chapters of “The Intuitionist” leave us disoriented and confused, intentionally so. I urge you to stick with the story as its narrative and message(s) become clear(er).
So, what’s this novel (ostensibly) about? Publishers Weekly wrote: “If you’ve ever wanted to know your elevator inspector better, Whitehead’s meaty and mythic first novel may help you get acquainted. Set in a huge, unnamed city, it hinges on the friction between rival groups of inspectors–the Empiricists, who base their appraisals of elevators on careful observation, and the Intuitionists, who know the machines they work with so well that they can sense potential problems simply by standing inside one. When an elevator plummets several stories right after receiving an okay from Lila Mae Watson, the city’s first black female Intuitionist elevator inspector, the woman immediately comes under suspicion of a gross error…. Whitehead has created a self-contained universe in this novel, complete with its own mythology and history (re-created at length in the course of the narrative), and it is to his credit that he is able to weave in a meditation on race. He has a completely original story to tell, and he tells it well, successfully intertwining multiple plot lines and keeping his reader intrigued from the outset.“
Join the discussion in our online zendo on Sunday March 17th, 2024 at 5pm.
“The Intuitionist” is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats. 255 pages.
Join the online discussion on March 17th at 5pm