The Intuitionist is a novel by journalist and author, Colson Whitehead. While any number of themes can be pulled from the book (much to any English teacher's delight), The Intiutionist is mainly praised for its social commentary about racism. More than that, however, Whitehead remarks a lot on sexism, politics, and big business.
Written in a sort of parallel world, the novel revolves around elevators. Lila Mae, the main character, is an elevator inspector who has overcome society's stigma against not only women, but also her color, and her methods. The elevator inspectors world is split between Empiricists (who check the actual parts of the elevators) and Intuitionists (who feel and see what is wrong with an elevator using only intuition); Lila Mae is a firm believer in the latter. After she is the last person to inspect an elevator that later crashes, she is thrown into a world that awakens her--and the reader--to what goes on behind the curtains of politics and society in general.
After only one reading, I am sure I didn't grasp even half of the commentary in the book. There's a lot to process, sometimes, but it's a fun read and an eye-opener. I'd definitely recommend giving it a read.
-M.
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