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.

I think Lila Mae would actually compare better to All Other Slayers (tm) with the exception of Buffy-

True.

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 I got that impression from both the existence of the Institute and the interest in the press conference. I suppose too because United and Arbo appeared to be significant going concerns, and it attracted the attention of the city's main gangster. But that's all circumstantial, really. I think I was primed to see things that way by some blurb or other somewhere.

I thought the interest in the press conference was more because there had been a near-catastrophic accident in a brand new building involving an elevator (that had just been inspected) just before the mayor got on with his very important guests. An event like that is going to get a lot of attention, whether elevator inspectors are important or not. Also, do we know how long a program at the Institute was supposed to last? It was presented as a big intensive years-long program, since it had dorms and such, but what if it only lasted a year and this was the only school of its kind, so it had a lot of students revolving in and out.

Two scenes I did like, although I haven't reread them, so I may have missed something: Little Lila Mae and her father reading the elevator catalog and the dance hall scene with the old man.

I liked these moments because it seemed that Lila Mae was open to connection, although not attempting those connections herself. I compare these scenes to the scene with her boy-friend (what was his name?), when Lila Mae was definitely not open to connection, even though she wished he had kissed her again.

It still makes me sad that when Lila Mae does connect, it is with another idea (her racial identity instead of Intuitionism) and not a person. I don't see that she's really taken much of a journey. She started out as the first black female elevator inspector and was an Intuitionist; things happened to her; she ended as the first black female (former?) elevator inspector who decided to learn what she learned about Fulton to write another book about Theoretical Elevators.

Also, I don't think Lila Mae is Buffy at all. Buffy talked, walked, shopped, sneezed, and was goning to be a fireman when the floods rolled back. I think Lila Mae would sleep on a bed of bones if it would make her life simpler (not better).

Hi, y'all. I'm sorry I haven't had time to talk about all these points, but I've been busy between having my brother in town and work.

Anyway, quickly, I agree that the elevator inspectors aren't important to the city at large. Lila Mae's world is fairly insular. I'd forgotten about that "Southern preacher down south" reference, which does rather fix the time in a certain point.

And I did like the book considerably more than a lot of you, and wish that I was smart enough and had time to launch an adequate defense. I agree it had problems, but they weren't a deal-breaker for me. Also, I'd read the book several years back and quite enjoyed the re-read with half-remembered knowledge of what was coming.

For me, Lila Mae isn't a cipher, but a fairly angry, albeit emotionally remote, person. Her anger stems from the disconnect between her passionate belief in Intuitionism/uplift and the racism that surrounded her. And I'm sorry if I'm repeating, but "uplift" is a fairly ubiquitous and important concept in African-American thought in this country, from W.E.B. DuBois's Souls of Black Folks through Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and even in Malcom X's autobiography and speeches. I think Whitehead's attempt to marry the concept with the religious language that spawned it and the literal machinery of uplift is clever and worthwhile, if not entirely successful. Surrounding it with a postmodern Chandler-via-Pynchon narrative is also smart, and the most successful part of the story for me. And I think what changes in her journey isn't her job or the color of her skin, it's her understanding about the possibility of the future. And, to pick on Billytea once again, to say that African-Americans had life difficult before the Civil Rights Movement ISN'T trite; it's a fundamental point about society. Please note that Whitehead isn't saying that things are going to be easier for African-Americans in the second elevation, either. He's just saying that new possibilities will be available.

OK, I have to go back to work, but I will check in tonight to respond. I'm sorry for the scattershot approach of my posting, again, but life is getting in the way.

And, to pick on Billytea once again, to say that African-Americans had life difficult before the Civil Rights Movement ISN'T trite; it's a fundamental point about society.

I think you're referring to someone else. That doesn't seem to be a response to anything I'd said. (Though having said that, being true, even fundamental, isn't actually a defence against being trite. Which is why sports commentators still have jobs.)

What I did say was that setting the novel in race relations as they were several decades ago obscured for me whether his book said anything about race relations today. I still don't know if he intended his novel to say anything about current society, or if it was all supposed to be a historical perspective.