Invisible man

by Ralph Ellison

439 pages

English language

Published Nov. 13, 2002 by Random House.

ISBN:: 978-0-375-50791-5

(72 reviews)

Invisible Man is the story of a young black man from the South who does not fully understand racism in the world. Filled with hope about his future, he goes to college, but gets expelled for showing one of the white benefactors the real and seamy side of black existence. He moves to Harlem and becomes an orator for the Communist party, known as the Brotherhood. In his position, he is both threatened and praised, swept up in a world he does not fully understand. As he works for the organization, he encounters many people and situations that slowly force him to face the truth about racism and his own lack of identity. As racial tensions in Harlem continue to build, he gets caught up in a riot that drives him to a manhole. In the darkness and solitude of the manhole, he begins to understand himself - his invisibility …

47 editions

RexLegendi reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Nederlands (English below)

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Nederlands (English below)

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Het duurde eer ik in het verhaal kwam, maar vervolgens werd ik overweldigd door Invisible Man, het inmiddels klassieke werk van Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) dat in 1952 verscheen, aan de vooravond van de opkomst van Martin Luther King jr. en Rosa Parks. Ellison kende de pijnpunten. In zijn boek laat hij eerst de hoop zien van een jonge zwarte man die zich naar de regels van de ‘witte’ maatschappij voegt om zich op te werken, waarna die hoop omslaat in desillusie als blijkt dat die regels zich genadeloos tegen hem keren. Door schade en schande wijs geworden zoekt de man vervolgens zijn heil bij een groep min of meer radicale gelijkheidsactivisten, die hem opnieuw teleurstellen met hun interne conflicten.

Bijzonder is de transformatie die de hoofdpersoon doorgaat. Aanvankelijk is hij erop gebrand vooruit te komen. Dat zijn aanspraak op een beurs is verbonden aan een vernederende battle royale om de witte geldschieters te plezieren, moet dan maar. Wanneer hij in het bijzijn van een witte regent van zijn college in aanraking komt met een zwarte man die zijn eigen dochter zwanger heeft gemaakt, voelt de hoofdpersoon vooral schaamte voor zijn huidskleur. Gaandeweg maakt zijn ambitie echter plaats voor een steeds dieper gevoel van onrecht, gepaard gaande met machteloosheid. (Invisible Man leek in dat opzicht op een modernere versie van [b:Verloren illusies|29903874|Verloren illusies|Honoré de Balzac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1460482295l/29903874.SY75.jpg|2373321] van Honoré de Balzac.)

Hoogtepunten in het boek zijn de duistere proloog en de toespraken die de hoofdpersoon namens de Brotherhood houdt – Go take a drink and forget it. Or read it in The Daily News. His name was Clifton and they shot him, and I was there to see him fall. De laatste hoofdstukken over die Brotherhood vond ik daarentegen chaotisch en niet altijd even boeiend. ‘Ras the Destroyer’? Tolkien zou het niet beter hebben gedaan. Het zijn echter kleine minpunten in een uitstekend boek.

English

Although I had some trouble getting into the story, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is an overwhelming novel. The way he describes his protagonist’s transformation – from hope to fit in and succeed in a ‘white’ society, to despair over social injustice – is stunning, as are the sinister prologue and the speech the protagonist gives in name of the Brotherhood.

lex reviewed Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of 'Invisible man' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Een zwarte odyssee door racistisch Amerika. Een zinderend boek. De meest memorabele passages hebben een haast hallucinante kwaliteit, maar Ellisons schrijven is altijd kraakhelder.

hwebb reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A compelling mix of narrative and philosophy, sadly as relevant as ever.

Adrián Astur Álvarez reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Among the many devastating lines one passage bounced back and forth in my head like a clapper:

"In going underground, I whipped it all except the mind, the mind. And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals. Thus, having tried to give pattern to the chaos which lives within the pattern of your certainties, I must come out, I must emerge."

There is something I can't reconcile about that passage. Something that troubles me about patterning chaos within a pattern of certainties that feels a bit like a snake eating it's own tail and yet there is a contradiction in that passage in that it rings entirely true.

There is obviously a lot to say about this incredible novel, one of the few masterpieces of American literature I have read. Masters theses and dissertations have been written about Ellison's work applying a range of critical analysis using lenses from post-colonialist thought to Jacques Lacan. It would be well beyond the scope of a review to go into any textual analysis and do it justice.

Here's what I can tell you if this novel has caught your fancy. Don't hesitate. The use of metaphor both in scene writing as well as plotting are among the best I have ever read. Where other novels are lucky if they can pull off one or two major set-piece chapters this one is saturated with them.

This is a work of art that is without question poetic, insightful, and resonant long after finishing the text.

DaveNash3 reviewed The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Review of 'The Invisible Man' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

A wonderful performance, what a novel should be. The narrator, the invisible man, travels from the deep south to Harlem and meets a cast of stock characters along the way. Each character gives a different speech that exemplifies their stock or caricatures them. The narration gets a little bogged down in dealing with the brotherhood. The early scenes jumping from Trueblood's farm to the Golden Day to Beldsoe's office to Liberty Paints are the best. A lot symbology. More Reinhardt and less Brother Jack and the girls would have been better. Does the invisible man speak for you?

DaveNash3 reviewed Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of 'Invisible man' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Baltipink reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

It's shocking that I had not read this before now. But I am kind of glad. I feel like I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it as much if I hadn't already banged my head on many similar struggles. I have to admit that it took me a bit to get into it. I think that is because of the unreliable narrator and sometimes streaming writing. But once he got to the activist scene... Things really haven't changed since the fifties.

Matthew M. Conroy reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I'm not sure what to make of this book. I think I am not taking away from this what the author intended since I do not know what that is. I will have to read some analyses.

Very limited character development, other than the main character; really a one-character novel. A number of surprising scenes are well and graphically described.

I was unable to see a point to all of it. Like many things I read and don't "get", I imagine this may be due to my lack of cultural familiarity, but I cannot tell.

B. Zelkovich reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I'm not sure how this book manages to be so powerful and downright lyrical one moment, and then so incredibly boring the next. there are moments that will stick with me, especially the last few lines, but the story as a whole? not so much.

Sharyl reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is a fascinating odyssey, the story of a young African-American man striving to find his identity and make sense of societal issues in the earlier part of the twentieth century. It is told in the first person by an unnamed narrator who undergoes quite a metamorphosis; in the beginning, he is a young, naive student in the South who takes for granted the way things are for black people, but then events force him to head north, where he has many adventures that are confusing, enlightening, enraging, and affirming. Along the way, he meets people who want to use him in one way or another, but none of these people are able to see him as the individual he is. Even when he is hired to make speeches for a social action group that he believes is doing good work, he is eventually admonished not to be thinking for …

Sandra reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The whole time I was reading this book I was feeling disappointed. It seemed so cliched, even though I realize it was written in the mid 20th century; before the civil rights movement and in a world I don't/can't understand. I had to keep reminding myself how revolutionary this seemed at the time. Finally, at the end it all came together and resolved almost like a coming of age story. Sometimes we need to look in the mirror; we need to become visible to ourselves so we become "real" to others. You cannot lead when you are too busy following.

Chris Mayes reviewed Ralph Ellison's Invisible man by Ralph Ellison

Review of "Ralph Ellison's Invisible man" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This was an excellent book. The prose was evocative in a way that reminds me of what creative writing teachers try to encourage but fail to describe. The narrative flows despite the brutal topics. I'll admit that the resolution of the story itself is not entirely clear to me; I didn't have the revelation that the main character had. Still, it is easily the best-written work of fiction that I've read in a long time.