It wasn't just a lack of interest in her - when you specify that one pear is her choice for decoration, and the details of her safe were so mundane (yet important for her to keep hidden) it seems like a very conscious choice on his part.
I agree. I believe he probably is making a point with these details, but I can't tell what it is.
I think if I had to compare Lila Mae to anyone, I would compare her to Anya. She really seems to have no identity outisde her job and her race. Unlike Anya, Lila Mae seems comfortable (not happy) with that situation and sees no reason to change.
I think, maybe, that his point is that Lila Mae herself is extra-ordinary, and the fact that all of this activity seems to be focusing on her is indeed extraordinary. Lila Mae is the focus of of this attention not because she is black or female or the first black female elevator inspector. The focus on Lila Mae by the guild and by the elevator companies is because Fulton made an entirely random note in his journal: "Lila Mae Watson is the one." Who stays up late studying. Like the Fannie Briggs Building, Fulton's notice of Lila Mae and the subsequent focus on her by others is an accident. Accidents happen to extra-ordinary people all the time.
Yes. And? Maybe is point is that extra-ordinary people are transformed by the random events that happen to them. Again, I knew that.
It seems to me that one can interpret several meanings from Whitehead's writing. For other writers that might be a sign of success. I think Whitehead is writing with such a strong sense of purpose, though, that his meaning(s) should be more clearly defined and not be grabbed at or supposed.
I thought the parts that showed us glimpses of Lila Mae's life--the bare apartment, her family, the sexual encounters--were all designed to show that all she had in her life was Intuitionism and being an elevator inspector.
I think too that he was concerned to make the most capable Intuitionist a figure without frivolousness or touchy-feely aspects to avoid Intuitionism coming across as, in the words of the great Cartman, "a bunch of tree-hugging hippie crap". (That she experienced elevator diagnoses as geometric shapes appears to me to be of a piece with this.)
Well, but if Billytea's right, then Whitehead went too far in the other direction. I don't think a throw pillow or two would have impeded my seeing her as a hard-headed person. Lila Mae had less adornment, decoration, and detail-richness than a boy's college dorm room.
Yes. And?
I think I felt that way a lot about the book, in a lot of different ways, and that is what I mean when I say "mystified".
Well, but if Billytea's right, then Whitehead went too far in the other direction.
Yes, I agree. And still found Intuitionism irritating. I spent a while untangling the whole 'magical negro' thing from what I was reading. (Granted, the magical negro trope isn't one I'm very familiar with, so maybe it was more obviously irrelevant to others.)
I think if I had to compare Lila Mae to anyone, I would compare her to Anya. She really seems to have no identity outisde her job and her race. Unlike Anya, Lila Mae seems comfortable (not happy) with that situation and sees no reason to change.
Topicy goodness! Carrying this further, it seems appropriate to compare her to Buffy. We still have the alienation (although I think that Buffy is more real about it, but that's me), but Fulton's comment "Lila Mae Watson is the one" seems awfully close to "There can be only one." Think, perhaps, of Buffy as Anne, or at the beginning of her time on UPN. Then the alienation was stronger, as well as a sense of quest in trying to understand the world around her and her place in it, in a not much caring sort of way.
I wish I could put this better.
Fulton's comment "Lila Mae Watson is the one" seems awfully close to "There can be only one."
Doesn't that make her the Lilander?
I wonder why so many seem to think this takes place in a world where elevator inspectors are important. I thought it was more an examination of a small microcosm of people too wrapped up in their own self-importance.
I thought this too. The institute was just about the sole exception (there was that billboard in the beginning) and even that could be overblown by the community. Have you ever worked at a private business college? Same sorta "go team us" and "this place is WONDERFUL" even though it clearly is not.
I think Lila Mae would actually compare better to All Other Slayers (tm) with the exception of Buffy- It was her connections, the ones that the brochure didn't mention, the ones that wound up saving their asses in the end, that made her different.
Lila Mae only has a connection to an idea, not people.
Have you ever worked at a private business college? Same sorta "go team us" and "this place is WONDERFUL" even though it clearly is not.
Actually I'm thinking more along the lines of "Dallas," not your dog or where I live, but the show. The oil business was
the
most important thing on the planet. All intrigue swirled around The Oil Barons' club. And while it's true that oil is extremely important IRL, Dallas made it seem as if JR was vastly more important than most independant Texas oil men actually are.
