I’m finishing up Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, since, you know, he’s coming to town, and I want to at least be familiar with the dude. (You better watch out, you better not cry… Colson Whitehead’s coming to town….)
In the course of my reading and research, I’ve discovered two things about the person:
A. He’s totally cool.
B. Second, dude can write.
I support these theses with two examples. First, a passage from The Intuitionist:
“Ben Urich’s index finger is a key player, versatile, dependable for mundane tasks and in the clinch, where it truly distinguishes itself. Never hesitant to mine a dry nostril after barnacles, yet a sensitive enough instrument for navigating house keys into cantankerous locks. Ben uses his index finger to summon waiters hither to collect the check, and to tap surfaces (tabletops, seats, his right thigh) when he’s nervous or just killing time. Far worse than the roseate flare he feels when the silent man bends his finger in an ill-advised ninety degrees past where it would normally wander during its normal use is the sound of the resultant break. Twiggy. The sound is far, far worse than the pain. Initially. It says to him, this is how fragile your body is. Not to mention pressing the call buttons of his elevators: his index finger is the most naturally of all the hand’s digits conscripted into call-button service.”
The figurative language. The pacing. The languid roll, in terrible, squirm-inducing contrast to the violence of the moment. The way he somehow creates a distance between what’s happening and the thinking about what’s happening—as if Ben Urich is disembodied, which often happens during violent trauma.
Exhibit B is this photo, which references a section from Sag Harbor.
Deconstructing the appellative insult/term of endearment into three basic components: modifier, gerund (in’ verb) and object. And his tie is pretty cool, too.
Hope to see you around at next weekend’s events. Maybe CW will even let us sit in his lap.
--MJH
