About this title: Ellison's classic 1952 novel is about a black man from the South who travels to New York City in the 1930s. He becomes involved with the Communist Party, but is soon disillusioned: the Communists see him not as a person but as a symbol of oppressed humanity, as does the Black Nationalist Group he encounters. This inability of a blind and hostile society to value him for himself, rather than as a projection of the ideas of others, is the recurrent theme of the novel, which becomes more and more surreal as the nameless narrator continues his quest for identity. Ultimately, this is an ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Signet
Date Published: 1952-01-01
Description: Fair. Read, read and read some more. This is the original from 1952, 10th printing of one of the great post War American books. Heavily read, reinforced by tape, underlining inside on about 10 of the 503 pages, read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1989-04-23
ISBN-13:9780679723134ISBN:0679723137
Description: Fair. *c* Binding is tight and square. Text is mostly good-some margin marks and underlines. An average used paperback with wear, corner bumps, small creases, etc. Some moisture wear. We recommend EXPEDITED MAIL for even faster delivery! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin, London
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780140287578ISBN:0140287574
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Well read, used copy, but perfectly readable. 1 v. Essential Penguin.. Originally published: New York: Random House, 1952; London: Gollancz, 1953. read more
Description: Fair. 0679601392 Ex library book with stickers and stampings. Overall good condition with clean text and good binding unless otherwise noted. Edges heavily soiled. Pencil underlining on a few pages. Corners and edges worn. Most items ship within 24 hours. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: The Modern Library By Random House
Date Published: 1952
Description: Fair. No Jacket. Ex-Library. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Typical ex-lib markings, front cover coming unhinged, edges worn, text crisp & clean, a great reading copy. Blue cloth covers with gold lettering on spine. The Modern Library of the World's Best Books. read more
"Ellison hits you hard from the beginning, with one of the most cruel and inhumane scenes you will probably ever read about in the first chapter and a story of incest (with strong implication of another case) in the second. From there the book slows down substantially until the end, but is never boring. Throughout it illustrates both overt racism and the more interesting seemingly benign form that actually drives much of the narrator's life. It would be a mistake, however, to think that the message of the novel is solely about race relations; Ellison makes it clear that most people are "invisible" to the majority of people who look at them, and that many are willfully blind as well.
I find the title and main theme of the book to be a bit of a misnomer. The narrator calls himself "invisible" as he comes to realize that everyone sees him as a token black man, a useful tool, and so forth rather than seeing the man himself with all of his complexities. It seems more that something blocks their view of him than that people see past him to the background, but this does not diminish the power of the narrative. I would not list Invisible Man among my favorites, but it was most certainly worth the read."
"Ellison's book is full of exquisite figurative language and even though my copy had 503 pages, I read it until the end. I was amazed at how he presented all types of personalities in his books, ranging from revolutionary Blacks such as Ras the Exhorter to communistic groups like the Brotherhood. It seems that each situation the Invisible Man is in is a dilemma to its most extreme. Still, at the end of the book, it seems he still hasn't learned his way. The overall lesson I think is "They don't like you, they'll never like you. Be with your people." This book is excellent to use for discussion and I can see why it is one of the most honored books in literature."
This novel is just as trenchantly relevant today as it was in Ellison's time, for the politics of identity is just as much, if not more, as potent an issue today as it was then. Muslim, fundamentalist, gay, red, blue ... The labels of today obscure as much as the labels of yesterday did. Yes, many of the characters other than the nameless narrator are types, but is this not the point that Ellison wishes to make? For are they not trapped in roles too?"
"I read this as an elitist college freshman and understood it all as an allegory. The opening pages were more than a little shocking and graphic, but I accepted them in a way that was outside of actual life. I knew that it was written a long time before I read it and it was to be perused and appreciated rather than absorbed. I think scholars tend to do that kind of thing because it keeps us at arm's length to feeling.
I cannot apologize for what I believed because it was the only way I could have possibly assimilated the entire novel: if any of this were remotely true, I should have probably been shamed beyond my ability to exist. Of course I have changed my mind now, seeing this as a work of consummate genius, a life poured out in a very consequential way. In that sense, this book is almost unique as well as powerful.
Maybe one day I might be able to absorb this as the kind of tragedy it depicts, but I suspect that many more of us have become invisible since then: the genres and positions which are chosen for us by the elitist media, to which I once aspired to be a part,have nothing to do with the underlying humanity which spends its time looking for the truth. Instead we are given fluff and nonsense, an occasional bone here andthere, but nothing which might move us to action. The blood of patriots is all very fine, but most of us today would rather it be someone else's blood and someone else's life which should be sacrificed. I wonder how much longer we shall be able to afford this illusion."
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