Invisible Man

this is poetry in a romance and is deeply rooted in metaphor to the actual lives of black people in the african diaspora. it is a heavy book, you cannot expect someone to take all that there is to be taken out of this book just in one go. the complexity of the main character and the way he sees and is seen made me think a lot about race nowadays and how it has almost not changed.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man shouldn't be confused with H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man. While the sci-fi classic deals with literal invisibility, the unnamed black man who narrates his story in Ellison's novel is only figuratively invisible. We meet him at the end of his story, living in a New York City basement that he's lit up brightly by siphoning power from the utility. Ellison doesn't belabor the metaphor...right from the start, the narrator tells us that it's his status as a black man in mid-century America that renders him effectively invisible.

The novel is made up of his story and how he came to recognize his own non-entity status. And it hits you in the gut right away: the first incident he relates from his life is when he's awarded a scholarship from a prestigious philanthropic organization in the small Southern town in which he grows up. He's invited to a country club dinner to make a speech about his scholarship, but once he gets there, he and several other young black men are forced to fight each other and be humiliated chasing for electrified coins. Only after he's been degraded is he allowed to give his speech and receive the scholarship and the briefcase. It's a horrifying sequence, incredibly difficult to read, and the book is just getting started.

This experience, and the ones that the narrator has at a black college and then in New York are rooted in a fundamental denial of his humanity. He's entertainment, or a tool, or an experiment, or just disposable. He struggles and fights and gets up after being knocked down over and over again, but he can't escape the fact of his race and the broad social structures designed to keep him and other black men firmly in the underclass. And while things have gotten better today, it's maybe not as much better as we'd like to think.

This is a hard book to read. Not because of the quality...Ellison's writing is incredible. But it's heavy and dark and the unending awfulness of what the narrator is subjected to is a lot to get your head around. I usually try not to get heavily into politics on this blog, but I read this book right after the 2016 election, and it really made me think about the racism that persists in our society.

So. After two weeks. I have finished “Invisible Man”. I have a lot of opinions and thoughts about this book, but one thing is clear. The message was profound and blaring and loud. The many characters all represented a facet of society that tells the black man what to do and what to feel. They are, essentially, an invisible creature. People who are pushed around by ideologies and different agendas by different groups proclaiming “equality” or “justice” or “fairness”. The Invisible Man tries to be who he is not. He tries to be everything and anything these people demand for him to be, but he realizes that it was all for naught. He is an outsider yet an insider, but a whole different thing altogether. He knows that although people may not know it yet, he is speaking for them too. I just hope the masses realize this and give him the proper acknowledgement.
Gooooood book.

The battle royal section (chapter one) is a masterpiece and maybe the greatest thing I've ever read. I honestly can't believe that this was published in the 50s. Everything about this book is so groundbreaking, from the ideas it presents to the style of writing and storytelling itself. Much of the story feels almost dreamlike, especially the battle royal section which is almost surreal in its telling. That section is just so powerful, disturbing, and visceral, I cannot give it justice. Can't say enough great things about this book, it is a new favorite for me.

“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”

Reading this for school most definitely took the fun out of it, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Invisible Man follows an unnamed black narrator who speaks of his invisibility. His invisibility is due to him being a black man in the early 1900's United States.

Throughout the novel, we follow him on his journey to becoming someone, anyone with importance. His identity changes from time to time, from him learning new lessons or becoming involved in certain crowds. He chooses his actions based on what he feels but also based on how the white men around him want him to act.

This book has many lessons and morals to learn from and I truly feel that it is an important book to read.

The main thing I loved about this book was the writing. Ralph Ellison has a way with words and a way of making the book feel natural. The language/prose makes you feel like you are there with the narrator, experiencing what he is experiencing and learning the lessons he learns.

It was hard to get through, though, because of the philosophical take. Many pages were just filled with long paragraphs of the narrator talking about life, invisibility, equality, death, identity, etc. and I found myself bored very often. But in the end, those pages are the ones with the lessons and ideologies we need to be exposed to and learn from.

i suck at ending reviews so bye lol

A challenging but rewarding literary achievement. I won’t pretend I tracked every idea as it veered from campus farce to Southern nightmare to urban political satire, stopping along the way to debate the value of protest, tease intra-party pettiness, even dance with the charged world of interracial sexuality. This book has so much to say that’s as relevant today as it was in the 1940s(!) — even if I could use a college seminar to help unpack it all.

Summary: An unnamed narrator begins his tale by telling readers that he has come to realize that, as a Black man in America, he is functionally invisible. He then tells readers the story of his experiences growing up and going to college in the South and then working in the North, facing revelations of the deceitfulness of others at every turn.