I was bugged that a black man would rise up in the ranks of an elevator company with NOBODY in that status conscious little world knowing about him.

Well, he was sort of an undercover kind of guy. I was most surprised that he had a real office and secretary and everything, though.

I sort of think that the novel's most emotional moment was when Pompey rounded on her in a rage about the compromises he's made to get where he is. I could see that as an important turning point, where Lila Mae begins to see him as a person, and where she begins to shuffle off some of the more subtle stereotypes she lives with, to see through to the right answer about the Fanny Brooks building.

Yes! This, and the very end of the book, were just about the only parts that I really liked. Pompey started as a cipher, and ended up being the most three-dimensional character in the whole book!

Re: the reporter. Why was he even there, other than to give the answers to Lila Mae at the end? The torture, overdone. Plus, the author just worked too hard to make his bad guys (Jim and John, I think?) funny. I wish that he had just cut that out altogether.

Gotta say, though, that I've been holding out on Asher Lev because I didn't want to read it too early, but I'm really looking forward to that one. And, even though I didn't like it, I'm glad that I read The Intuitionist. It's not like books that I usually read, and I feel like my horizons have somehow expanded. Thanks Wolfram!

The whole business with the reporter bothered me the most. You have all that creepy business where he's the screaming man and the image of the fingers tacked up on a bulletin board, and then Lila Mae finds him all calm and rational, with just a broken hand, there to explain everything. Plus I never quite understood the relationship between the elevator company and the mob guys. Did the elevator company hire the mob to find the secret of the perfect elevator? Why did they let the reporter go?

Why did they let the reporter go?

This. Why is he still alive?!

I'm still not sure that the Screaming Man and the reporter are the same person, and I have no idea what the point of the Screaming Man was. He certainly never got brought up again directly, and generally speaking, when you want to scare someone into obeying you, you scare them, not make them into bleeding, gibbering idiots.

The reception reminded me of the sorts of not-cool jokes about women you still sometimes hear in bastions of maleness, like among firefighters and cops and (sometimes) the military. Yes, very familiar. (Also, the whole city-patronage, scratch-my-back thing.)

I guess what mystifies me, overall, is that I don't know what the future black box elevator is, what it looks like, what it will do. It seems like Lila Mae knows at the end, or can guess, and will be feeding it out in dribs and drabs to the elevator community over the years -- although how she'll make a living, I don't know --, but she didn't tell me what the secret is, or anyway I didn't get it.

Well, he was sort of an undercover kind of guy. I was most surprised that he had a real office and secretary and everything, though.

Perzactly!

If your undercover guy had all the trappings, and was the only black fella in the business, how could he be so anonymous?

I enjoyed wondering if the elevator industry was as significant outside the industry it's self.

It didn't bother me that we didn't know exactly what the black box elevator was going to be--it was enough for me that it was going to be grand and revolutionary and change the world. I did wonder how Lila Mae is going to make a living.

I'm pretty sure Screaming Man and the reporter are one and the same. From p. 74:

The driver says brightly, "Would you mind terribly if we asked you not to pursue your current story?"

Ben Urich manages to say, "It's done. Finished," and the man in the seat next to him breaks his finger.

This is preceeded by a section on p. 73, where Ben notices that "these men and their boss are why his expose did not run," and is followed by a section with much screaming.

I agree that the black box didn't seem to be the point of the book- but something must have been. It wasn't the Empiricist vs. Intuitionist debate. It wasn't black woman outsmarts the oppresive white guys. I have a vague idea about Lila Mae claiming power and real knowledge untainted by ideology, but it's not clicking.

I'm still not sure that the Screaming Man and the reporter are the same person, and I have no idea what the point of the Screaming Man was. He certainly never got brought up again directly, and generally speaking, when you want to scare someone into obeying you, you scare them, not make them into bleeding, gibbering idiots.

Ben isn't Screaming Man. He still has all his fingers, and Jim 'n' John worked for Arbo, not Johnny Shush (who was linked to United). But the finger thing is too close to be coincidence. I think it was a deliberate fake-out, and one which just served to piss me off.

I don't think Screaming Man was being scared. I think he was just being punished. Insofar as there was fear to go around, presumably it would be directed at whomever next got it into his head to cross the Shushster.

Re: the reporter. Why was he even there, other than to give the answers to Lila Mae at the end? The torture, overdone. Plus, the author just worked too hard to make his bad guys (Jim and John, I think?) funny. I wish that he had just cut that out altogether.

Wrod, they were very lame.