I wanted to love this: and some elements of it, I did love. The character of Lila Mae. The time-slipperiness quality of the setting: a dreamscape city (clearly based upon, but not quite New York), a time stamp that whirls together fin de siecle opulance and corruption, with the style of 1940s film noir, and the sense, from the 50s and 60s that a cultural dam is about to break, and women and people of color will no longer be held back.
Whitehead does here what he does best -- lush, complicated prose, and gradual layering of vignettes that eventually add up to a story that works on multiple levels. The difference here, compared to The Underground Railroad, is that Lila Mae's love affair with elevators, and the "verticality" that they allow, is a wonderful metaphor, but possibly not strong enough to bear the allegorical weight that Whitehead asks of it.
It is worth remember that this was Whitehead's first published novel. Many would kill their grannies to be as accomplished, so thoughtful and complicated, on their first professional outing. So, yes. I'm grading on a curve. Shows great promise ....
Whitehead does here what he does best -- lush, complicated prose, and gradual layering of vignettes that eventually add up to a story that works on multiple levels. The difference here, compared to The Underground Railroad, is that Lila Mae's love affair with elevators, and the "verticality" that they allow, is a wonderful metaphor, but possibly not strong enough to bear the allegorical weight that Whitehead asks of it.
It is worth remember that this was Whitehead's first published novel. Many would kill their grannies to be as accomplished, so thoughtful and complicated, on their first professional outing. So, yes. I'm grading on a curve. Shows great promise ....
