“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison – Weep, and you Weep Alone
To start things off, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is probably not the book you are thinking of, the classic where a man manages to achieve physical invisibility. Rather, this is the story of a man who manages to achieve figurative invisibility, living his life with nobody ever taking notice of him.
Naturally, that man wasn't always a recluse in his lair. He had a long and tumultuous life filled with ups, downs, trials and challenges that shaped him into the one he became.
Everything began way back, as the nameless narrator finds himself expelled from college for having the audacity to explain to a white student the reality of life for black people living in the South, which of course comes with plenty of violence, humiliation, racism, rape and rampant prostitution. Naturally, the narrator really doesn’t take these types of news too well, and so decides to move to New York City, where he becomes the spokesperson for what is known as “the Brotherhood”, slowly realizing how blind and misguided Men of this world truly are.
As you can surely tell, the main topic of this book is race; it delves deeply into many of the hurdles people of color end up facing, mostly at the hands of white men. Though it doesn’t go too overboard by portraying all white people as garbage and all others as saints and saviors, it does feel as if the author had to lean on one side to make his point come across.
Everything began way back, as the nameless narrator finds himself expelled from college for having the audacity to explain to a white student the reality of life for black people living in the South, which of course comes with plenty of violence, humiliation, racism, rape and rampant prostitution. Naturally, the narrator really doesn’t take these types of news too well, and so decides to move to New York City, where he becomes the spokesperson for what is known as “the Brotherhood”, slowly realizing how blind and misguided Men of this world truly are.
As you can surely tell, the main topic of this book is race; it delves deeply into many of the hurdles people of color end up facing, mostly at the hands of white men. Though it doesn’t go too overboard by portraying all white people as garbage and all others as saints and saviors, it does feel as if the author had to lean on one side to make his point come across.
Though the story itself is very interesting, to see the path traveled by the man from spokesperson to invisible hermit, it is only a vehicle for exploring an ages-old problem which sadly still persists nearly all over the world.
I have to give a fair warning to those of you like action packed thrillers, because this is far from being one of them. It is one of those slower-paced, introspective books where at times it truly feels as if nothing is happening and the author is talking for the sake of doing so.
Nevertheless, these moments are far and few in between. On the whole, if you are a patient reader who likes to pay attention to details to get the most out of a read, I wholeheartedly recommend you check out Invisible Man… I believe it will be a very fulfilling experience.
 | Ralph EllisonRalph Ellison was a novelist, literary critic and scholar of American origin. Ellison has won countless awards for his novel Invisible Man, being heralded is the quintessential account of the struggles faced by minorities in America. Many of his writings were focused on political and social issues, and those include Three Days Before the Shooting and Shadow and Act. |
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