Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
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Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
About the Author
Ralph Ellison was born in Okalahoma and trained as a musician at Tuskegee Institute from 1933 to 1936, at which time a visit to New York and a meeting with Richard Wright led to his first attempts at fiction. Invisible Man won the National Book Award and the Russwurm Award. Appointed to the Academy of American Arts and Letters in 1964, Ellison taught at many colleges including Bard College, the University of Chicago, and New York University where he was Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities from 1970 through 1980. Ralph Ellison died in 1994.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Desi,
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This review is from: Invisible Man (Paperback)
I read this book years ago. I bought it for my son and I plan on reading it with him. This book shows how some people in society view others as insignificant.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison,
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This review is from: Invisible Man (Paperback)
This book is amazing hands down. I love the ideas of invisibilty, blindness, and oppression. However, the seller did not state that they wrote into the book and the prolog was written on. Also some other pages had foot notes inserted by the previous reader. All in all, after looking over those minor problems, good book.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intensity for the Black Experience in America,
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This review is from: Invisible Man (Paperback)
I'm a white guy who just finished reading "Invisible Man." This is a classic work of 20th century American literature. The narrator of the novel, told in first person, is never named. What a concept! After all, he's invisible, right? This young black man starts out in the South and then moves to New York City, circa the 1940s (even the time frame in this book is hard to figure.) The leading character constantly gets into trouble for doing the right thing or just being honest. At times, his adventures seem the stuff of bad acid trips or journeys through an "Alice in Wonderland" kind of world populated by people spouting intellectual sophistry if not outright b.s. He joins "the Brotherhood" whose members are white and black, its politics cynical and pragmatic. This group pays him money to give speeches and be an administrator. But he eventually discovers their true motives. The narrator's only friends are the married white women who throw themselves at him for purposes of stud, his only bad karma in the book. Yet he's certainly a likeable, introspective fellow, a Kafka-esque victim of society.
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