Reviews with content warning for Racism - Invisible Man

a timely classic that almost feels like it could have been written yesterday. it’s scary how much this book is still relevant.

I wish I would have been able to read it in a class, because I feel like I didn’t get everything out of it that I was supposed to… almost feels like I read it “wrong”. it was a daunting novel that was difficult to pick up. the plot was not difficult to understand, but the plot of this book is definitely secondary. it’s there to deliver the message, but I missed out on the message half of the time.

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matthewosborne's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a very interesting book.

Something that resonated with me was how much of this book is still relevant 70 years after it was first published. Which is sad and disheartening.

As the book progressed I found there to be a number of themes that resonated with some of my own experiences.

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djvill's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I can see why Invisible Man is an important work. This book puts you inside the head of the unnamed first-person narrator as he tries to navigate white respectability, only to find that the only way for him to survive a white man's world is to accept his powerlessness. As a non Black person, I'm grateful for works like this that help me better understand the profound psychological tax of being Black in America. To me, Ellison's thesis is that for Black Americans, the pursuit of assimilationism in an America where white supremacy pervades all spaces - including radical left-wing spaces that profess colorblindness - inevitably leads to failure.

Maybe that explains Ras's evolution from Exhorter to Destroyer?

This is a profoundly pessimistic view, even nihilistic, but reading in the context of 2023, I found myself moved by it.

It was interesting to consider the historical context of this book, sandwiched between the Harlem Renaissance on one hand and the Civil Rights Movement & Great Society on the other. By setting the book's main action in a down-and-out Harlem, Ellison seems to be saying "the promise of the Renaissance is dead". The book was also eerily predictive of the future, notably

a riot sparked by police murders of innocent Black people

.

All that said, this book really didn't need to be 600 pages. The action is super slow developing - the narrator doesn't arrive in New York until page 155. I made the mistake of trying to read this book at bedtime; the slow action often put me right to sleep, and reading it over a few months meant I lost some recurring plot threads. It's also obviously an old-fashioned book. But I really enjoyed it in the daytime. It's insightful, darkly humorous, literary in a way that stops short of being overly high-minded, and its plot is compelling.

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2k1sofia's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

5.0

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lydvos's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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ha1yan's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Invisible Man follows the unnamed Black narrator from the end of high school through the first few years of his early adulthood. And they were undoubtedly tumultuous years as his dream of college was snatched away from him, his efforts to gain employment sabotaged, and his involvement in community activism marginalised and hijacked. The many ways the narrator’s race stopped people from seeing him for who truly was because they were so blinded by their preconceptions of what a Black man was, and the way he altered his way of being in accordance with those preconceptions made a big impact. His treatment by the Brotherhood and their use of issues of importance to the Black community in general, certainly has many parallels in more contemporary social movements. I found this to be a challenging read and I sometimes struggled to understand exactly what was happening and what it meant. This was especially true for the more surreal aspects in the plot. But I’m glad I stuck with it since my effort was well rewarded.

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