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Ralph Ellison: A Biography
The definitive biography of one of the most important American writers and cultural intellectuals of the twentieth century—Ralph Ellison, author of the masterpiece Invisible Man.
In 1953, Ellison’s explosive story of an innocent young black man’s often surreal search for truth and his identity won him the National Book Award for fiction and catapulted him to national promin...more
In 1953, Ellison’s explosive story of an innocent young black man’s often surreal search for truth and his identity won him the National Book Award for fiction and catapulted him to national promin...more
Hardcover, 688 pages
Published
April 24th 2007
by Knopf
(first published 2007)
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Aberjhani
rated it
Recommends it for:
Lovers of literary biography and every voting age adult in the USA.
Recommended to Aberjhani by:
A friend.
THE ENIGMATIC GENIUS OF RALPH ELLISON
Invisible Man, Shadow and Act, and Going to the Territory, all books by that quintessential twentieth century literary artist Ralph Waldo Ellison, remain towering masterworks of American literature for their penetrating explorations of racial identity, cultural complexity, and historical consequences in the United States. With Senator Barack Obama’s historic bid for the White House evolving daily into the possibility of an historic win, Ellison’s ...more
Invisible Man, Shadow and Act, and Going to the Territory, all books by that quintessential twentieth century literary artist Ralph Waldo Ellison, remain towering masterworks of American literature for their penetrating explorations of racial identity, cultural complexity, and historical consequences in the United States. With Senator Barack Obama’s historic bid for the White House evolving daily into the possibility of an historic win, Ellison’s ...more
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Confronted with something as messy and complicated as a human life, a biographer can too easily fall into the trap of simplification, seizing on one prominent aspect of the subject’s character and history, the way a caricaturist turns a potato nose or jug ears into the dominant feature in a cartoon. On the other hand, if the life surveyed is long enough and complex enough, the biographer may be tempted just to report the incidents and events and let the reader do the hard work of shaping them in...more
The publication of INVISIBLE MAN bisects this biography. Those pages that recount Ellison's life before 1952 are fascinating; the book is a real page-turner in the early chapters. After recounting the publication of Ellison's masterpiece, however, the narrative grows somewhat stale. I do not attribute this flatness to any failing on Rampersad's part (his two-volume biography of Langston Hughes is excellent). Rather, Ellison's social aspirations, his endless awards, his (often token) participatio...more
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Arnold Rampersad, professor of English and humanities at Stanford, makes the most of his access to the papers of Ralph Ellison. He sifted through mountains of previously unexamined documents for the details that give readers a glimpse__warts and all__of the man behind Invisible Man. Rampersad's experience with biography runs deep, which explains his ability to give us an honest account of Ellison's life. Ralph Ellison is engaging and far-reaching, if long. It also balances revealing anecdotes ab
...more
Anthony D'Juan Shelton
rated it
Recommends it for:
Ellison lovers.
Recommended to Anthony by:
Mike Garborini
Perhaps the best biography I've read since Peter Manso's book on Brando (over a thousand pages). The author, Arnold Rapmersad does not let Ellison off the hook by just calling him a genius. He dug into the ugliness of Ellison as well (his selfishness and capacity to be pompous, amongst other things). It almost made me hate Ellison...but it brought me back to life by the end of the book.
Ellison is one of my favorite writers, and in preparation for my date with destiny (i.e. plunging into Three Days Before the Shooting), I wanted to get an idea of his life beyond what I'd gleaned in my years of studying Invisible Man and his essays. Rampersad doesn't hesitate in presenting the good, the ugly, and the boring. And the boring, I think, is an important component of any trustworthy biography. Most people, including those who merit a professionally authored biography, are not always s...more
Arnold Rampersad is one of the finest biographers around and with this latest portrait he joins the ranks of Leon Edel, Richard Ellmann, and R.W.B Lewis. He is such a nuanced, elegant and detailed writer but the tidbits, and facts, and anecdotes and dates never feel like simply an accretion of information; you never get the sense this is a biographer that fell in love with research and didn’t know when to stop. Like an intricate tapestry or a complex jazz riff, each detail and story plays off, r...more
Vastly researched, this fascinatng biography about a writer who defined African-American Fiction for the last fifty years with the publication of his 1952 novel "Invisible Man" shows how Ellison went from a staunch communist to a strict patriotic individualist who defended the Vietnam War and LBJ's policies. He also helped create the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities as well as help bring about public brodcasting. Yet, even with all his accomplis...more
Finished this meticulously thorough biography, a finalist for the National Book Award, at 5:54 am this morning. The line describing Ellison's death on page 565, right near the end, made me cry: "On Saturday April 16, with the music of Bach playing softly, and with Fanny snuggled tightly against Ralph on the hospital bed, Callahan saw a single tear roll slowly down his cheek. Then he was gone."
Having been overwhelmed by Ellison's novel, "Invisible Man," in college,...more
Having been overwhelmed by Ellison's novel, "Invisible Man," in college,...more
Daryl Grigsby
is currently reading it
just started this - the travails of black writers personified
This dude wrote one of my top ten favorite books of forever( Invisible Man)! So I was sadden to learn how confused and self hating he was!
This Bio was a great read but utterly sad. A Great reflection of how America can build a Black person up while destroying them at the same time.
Its like Elison wrote Invisible Man and then died, rising to come back to life as the type of Black man that he originally despised so early in his life and that he created in Invisible Man as...more
This Bio was a great read but utterly sad. A Great reflection of how America can build a Black person up while destroying them at the same time.
Its like Elison wrote Invisible Man and then died, rising to come back to life as the type of Black man that he originally despised so early in his life and that he created in Invisible Man as...more
I'm teaching Invisible Man this semester again, and I read this book in preparation for doing so. I really enjoyed it. Though some have read this book as an all-out attack on Ellison, I thought that it was pretty fair to him—acknowledging his great achievement and legacy while also casting an unsparing light on his flaws. It will be valuable background for me as I teach the novel.
This is what a great biography should do. It's always tough when one of your heroes are brought down so low. But there's always gotta be a reason that pushes someone toward genius, no? Invisible Man is still one of my favorites though.
Arnold Rampersad has an impressive reputation for creating great works of biographies. He proved his talent with this intriguing and immensely detailed work, capturing the true essence and character of a great American writer.
Masterful and incredibly well-researched book on Ellison and his times.
At times though, Rampersad seems like he is apologizing for the writer's misogyny, misanthropy and general grumpus-ness!
At times though, Rampersad seems like he is apologizing for the writer's misogyny, misanthropy and general grumpus-ness!
It has been hard to stick to this book, although it reads well and is very illuminating, especially concerning the nuances of the social contexts/constructs Ellison grew under.
It was fine. VERY in depth biography. Interesting figure, but I just felt like the story was too long to maintain my attention.
Ferentz
is currently reading it
I've finally gotten around to this one. Is anyone else out there reading along?
Dana Vincent
is currently reading it
Just started...
Ij Anderson
marked it as to-read
Kester
is currently reading it
Charles
marked it as to-read
Jennifer Lorene Sun
marked it as national-book-award-nonfiction
Carol
marked it as to-read
Melissa
marked it as to-read
Talena
marked it as to-read
Shelly
marked it as to-read
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| on race, brilliance and schizophrenia | 3 | 5 | Oct 18, 2007 08:21pm |
