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.

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.

Ralph Ellison's only successful novel Invisible Man was an instant classic in its initial release in 1952. The nameless narrator gives us his story on how he came to be an “invisible man”. Living in an abandoned basement, this African-American recaps about his struggles in the south which expanded as he migrated north. And the search for self- identity was at stakes as he made bad choices of who to associate with. With all the social and political conflicts from the book and the time period in which it was written, Ellison did a great job of getting into this ambiguous characters mind and speak to the audience, which creates a two- way communication in literature. With all the African- American history incorporated in it,its better that we read it in class, in order to get the full concept of the novel. I give it 4 stars, and anyone who wants to read about individuals in search for their identity in a clashing society, then this is a great book for you.