BOOK REVIEW

Book Review

Book Review

Subject Matter of the Book

"Invisible Man is a social commentary on the racism that occurs in the rural south and the north in the 1960's as the main character is coming of age. There are vivid descriptions of violence incurred on the protagonist and the antagonist is society at large as well as many of the characters that the main character encounters. There is a strong active sense of the stream of consciousness coming from the main character. The main character is angry at the world for not seeing him as an educated man but as an ignorant man. He goes into detail with the metaphor of being invisible because he is invisible to himself and society at large. "

Author Introduction

Ralph Ellison can make words open up the page like Alice's looking glass, and draw you into scenes like you are there, and all the weird awful crap that happens is affecting you right in the room. Early in the book there is a scene where the protagonist is invited to give a speech to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. It is one of the best written scenes I've ever experienced in any novel. Sex! Violence! Betrayal! More violence! More Betrayal! And THEN he has to give the speech to these men who have shown they to be total savages, and act like one of my UMTYMP honours students giving a valedictory speech at graduation. In summary, Ralph Ellison is covering the same thematic ground that Parks and Wright have. But he is twice the writer that they are, which made this novel quite something to read. I checked amazon.com to find out if he wrote any other novels, knowing I would order them all. Sadly, he did not.

Main Argument

This book was different than the others. Not necessarily in subject matter, but in writing quality. I previously enjoyed Native Son because the plot had twists and turns like you were riding a roller coaster. Invisible Man had twists and turns, but more like g-force nightmare 180 degree hairpins late at night on a mountain road with a 500 foot drop while you are tipsy from alcohol and altitude, with a crazed nymphomaniac in the passenger seat insisting on giving you a blowjob.

A few years ago, in an otherwise dreary and better forgotten number of Horizons devoted to a louse-up of life in the United States, I read with great excitement an episode from Invisible Man. It described a free-for-all of blindfolded Negro boys at a stag party of the leading citizens of a small Southern town. Before being blindfolded the boys are made to stare at a naked white woman; then they are herded into the ring, and, after the battle royal, one of the fighters, his mouth full of blood, is called upon to give his high school valedictorian's address. As he stands under the lights of the noisy room, the citizens rib him and make him repeat himself; an accidental reference to equality nearly ruins ...