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Summary: A Book to be Enjoyed ----------------> Again and Again!
Review:
Dense with powerful symbolism and dancing with artfully subtle language, Invisible Man stands as one of the greatest works of American literature ever. Moving and evocative, but with great dignity and candor, it reveals to the each reader the perpetual search that waits within each of us. While it's not a roadmap to inner truth, it's a damn good start towards self-awareness... Other recent great Amazon Purchases: The Basketball Diaries by Carroll, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
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Summary: FIFTY years later -and Invisible Man is still going strong
Review: A classic never tires the imagination, generation after generation. Invisible Man is cleary a classic. When I first read it, I was engrossed by the depth of psychological insight built into the writing style. It was as if the writer, through his 'narrator', delved into his own deepest hurts and fears, caused by an unjust society and a socially naive protagonist. The 'invisible' man only wanted justice and acceptance in a world that would not accept him and in his quest, he almost lost himself in his internal wonderings. Fyodor Doestoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment as if the whole plot took place inside the head of his agonized protagonist--there is a powerful resemblance between Ellison's and Doestoevsky's style. It takes a master author to narrate subjective thoughts into art, Ellison was indeed one of the great writers of our day.
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Summary: Not only a classic, but an entertaining one!
Review: Although I first read this novel, which was instantly recognized on its publication as a great book, as a teenager, I can't imagine that I understood the politics of the novel's second half, and wonder about assigning this book to high school students. There is no graphic sex or violence, but to understand cumulative disillusionments and disappointments seems to me to require experience few teenagers in America have.Be that as it may, this is at once a wise and a funny (mostly satiric, though two fight scenes approach slapstick) book. I enjoy as well as respect it. There is a lot to admire in Ellison's creation of characters and milieux and in his often exhilarating language and shifting style. (Ellison himself characterized it as moving from naturalism (Ã la Richard Wright) to expressionism to surrealism - though the Battle Royale seems already quite surrealist/absurdist to me.) I don't question that it is a great book, but great books (e.g., Moby Dick, The Charterhouse of Parma) are often not perfectly crafted books. The narrator strikes me as being a little too naive to have survived to junior year in college, so that there is some sense in Dr. Bledsoe's shock and irritation at having to give him Negro in the South 101 instruction. There are too many long speeches (in particular, I'd cut the blind speaker at a Founder's Day assembly) and the narrator seems oddly lacking in sexual desire of any sort -- though he experiences some of what Chester Himes referred to as the absurdities of being a black male with all the fantasies about black virility. The never-named narrator seems too numb too soon, and there is nowhere to go with the notion of invisibility once he falls down a rabbit hole (coal shoot) into his own private, brightly-lit wonderland.
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Summary: Trying Hard to See You
Review: Ellison's African-American hero (appropriately, we never learn his name) wanders through life suffering from people who expect him to be someone he's not. Every time he tries to assert himself, people punish him for failing to conform to their expectations, and since no two people seem to expect the same thing from him - and since he meets so many different people - he suffers a lot. He calls himself the invisible man, then, because no one sees him for himself. The novel tells how he comes to this realization and how he concludes that forcing people to conform is wrong and that diversity is a strength. Surprisingly for a black novel set in the 1950s, only about half of his troubles come from racism, and he seems to have little or no internalized racism. Also, although the novel can be read just on the surface, it has a rich allegorical subtext that rewards careful examination. (E.g. the Liberty Paint Company secretly adds a few drops of black graduate to each bucket of their award-winning white paint.) Finally, the book is almost completely free of modern notions of political correctness, so it should be readable and enjoyable for everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: A well told story lacking a knock out blow
Review: Ellison's landmark novel, Invisible Man was truly ahead of its time. It dared to exploit the issues of racism at a time when our country most needed it. It became a standard to which many future black authors would look to. By some, it is considered the best novel an African American has ever written. If not, it at least considered by a majority of its readers, an American masterpiece.
Invisible Man opens with the narrator telling us exactly what he is and how he came to be like that. It opens in almost a surrealistic fashion and we are drawn in and instantly captivated. Ellison sets the mood and we desperately want to learn more. He then begins with horrific opening scene of his life. The narrator is never named. We know from the beginning he is a college educated black man. He is also an eloquent orator. In the startling opening sequence to his story, he is manipulated into giving a speech at what he thinks is a dignified event. It is nothing more than a horrific display of racism in which white men use black anger and fighting as a form of mere entertainment. This scene sets the mood of the novel
After the opening we follow the nameless protagonist through his life. First, he gets kicked out of college by the black college president for not treating a rich white donor as he should. This black president promises him a job, but ironically the letters that he sends to all the "would-be" employer's of the nameless narrator are in actually warning to not hire him and not letters of recommendations as he promised. The narrator realizes this and has to take up a job at the local paint making factory. Here we learn some symbolism of the "white" world as Emerson brilliant uses metaphors comparing the paint to racial misunderstandings.
Eventually, a member of the "brotherhood" which is a black and white semi communist party hears a magnificent speech delivered by the narrator, which he gives to an angry black mob on the verge of an attack on white officers. The member of this organization is impressed with his speech and the nameless narrator becomes the spokesman in the city of Harlem for this organization.
The nameless narrator learns that the organization is merely using him and he is just a pawn for them The bulk of this story is the narrator coming to grips that he merely is just an invisible man to these people, most of whom are white, and they just use him to their own advantage. Sadly, the narrator doesn't realize this until it is too late and has been blinded all along by their deception.
In the end, the narrator breaks free of their grasp, but also comes to realize that his entire life to this point has been no more than being an invisible man to those around him. His own self-identity and worth has been lost. Finally, he gets his redemption and learns who he truly is.
It is hard to really name anything wrong with this novel. The language is beautiful, dark, and almost has a poetic ring to it in certain passages. It blends the issues of racism, bigotry, and individualism together in an interesting, well told story. I can't argue with the language or substance. You can feel that this story meant a lot to the author. I believe it is an important book on history in America. Ellison has so much talent and the story is as well told as any I have heard.
So, why not a perfect rating for Invisible Man? If anyone claims it to be a masterpiece I certainly wouldn't argue with them. For me, it came close, but I just kept waiting for something more to happen. What exactly? I'm not sure. It just seems like in order for a book to be a masterpiece something more has to happen. This book has no real climax. The ending was also a bit too preachy and wasn't as straight forward as it could have been. It is like you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for the big explosion, the powerful moment that will take your breath away, but it never comes. Of course, not all novels would be appropriate for such a moment or climax, but it seemed a book about these important issues, this powerful statement on the way things are and the way things should be, seemed like it should have had such a moment. It seemed in order to take this book to the next level of genius it needed something more that never was delivered.
Nevertheless, this is a very, very good novel. It is told with brilliant language, the characters are very realistic and the setting was dead on target. The power and emotion I thought it would exhume just didn't come to me. I just wish it could have affected me more somehow. How it could have done that exactly? I'm not sure, but I kept getting this feeling that something was missing. The answer might be as invisible as the character himself.
Grade: A-
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Summary: Keep Reading!!!
Review: Everything that you've read so far will eventually fill a deeper meaning! It was assigned by my English Teacher who seemed to tell us each day what was coming next. At times, it was the most discouraging thing that he could have done, yet in the beginning, it kept the class interested. I sat up many nights reading the book, chapter after chapter. The novel connects people. As a white Montana girl from the heart of the Rockies, I don't have the culture of Harlem around me. I recommend this literary work of art to any teacher wanting to educate their students. Ellison's book gives insight on the difficulties and betrayal life can hand you. His title adds to the personal side of it. As an Invisible Man the reader never learns the main characters name, simply because it isn't important. A name would not add to the significance of the novel, but the invisibility does. By not having a specific label, the author pulls you into the story line, as if you were the Invisible Man. Ellison has also incorporated marvelous imagery and breath-taking facts that make this novel a classic. Facts that are told in such a manner that our children will be reading this masterpiece, growing and learning as humans. "As long as there is humanity there will be novel's like this." "Answer them with yeses." -Grandfather The Invisible Man lives with a haunting rememberance of his Grandfather, and his answer to the indifferences placed on the superiority of the races. Our main character fights with this throughout his life, stuggling to become a man of his own though and disposition. This novel takes you on that journey, revealling one man's ups and downs that eventually leads him into his invisibility.
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Summary: I choose to see him
Review: He is an invisible man, not that he is physically invisible, but because people refuse to see him as he is, or so the story starts. The story is about a youthful, unnamed black man, who starts off naive and full of idealism. Throughout the book, he faces different ordeals, transforms himself several times, and makes many discoveries about the society in which he lives, each time growing as an individual and trying to find his identity. The reason I liked this book so much because the way in which it was written makes you care about something you otherwise might not, let alone know about, how blacks weren't even paid attention to in the United States in the period before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. They weren't so much oppressed or hated, but rather ignored altogether, which, when you think about it, is much worse. It shows just a taste of how much blacks have been wronged, by whites as well as blacks. It also helped my on my path to finding who I was, even though I am not black myself. The only thing I really disliked about this book was the slow pacing. In my opinion, the story could have been told in less detail and in less time, while still having the same effectiveness. This is a book that deals with racism and blacks in society, so know what you're getting into when you read it. Ellison uses a lot of Southern or uneducated diction, which can be confusing at times if you've never heard it spoken before. He also uses a lot of symbols, which I thought were well used and added greatly to the book. This great American novel, though quite lengthy at 500+ pages, is worth the read, even if you're like me and not really into that sort of stuff. I read this novel for an English class, so it was a close reading and I had to go back a lot, reread, and identify many things, things I wouldn't have noticed with just a casual reading. Everytime I went back and read something over, the book made more sense and I liked it more. Even though Ellison addresses many of the racial problems in America, and possibly inspired things to be done about them, many problems still exist today. Perhaps more people need to read it and be opened to another view of things.
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Summary: A different perspective
Review: I don't know which was morer captivating to me: Ellison's writing style or Ellison's message. Obviously a must read for today's generation to understand not only the struggles, but the resulting feelings and perceptions of race at that time. Ellison presents it with such a powerful demonstration of words that you can experience his trials and tribulations. Great read!
Rating:
Summary: Overly captivating
Review: I don't know which was morer captivating to me: Ellison's writing style or Ellison's message. Obviously a must read for today's generation to understand not only the struggles, but the resulting feelings and perceptions of race at that time. Ellison presents it with such a powerful demonstration of words that you can experience his trials and tribulations. Great read!
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Summary: Invisible Man: an insightful review
Review: I read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison independently, while reading and analyzing To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee in my 8th grade class. Both books offer different points of view on the horrible racism of America in the 1930s. Invisible Man is told through the main character's point of view, so the author's views on racism are fully expressed. This is similar to To Kill a Mockingbird because the story is told from a first person in that book as well. The major difference between the point of view from which the two stories are told is that in TKM, the story is told through the eyes of a young white girl, and in Invisible Man it is told from a black man's point of view. The writing is somewhat similar to To Kill a Mockingbird but Invisible Man is darker and more cynical, which makes sense considering that the author of TKM is a white woman, while the author of Invisible Man is a black man. A person's views on racism would be more pessimistic and negative if they had been oppressed and were subjected to racism, and more optimistic and positive if they hadn't. Ralph Ellison must have been discriminated against, up to the point that Invisible Man is somewhat of an autobiography of his struggles with racism. His book is very pessimistic towards the idea of racism ending, as the main character is betrayed again and again by white people. Harper Lee, on the other hand, wasn't oppressed due to her race and therefore her book is optimistic that, over time, racism will go away. A person's beliefs on a subject are greatly affected if that person has been harmed by the problem. I gained a better understanding of the horrible conditions black people suffered not that long ago while reading this book, and that alone is worth the price of admission. Two thumbs up.
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