INVISIBLE MAN

REVIEW BY KATIE ANNE ELLSWEIG | posted January 23, 2009 | permalink
5 Comments

author:
RALPH ELLISON

Fiction
608 pages
Vintage

“I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

Throwback to 1952. Ralph Waldo Ellison (not to be confused with the essay-spewing transcendentalist) was such a tremendous rock star that he only needed to write one book during his lifetime. That one book earned him a few big awards and has spent much of its shelf life collecting dust as a deeply underrated stack of paper and ink. Invisible Man provides substance upon which to base the ageist idea that, “they sure don’t write books like they used to.”

The book addresses the racial policies of Booker T. Washington and the rise of Black Nationalism in a post-civil-war environment where African Americans searched for both an identity and a sense of belonging. It is told by an unnamed narrator that we follow from grade school, through college, to New York City, to Communism, disenchantment and, finally, invisibility. But for a man who can’t be seen, his words are achingly perfect.

After growing into a North Harlem celebrity—a figure of worship to a sea of lost souls—he finds that he has lost himself, his soul, his dreams, his hopes and his sense of importance. So he hides underground with his lights and his Louis Armstrong and there he becomes invisible to everyone but himself, who he can really never escape to begin with.

Maybe you read this book in high school or, at the very least, you skimmed over the Cliff notes so you could bullshit your way through some essay test where you coughed up something about symbolism and called it a day. Chances are, you need to read it again.

purchase via IndieBound

small_dots_508 INVISIBLE MAN

Comments

5 Responses to “INVISIBLE MAN”

Justin on January 29th, 2009 6:08 pm

Love this book. Read it for a HS English class. Just for the record, Ellison wrote another book called Juneteenth.
Katie on January 30th, 2009 2:19 pm

You’re so right, I completely forgot about that. Thank you for correcting me!
Evan on February 2nd, 2009 1:58 am

I love this site, and I know it’s supposed to be youthful and all, but I don’t think calling an author a “rock star” really inspires much confidence that the piece is serious literary criticism. Also, I come here to learn about new books. Sure, this book was a significant achievement, but I would like to see criticism of new or unknown works.

Not trying to be a snob, just trying to give constructive feedback.
Katie on February 2nd, 2009 9:27 pm

The reason I wrote this review was because while there is SO much new and interesting literature out there, and this site covers a lot of it, there’s also a lot of really incredible literature that people need to be reminded of, in some cases, turned on to to begin with. That’s why I called it a “throwback.” Sometimes it’s just good to go backwards and rediscover great literature, write about it all over again and give it some new life. Sorry you didn’t like my terminology, you can just ignore that part.

I understand where you’re coming from and I hope you understand where I’m coming from when I say I’m just trying to remind people of the books from our past. I wasn’t alive when this book came out, I didn’t get to read it in high school and I only stumbled upon it when I was collecting books off my grandmother’s shelf. She loved it when she read it, and I loved it when I read it. There’s something sort of special about that; about being able to transcend time like that.
JAMILAH MISS DOUGLASS CARTER on November 18th, 2009 1:51 am

HEY, I HAVENT YET READ THIS BOOK BUT WILL START SOON AND ITS HARD 2 FIND INTERNET SOURCES (CRITISIM ON THIS BOOK( I THINK THIS RESEARCH PAPER IS GOING TO BE HARD