Apex Hides the Hurt: A Novel
by Colson Whitehead
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Read in June, 2006
Company crossed with Paradise.
Our narrator is a nomenclature consultant. He tells companies what to call their new cars, drugs, floor polishes, and widgets. But of late, ever since "the incident," he's been avoiding work, people, and even hygiene in favor of hiding out at home. He's been roped back in for one last job -- arbitrating a naming dispute in what is now known as Winthrop and what might soon either be rechristened New Prospera or might revert back to being ...more
Our narrator is a nomenclature consultant. He tells companies what to call their new cars, drugs, floor polishes, and widgets. But of late, ever since "the incident," he's been avoiding work, people, and even hygiene in favor of hiding out at home. He's been roped back in for one last job -- arbitrating a naming dispute in what is now known as Winthrop and what might soon either be rechristened New Prospera or might revert back to being ...more
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A nameless nomenclature consultant who’s had a bit of a nervous breakdown is hired by a small town to lend his expertise to the renaming of their community. This book didn’t really work for me. I found the prose very flat, and the way the plot progressed—interspersed with flashbacks exploring the reasons behind the protagonist’s meltdown—offered no surprises. I felt like—even though Whitehead clearly had some interesting ideas about community, race, identity, and history—I’d read...more
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The never-named narrator is a nomenclature consultant, in charge of naming things, and by naming them defining them. He named the bandaid that hid his festering toe wound so that it didn't heal. He's been hired to rename a town, a place settled by free slaves, then renamed, and transformed, by a white commercial class, and recently colonized by a software company that wants to rename it again. Everyone he meets has a connection to one of the names, and one of the potential identities, of the tow...more
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Read in March, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. At first glance, the language is easy, the sentences short and Whitehead's voice just flows over you. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that every sentence not only advances the plot, but also serves as an example of the kind of advertising slogans that the main character deals in on a daily basis. The main character, a "nomenclature consultant" spends his days creating the perfect name for products, in order to help them sell. After an accident l...more
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Read in April, 2006
This is Whitehead’s third novel and it has certain things in common with his previous two. Race is a theme. His prose style remains graceful, witty, and brilliantly smart. His approach is wry and at times rueful. His protagonist is always an insider who’s nonetheless an outsider, or at least not a fit despite his or her success—someone who is “passing” but is both uncomfortable with his passing and with a simple version of his minority identity and culture. This time the protagonist is...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
fans of contemporay lit, minority studies
This book was recommended to me by my dear Jesse, and he loved it. He's a great fan of Whitehead's work. I believe he's even taught John Henry Days in one of his classes. On the other hand, I had to work hard to finish this book.
I knew almost instantly that it wasn't my kind of read. I could appreciate the quality of the writing. There are moments of real brightness. The style is nauseatingly intimate. The characters are vivid and consistent. Whitehead's observations about race...more
I knew almost instantly that it wasn't my kind of read. I could appreciate the quality of the writing. There are moments of real brightness. The style is nauseatingly intimate. The characters are vivid and consistent. Whitehead's observations about race...more
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1 comments
Whitehead writes well, but shows signs of being a serious one-trick pony. How rich is the "outsider from out of town" story lode anyway? Not rich enough to support three books, that's for sure.
Colson Whitehead - (the novels; haven't read "The Colossus of New York")
So, I didn't totally get "The Intuitionist", but I kind of liked it anyway. The world of elevator inspectors didn't exactly thrill me, however, and the main character seemed disconnected from th...more
Colson Whitehead - (the novels; haven't read "The Colossus of New York")
So, I didn't totally get "The Intuitionist", but I kind of liked it anyway. The world of elevator inspectors didn't exactly thrill me, however, and the main character seemed disconnected from th...more
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Read in March, 2007
When I saw that this was about names, I figured it was perfect for me, since I do love fun names and am known around my office for it. Amazing! Fantastically subtle and well-observed, about a "nomenclature consultant" who's been hired to rename a small town trying to reinvent itself in the middle of the country. In the process, he manages to mostly recover from a self-imposed convalescence/breakdown after getting his second-to-baby toe amputated. Race issues are thrown in around the ed...more
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
People who hate TV
Whitehead's an immensely talented novelist, a master of balance. In his newest novel, Apex Hides the Hurt, an unnamed "nomenclature consultant" is recruited from New York to a generic Southern hamlet called Winthrop to decide the town's future name. Will it stay Winthrop, out of tradition and deference to the barb-wire magnate that put the town on the map? Will it revert back to Freedom, the name given by the original settlers, a band of freed slaves? Or will it be New Prospera,...more
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Whitehead gets an A+ in the writing department; the prose is effortless, dryly funny, and clever (at its best, it reminded me of Ella Minnow Pea, the perfect book for language-lovers). If he could only crawl out from under the boulder of postmodern nihilism. Yep, life sure is bleak. Yep, it's hard to understand, Yep, sometimes it's easier to detach emotionally and make lofty wisecracks than to engage and risk the hurt and pain. But I have little tolerance for this particular brand of Aspe...more
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1 comments
I had the same feeling about this book that I did about the Intuitionist-- like, I must be missing something, and maybe some other more awesome book is happening over my head and I am too dumb to appreciate it. But while reading this, I didn't actually feel like the book was smarter than me, I felt like I was getting it, and there just wasn't that much to get. It feels less like a novel than an excuse for social commentary, but the social commentary isn't original or insightful or particularly r...more
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
Subway Readers
Well you get a two-for-one! Because this book has pretty much the same "main idea" (to use a third-grade term) as John Henry Days, the other Colson Whitehead book I read. It's about race, but not hit-you-over-the-head race - more like, "hey, I'm a person of color and I have pretty much made it in the white man's world, but I still think about race because back when I was young, it was an open question whether or not I would make it in the white man's world and so I am ver...more
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Read in April, 2008
The writing is luminous, drawing you into the character's being right from the start. Whitehead has a lot of ideas going on here too, good ones that still keep moving around in my own mind, about names and labels and words and how they both keep us grounded and moving and create distances and walls. The ending kind of left me stranded, though; not the very last sentence,which seemed right, but the label he chose to leave Freedom/Winthrop/New Prospera, the town he was supposed to annoint with a...more
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Read in August, 2007
I think I've given up on Mr. Whitehead. He writes great books that I cannot get into. They are smart, unique, full of great plot and characters. But I don't ever end up giving a hoot and I don't really know why.
This was my third (The Intuitionist and John Henry Days preceded it). Each time I like the book enough and am hopeful the next one will be the one I really connect to, but I don't.
This one's about a guy that actually works in my industry (branding) so I was sure I'd dig it. And i...more
This was my third (The Intuitionist and John Henry Days preceded it). Each time I like the book enough and am hopeful the next one will be the one I really connect to, but I don't.
This one's about a guy that actually works in my industry (branding) so I was sure I'd dig it. And i...more
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Read in February, 2008
Probably more subtle than The Intuitionist, but I liked Lila Mae and the fantastical architecture of that book better than the deliberate anomie of the nameless narrator here. Apparently it's a terrible cliche to compare ambitious black literary novelists to Ralph Ellison, but Whitehead's references and inversions (from the namelessness of the narrator to the distance from the c...more
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Read in September, 2008
I really really wanted to LOVE this book. The premise is original, the characters are well-developed, and the snarky sarcasm should have been a huge win for me. Unfortunately, and maybe it's just my current state of mind, the main character was utterly unlikeable. He draws the reader into his vortex of cynicism in a depressing sort of way. Maybe it takes a happier person not to be dragged down by it. In any case, I did LIKE the book, wasn't delighted with the ending and I could think of several ...more
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Read in July, 2007
coleson whitehead of elevator inspectors and stamp collectors uses nomenclature consultants (the parents of names like band-aid and walkman) to explore how people and places fall from grace because of inaction. he gives us subtle but insightful hints about the causes of the lethargy responsible for that inaction. coleson more or less makes color the underlying premise with the book being named after a bandage for every skin tone and one of the book's main characters being a town founded by free...more
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Read in June, 2008
A fine, thoughtful novel that tenderly addresses loneliness, race, progress, and societal change in our times. Whitehead's prose is luscious, and one reason for the success of this book is its length: he doesn't waste words proselytizing, but simply tells a story that implicates some of the biggest issues in modern society. His protagonist is thoughtful, admirable, and human; his story is touching, curious, and revelatory. This novel reminded me of Mark Costello's Big If in its...more
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Read in June, 2007
A young advertising and branding superstar is dispatched to settle a naming dispute in a town with a highly racialized history. I thought this was an incredibly commentary on racial politics in a late capitalist context. The imagery and symbolism of the various plot devices (the toe injury, the band-aids, and the re-naming of the town) stayed with me for a long time. Very thought-provoking. This could be in part because I'd recently written my senior thesis on a related topic, but regardless...more
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This seemed a bit light and a bit of a one trick pony for Colson. I'm a fan of his stuff but this one seemed satisfied to stop at clever and delve no deeper. Being an Ivy Leaguer who is surprised at the success the statis affords him, is not the fictional exploration that seems he most worthy of exploration. This is a decent read, but comes across as lite. A first time reader of Whitehead who picks this book to start is likely to be indifferent to future encounters. that is a shame becase the In...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.44 (353 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.36 (79 ratings) number of reviews: 79
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"Isn't it great when you're a kid and the world is full of anonymous things? Everything is bright and mysterious until you know what it is called and then all the light goes out of it...Once we knew the name of it, how could we ever come to love it?...For things had true natures, and they hid behind false names, beneath the skin we gave them."
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