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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I have so many thoughts to unpack with this one. I get why people both love and hate it. The racial politics are dense and worthy of attention. I enjoyed the way we followed the narrator and the people he met. It was really long and dragged in parts for sure. I did the audio and Joe Morton is a legend and a supreme talent.
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book had a lot of good qualities and spoke to a lot of important issues, but I personally had trouble engaging with it especially further into the novel.
The main character is meant to be nameless both literally and figuratively which is an interesting concept, but I had trouble connecting with him for most of the book. (He also is very much evidence that intelligence does not equate to wisdom. That man did not know what was going on ever.) His personality was often intentionally vague, and I'm a very character foward sort of reader, so I think that contributed to some of my boredom throughout the novel.
The main character is meant to be nameless both literally and figuratively which is an interesting concept, but I had trouble connecting with him for most of the book. (He also is very much evidence that intelligence does not equate to wisdom. That man did not know what was going on ever.) His personality was often intentionally vague, and I'm a very character foward sort of reader, so I think that contributed to some of my boredom throughout the novel.
**
a rollicking picaresque; surreal, ambitious, penetrating, and very funny. the entire first half is glorious, illuminating socio-political realities not through blunt polemic but through metaphor; episode after episode of absurd, grotesque, hilarious, terrifying, batshit cartoonish events that reveal so much more than dry literalness ever can. in this way it reminds me so much of Donald Glover's 'Atlanta', and feels like a forefather to it. there are obvious echoes of Dickens, and Twain, but here there's a certain chaos, an anarchic quality that appeals to me a great deal more than the overly formalist style of Dickens.
my only gripe is that once our protagonist joins the brotherhood, things start to get a great deal less metaphorical and a lot more literal. the bulk of the novel from this point onwards is actually pretty straightforward, and entire chapters go by without anything overly surreal; it almost feels like a different novel. this is understandable; Ellison himself had lived this very experience of being part of a communist group, believing that he was contributing to a cause that valued him and would change society for the better, only to discover that they saw racism as a minor ill and saw their black comrades merely as useful pawns. It's pretty clear that entire chunks of the last half of this novel are inspired by direct experiences and wounds that still smart. I'm all for the utter cluelessness of stalin-worshipping tankies being exposed and lampooned, and between them Richard Wright & Ralph Ellison essentially provide the black american version of Orwell's takedown of soviet-inspired ideology, but I can't help being disappointed that a novel of such dizzying absurdity should spend so long bogged down in the relatively sober & mundane. Ellison's understandable desire to share his experience of american communism and provide a realistic expose just doesn't flow with the improvisational chaotic jazz of all that preceded it.
still, at it's worst it's very well written and witty and interesting, and at it's best it's extraordinary.
a rollicking picaresque; surreal, ambitious, penetrating, and very funny. the entire first half is glorious, illuminating socio-political realities not through blunt polemic but through metaphor; episode after episode of absurd, grotesque, hilarious, terrifying, batshit cartoonish events that reveal so much more than dry literalness ever can. in this way it reminds me so much of Donald Glover's 'Atlanta', and feels like a forefather to it. there are obvious echoes of Dickens, and Twain, but here there's a certain chaos, an anarchic quality that appeals to me a great deal more than the overly formalist style of Dickens.
my only gripe is that once our protagonist joins the brotherhood, things start to get a great deal less metaphorical and a lot more literal. the bulk of the novel from this point onwards is actually pretty straightforward, and entire chapters go by without anything overly surreal; it almost feels like a different novel. this is understandable; Ellison himself had lived this very experience of being part of a communist group, believing that he was contributing to a cause that valued him and would change society for the better, only to discover that they saw racism as a minor ill and saw their black comrades merely as useful pawns. It's pretty clear that entire chunks of the last half of this novel are inspired by direct experiences and wounds that still smart. I'm all for the utter cluelessness of stalin-worshipping tankies being exposed and lampooned, and between them Richard Wright & Ralph Ellison essentially provide the black american version of Orwell's takedown of soviet-inspired ideology, but I can't help being disappointed that a novel of such dizzying absurdity should spend so long bogged down in the relatively sober & mundane. Ellison's understandable desire to share his experience of american communism and provide a realistic expose just doesn't flow with the improvisational chaotic jazz of all that preceded it.
still, at it's worst it's very well written and witty and interesting, and at it's best it's extraordinary.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is vulgar, violent, and graphic. I can see the importance it holds as a part of American history, but I really did not enjoy this book at all. It's incredibly long, at nearly 19 hours on audio book. Perhaps if it had been half as long I could have gotten more into the story. But the characters felt more like caricatures, and overall it was just tedious. Only my perfectionist need to check off my TBR made me finish this.
challenging
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
so beautifully written (“i must shake off the old skin and come up for air”) and so blatantly obvious from the first page why it’s a classic
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes