From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison

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What Members Thought

May 22, 2017 mehg-hen rated it really liked it

Shelves: existentialcrisis, genderageidentity, burn-your-eyes-about-the-world

I read this a long time ago and always remember that he lived off the grid, the description of walking down the street, and a separate side story about an african american man shunned by the african american community and pitied and blessed by the white community. And how offensive and smug that pity was to the black community for so many complicated reasons--holding him up as a representative of the community and showering him with things, while actual pillars of the community are ignored and b ...more

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Apr 25, 2010 Arianna rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-book, vassar

www.shelfnotes.com
4.5 / 5

Dear Reader,

Wow, this book was incredibly difficult to read - some scenes just made me feel so awful. I picked it up to celebrate Black History Month back in February but only just recently finished it, for a number of reasons. Mostly there were a bunch of other books read at the same time, but also this book often felt like a lot of “hurry up and wait” - there were long stretches where I couldn’t put it down, but those alternated with long stretches of much drier materi www.shelfnotes.com
4.5 / 5

Dear Reader,

Wow, this book was incredibly difficult to read - some scenes just made me feel so awful. I picked it up to celebrate Black History Month back in February but only just recently finished it, for a number of reasons. Mostly there were a bunch of other books read at the same time, but also this book often felt like a lot of “hurry up and wait” - there were long stretches where I couldn’t put it down, but those alternated with long stretches of much drier material. Overall, though, what a great book. It is easy to understand why this was the 1953 National Book Award winner for fiction - Ellison was the first black winner of the prize, and he certainly deserved it for this seminal work.

I read up quite a bit on this book and its author while reading, because I was interested in the story behind it all. Ralph Waldo Ellison was named after - you guessed it - Emerson, and I have to wonder if his namesake influenced his leanings towards becoming an author. Certainly his friendship with author Richard Wright also influenced his writing career. I was interested to learn that Invisible Man was inspired by both men’s disillusionment with the Communist Party’s (in this book, this part is played by the Brotherhood) dedication to the black cause (or more specifically, lack thereof) following the end of WWII.

I will not soon forget quite a few vivid scenes from this book - namely, the scholarship boxing match, the incidents with the college trustee Norton both on the farm and in the Golden Day, the nameless protagonist’s experience at the paint factory (and his hospitalization thereafter), and, of course, his experiences with the Brotherhood which take up the second half of the book. I couldn’t believe all he had gone through! It is understandable that he decides, ultimately, to go underground and become the eponymous “invisible man” (as he believed he was one already). I appreciated the namelessness of the protagonist, which made him an “anyman” with whom readers could identify, each in their own way.

I think in particular the story of Tod Clifton resonated with me, for its timeliness: Clifton, a young and unarmed black man, is gunned down by a policeman near Bryant Park in the middle of the day. I couldn’t get over how eerily familiar all that sounded at this moment, what with the Ferguson and Madison incidents (to name just two of too many) in all too recent memory. It felt like someone had read this book and then taken notes, it sounded so uncannily similar to all that has been happening in our nation recently. It so upsets me that 62 years later, this story hasn’t changed, despite all the advances we think we’ve made in the name of equality.

This book is a book composed of dark humor and intense satire. The hero’s absurd situations reminded me quite a bit of the feel of a Russian novel like The Trial (which I have been reading concurrently), which makes sense as the protagonist was supposedly modeled - as evidenced by his lack of a name - on the lead character from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground. For a much better exposition on the book than I can ever perform, this review speaks so wonderfully about the main theme of the book being that the narrator is simply used as a pawn - unseen by, invisible to, those who are using him for their own ends. (Amusing aside, though, the review’s author complains about Harper Lee never writing another book!)

Okay, I’ve babbled enough, and I really can’t say more than just: Read this book. Everyone. Please.

Yours,
Arianna ...more

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Apr 28, 2017 Samantha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks

I listened to Audible's special audio version performed by actor Joe Morton (Olivia Pope's dad). Morton did a fantastic job inhabiting characters and laying out the scenes, acting out the words in a way that felt like I was watching a movie. It's a really satisfying performance of a classic work. http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/In... ...more

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