who knew a lab could be so fascinating?

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	• Intuition Allegra Goodman Dial Press Trade Paperback, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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who knew a lab could be so fascinating?

Wow! I love Allegra Goodman's novel, Intuition. It is one of my all-time favorite novels. When I began the book, I never imagined I would become so involved in the world of the Mendelssohn and Glass lab. I went in knowing nothing about research labs or curing cancer, but Goodman snared me with her first paragraph, where she describes the snow in Cambridge, Mass: "The punks at the new Harvard Square T stop had tramped off, bright as winter cardinals with their purple tufted hair and orange Mohawks" (3). That's Goodman's secret. She probably recognizes that a large portion of her reading audience will be fairly ignorant of a research lab and, though her book's plot centers around one scientist's findings in that lab, Intuition is driven by its characters. The relationship between Mendelssohn and Glass is beautifully drawn, and each individual associated with the lab, from Aidan the musical lab tech to Mendelssohn's teenage son, Aaron, is given a unique personality and perspective. I cared about the lab because I cared about the characters.

Goodman lives in Cambridge and her novel is set in that city. I could picture Harvard Square in the wintertime. I could imagine, though I've never been there, the annual lab picnic each August at Walden Pond. The place of the novel makes the characters all the more alive.

I am also impressed with the vocabulary Goodman uses in her novel. Near the end of the book, she uses the word "bildungsroman." I consider myself a well-read person, but I had no idea what that word means until I looked it up. Intuition taught me much--about the doings of a research lab and what it means to be government funded, about the mentality of a "scientist," and even the definition of bildungsroman.

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Fascinating read

This is a wonderfully intelligent novel--both intellectually and emotionally--and a fascinating read. Goodman has remarkable insight into human motivations and feelings, and their influence on social transactions. She takes the rarified field of scientific research, and its interplay with media and government, and reduces it to its true human components: need, ambition, idealism, amorality and desire. Her characters come alive on the page; her warm, savvy writing brings scenes to life so you can watch them like a movie as you read. And she illuminates deeply grooved social dynamics between men and women in the workplace and in marriage. This is a masterful work of fiction.

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A Haiku Review

Did Cliff fake his work?
His mice are now cancer-free
Robin doubts it all

Compelling and compassionate

"Intuition" is an astonishingly vivid story of scientific and human ambiguity. Goodman's eye is sharp and her pacing superb. Her characters may be recognizable types, but it is the novel's strength to be unafraid of those, because Goodman's people are also fallible, self-doubting, and alive. We are drawn to sympathize with all sides of a bitter scientific dispute (centering on accusations of falsified data in a biotech lab in Cambridge, MA).

The novel brings to life the intensity of scientific discovery and of human relations. Whatever your view of biotechnology (and mine is often critical), this book is a remarkable achievement of observation, intuition, and compassion.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12

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