Reviews

L'intuizionista by Colson Whitehead, Katia Bagnoli

mezentine's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

ellathelibrarian's review against another edition

2.0

This book went completely over my head, I really struggled to follow it. Have heard the author speak at an event and he’s wonderful,, but the Intuitionist lost me.

kattyenn's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

torrilynnn's review against another edition

very very slow. maybe i’ll come back to it one day … 

bookish_calirican's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

In all honesty, I didn’t understand what was happening or why for the majority of this book. 

Maybe I’m just dumb, but at the end I had no idea what the takeaway was supposed to be, if there was one. Not my favorite of Whitehead’s work.

cecile87's review against another edition

4.0

A book I read quite a while back. I appreciated the different world it took me to and the literary writing. I did find it a bit dry, but was fascinated by the intuitive versus sensing dichotomy of elevator inspection. Really. I use Myers-Briggs Type theory in my work and this was an interesting application. Didn't find the people in the story compelling, but if I have to read about race and prejudice--which I'm weary of reading about as I face it in my personal life too often--this was as interesting an riff on it as I could expect.

slynn's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

dnandrews797's review against another edition

4.0

“They were all slaves to what they could see but there was a truth behind that they couldn’t see for the life of them. They looked at the skin of things”

To say this is simply a detective story about elevators is to miss the genius and point of this book entirely, Whitehead writes a masterful and engaging extended metaphor within The Intuitionist and shows what black science fiction can be.
The story itself spotlights Lisa Mae, the only black female elevator inspector, who has an elevator she passed inspection on plummet and crash. As she tries to solve the mystery, it quickly becomes apparent it’s less of how the elevator to fell than the ways black people have to navigate society to get around the subtle micro aggressions and outright slurs of white people. The two schools of thought regarding elevator inspection in the book are The Empiricists (white people working solely on how things appear to be for them) and The Intuitionist (the ideas and things that are unseen, lying below the surface). This itself gives a great basis already for the book before he throws in the rest of his twists and turns to keep things interesting.
I absolutely adored this book and would recommend it to anyone.

knittingchaos's review against another edition

3.0

I liked the story itself but it was too wordy which was distracting

kindasweetish's review against another edition

challenging hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It took me about half of the book to understand the allegory and what intuition had to with elevators but it was worth the read.