What does the perfect elevator look like, the one that will deliver us from the cities we suffer now, these stunted shacks? We don’t know because we can’t see inside it, it’s something we cannot imagine like the shape of angels’ teeth. It’s a black box.
This excerpt is found on page 61 of the novel, The Intuitionist, penned by Colson Whitehead.
Colson Whitehead’s novels span a myriad of subjects, historical events and time periods. So many writers may be labelled into one or maybe two genres. In my opinion, Stephen King, Dickens, Hemingway, and others wrote in common themes. Not Whitehead. His novels’ dramatic germinations are cultivated by his apparent tireless research. His written art creations are each like a different beautiful English garden . His novels have elements of our country’s black/white schisms. Two of them, The Underground Railroad, and The Nickel Boys are Pulitzer worthy. Six other novels have also come to life under his pen. The Intuitionist, published in 1999. is his first.
Last month I wrote about the empiricists and intuitionists. They are the two main camps of elevator inspectors in a large city. The details that unfold about the history of elevator technology is intertwined throughout Lila Mae’s daily journey. Today’s news cycles teach us that the black box is the main character in horrible plane accidents and other mass transport calamities. In this story we are on the hunt for another secret black box, alluded to in Lila Mae’s elevator education and history. Fulton’s black box is none other then the perfect elevator cab! Whitehead’s novel crystalizes the common vein that allows cities to grow vertically. Reaching higher into the clouds and beyond, the new and improved elevator box is supported by safe technology of the ever growing elevator shaft. ( I will not spoil the specific drama’s and conclusion of The Intuitionist, for any of you who have not read it.)
If you have followed me for any length of time you know I love navel gazing about my desire to cultivate any seeds of intuition I may think I have. The Intuitionist did not reveal to me any further understanding of my intuition. Oh well, may be some day intuition will be as evident in my life as love is!
A week ago I began reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
Before I end this post I need to take a moment to utter a lighthouse reflected worthy rant! What the hell does our collective country of judge-o-crats think they can accomplish by banning books? Intellectual curiosity be damned! It is easier to buy an assault rifle in our Ununited States than it is to buy some banned books! Now banning books is not a new phenomenon. In the 1880’s Huckleberry Finn was banned in Boston. Today, Tony Morrison’s Beloved & The Bluest Eye, Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir and over forty other books have been banned from too many school libraries. Classic children’s books such as Charlotte’s Web, Silverstein’s A light in the Attic, have also been banned. I have to give credit to social media for shedding light on so many pockets of judgement. With just a few clicks of the mouse, like-minded people of the Google generation can find each other and echo each other in vertical silos of shared opinion. (Good or bad?)
In my youth we dove under our desks for fear of the bomb. Today my grandchildren dive for fear that around the corner a weapon is coming their way. My fear of the N word meant nuclear. Today our children are told to lock and dive for possible horrendous assaults! School bullys stand the test of time; only today, they may come to a schoolyard well armed. Long gone are the sling shots, the stiff elbows, the well placed leg whips and taunted name calling. Not teaching students about our country’s history of race relations, sexuality or even the drama behind Charlotte’s Web will help perpetuate the myth that connections between us are only skin deep! What an amazing moment in time. Our oceans are rising deeper while our lives are becoming shallower!
I leave off with an old ad, reading is fundamental!
Thank you for reading.
Be in peace and joy,
Mark