Rating: 
Summary: Simply Magnificent
Review: Where do I begin? I must say this is the best book I've ever read. Ellison put together a splendid novel from beginning to end. This is such a thought provoking book. At the beginning a little foggy but as the story progresses everything fits perfectly into place. This book not simply book about race, it's message can be applied to any persons life no matter their race or gender. I am a black male and I can really relate to the Invisible Man. But I think we ALL feel some degree of invisibility at some point in our lives. Anyway, this is a must read. So please do. On another note, I heard that this is one of the best novels written by an African-American--I think this is one of the best if not the best novels written by an American. This book is a true journey that I suggest everyone experiences .
Rating:
Summary: Invisibility by Boyd Cox
Review: This was a very unusual book. It had no pictures. It was a realy good book but it was sort of hard to read. It took lots of time for me to read this whole book. Mostly what I liked about this book was all the detail the book went into. It was a reaiy great story.
Rating: 
Summary: Deep yet at times, frantic
Review: Invisible Man is not at all what I thought it would be. At first I was overwhelmed by the size of it. It is indeed an immense book and will require one to read it slowly, carefully, and with dedication. The story slowly reveals how if a person does nothing important in his/her life he/she whill never make a difference and to history, they will be nothing but an invisible man. I'd say that if you've got the time and want to read a novel that is very thought provoking, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: An Incredible Novel
Review: Ralph Elison's, 2nd edition of Invisible Man, portrayed a young man struggling to make an impact on society. Throughout the book, there are several different symbols of invisibility, one of which was the nameless author, which continually provoked the reader. This hidden identity made the reader curious as to if the author would ever reveal the narrator's name. Also, I felt that this novel was hard to put down because it kept me in suspense as of what obstacle the narrator was going to face next. Success is an adjective that the unanimous narrator of Ralph Elison's, 2nd edition of Invisible Man had trouble obtaining. It all began when he was forced to leave college because he embarrassed the school by taking one of their most-honorable trustees to the suburbs. In return, the college was supposed to help him find a professional job in New York; but in turn, the school ended up playing a cruel trick on the narrator. Several other similar, unfortunate events occurred to the narrator throughout the remainder of this book. Because of all of the ironic events that occurred to the narrator, I felt that this novel was very hard to relate to, although it didn't force me to lose interest in the novel. Elements such as politics, sex, racism, and growing up are portrayed in Invisible Man. This novel makes the audience reevaluate these ideas by look at them through another person's eyes. It also makes the audience question many of these ideas. I would suggest this novel to all readers, particularly one who has time to read it slow to grasp it's entirety.
Rating:
Summary: Reading the Invisible Man
Review: Now that I have finished reading the Invisible Man, I can look back at the story that is told and realize how good a tale it was. The book really captures the struggles of an unnamed young black man in a white world. His troubles began when he was kicked out of college for obeying a white trustee and allowing him to see the real black life in the farming area of the south. Because the trustee becomes greatly disturbed, the headmaster of the college dismisses the Invisible Man, who then moves to New York City. The Invisible Man gradually becomes invisible as he realizes through the events in New York that he is very unimportant in the world. The Invisible Man is always trying to please any white man, and it more worried about his place in society as a black than anything else.
The story itself is very good, but I personally don't like how it is told. I found the book boring and lengthy and times, and wish that Ellison would have made his points without being so wordy. I realize that it is a classic and that I just might not be getting it, but I did not enjoy reading the Invisible Man. If you don't mind concentrating more on understanding than enjoying, read this book.
Overall, I really liked what happened in the novel. I liked every scene, but not until I had moved on to the next would I appreciate what had happened before. But I do believe that it is worth reading the novel if you are interested, because it makes you realize how rough and uncaring society can be to someone who has no great impact. It might make you look a little differently at people as you are traveling through life.
Rating:
Summary: five stars, deserving of more
Review: this book was one of the few I have ever really really gotten into. I found my self having read it for the sixth time, adding to the notes in the margins every time. The complexity and beauty of Ellison's writing make it a difficult book to put down while drawing the aware reader deeper into the tale. The motifs of black/white and blindness are impactful and well implemented. THIS IS A MUST READ!!!
Rating:
Summary: One of the Finest Novels Ever to Find Its Way into Print
Review: As an author with my debut novel (which deals with social inequities in contemporary American society) in its initial release, I have been an admirer of Ralph Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN since I first read it too many years ago during college. I've read it several times since then, and I grow more impressed with the novel each time I read through it. Mr. Ellison's novel follows a young man through his journey to knowledge and self-awareness. Along the way, he encounters most of the defining experiences of the 20th Century African-American experience. Every person should read INVISIBLE MAN--including you.
Rating:
Summary: I wish there were more stars to rank this with!
Review: This was the best book I have ever read. Honest. In my AP English class we had to choose a book to do an "in-depth analysis" of. My group chose this because it sounded cool. As we went through it, we grew to love the complexity and powerful sybolism Ellison weaves into his writing. I ended up reading it over 5 times completely and hundreds of times through small sections. My copy is overflowing with notes, observations, and sticky notes to mark sybolic language. The themes of blindness, following the "right white," and the blind leading the blind are powerful and thought-provoking. One of my favorite sybols is the statue of the man "raising" the vail from a slave. Ellison questions whether he is truly raising it, or lowering it. A great read the first time, but take the time and go in-depth.
Rating:
Summary: the best book i've read
Review: My class was assigned to read this book and everyone liked it so much that only 3/4 returned their books. Ellison has a pleasing style but the true genius of this book is his comentary. Ellison is able to tackle themes and make them apply to everyone's life. Even though the main character is black and the book focuses on his strugles due to his race, everyone who reads this book can relate at some point or another to the discrimination he faces. Ellison's points are universal allowing everyone to reflect and gain something from this work. It's an interesting look at society and, it's just an enjoyable and fun read!
Rating:
Summary: Sloe gin and vanilla ice cream
Review: Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" is a novel that forces the reader to discard conventional notions of race relations and look at certain issues of humanity in ways that are entirely unique and original. It is written in the first person by a protagonist whose name we never learn; by keeping him anonymous, we are able to relate to him better, and it helps to emphasize his "invisibility" with respect to the world. We know that he is a young black man, comes from somewhere in the South, is a bright student, and is thoughtful, introspective, positive, and ambitious. This novel is about how he is used, abused, and transformed into a cynic, but its tone is ironic rather than angry or bitter. The novel begins just after his high school graduation, when he is invited to give a speech at a party for his hometown's most prominent white citizens. They award him a college scholarship, but they also want him to participate in a battle royal where he must fight other young black men for money while the white men watch with delight. With the intention of becoming an educator, he attends a black college whose president is an arrogant pedagogue named Dr. Bledsoe. Assigned to be a campus chauffeur, he innocently takes a visiting white trustee of the college on an extended tour (on the trustee's request) to the cottage of an incestuous sharecropper and then to a raucous roadhouse. Bledsoe is enraged when he learns of this excursion and, as punishment for the embarrassment he imagines this has caused the college, gives the protagonist a "vacation" and sends him to New York with a promise to refer him for a job with one of the college's wealthy trustees. Through a cruel trick played on him by Bledsoe, the protagonist ends up working at a paint factory in Long Island for tyrannical bosses, but not for long. He falls in with a group called the Brotherhood, a vaguely Communist organization that promotes humanism and racial harmony, and is hired to speak at rallies in Harlem. This fulfills his ambition to become a leader and a voice of the community; even though his fiery speeches are mostly platitudinous, they're what his audiences want to hear. As a public speaker advocating multiracial brotherhood, he must contend with a vociferous black nationalist named Ras the Exhorter, who considers the protagonist a traitor to his race. When the murder of a young black man by a policeman incites a riot in Harlem, the protagonist realizes that the Brotherhood was just using him as a tool to aggravate Ras and divide the black community upon "with-us"/"against-us" lines. The protagonist's personal condition has a universality in that everyone is born, lives, and dies without a purpose (except maybe a divined one), often leaving no trace of ever having existed in the grand scheme of things. It is this type of person that the protagonist refers to as "invisible" ("We who write no novels, histories or other books"), includes himself among the unseen, and strives to break out of this condition. An important motif in the novel is that the protagonist is treated with condescension at almost every step in his life, not only by whites who ostensibly are helping him but also by blacks who want to display him to white people as a symbol of black progress. Indeed, the deferential placement of the novel at #19 on the Modern Library's list of the best English-language novels of the 20th Century ironically illustrates this theme. However, "Invisible Man" deserves its acclaim as one of the most complex and provocative novels of the American experience.
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