Invisible Man

Rating:
Summary: Long, but worth it
Review: This was one of the longest books I ever read. However, unlike many classics, this book was worth the read. Classics I have read are usually overrated bore-fests without a plot or conflict to engage the reader, but this book was interesting. Even exciting. The haunting symbolism and wonderful command of diction in this book is astounding. Even recreational readers can enjoy this classic.

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest American Novel
Review: Unqueationably Ellison has written the greatest American novel in every sense of the phrase. The story is the epic search for an identity, an American identity in a world that labels individuals in order to negate their power. The titular modern hero represents any man or woman pinioned against the floor of life by the boot of American capitalism which dictates everyone's role in life before they're even born. It is this maxim which the Invisible Man must discover for himself, i.e. the rules of the game are not what he has learned in school and until he realizes this dichotomy between America the real and America the ideal he moves from school to work to political activisim constantly defeating himself. The novel is Zen before Zen was in. The spiritual journey described in images replete with cinema and words that narrate themselves should resonate with any reader who has ever searched for satisfaction, serenity and contentment in life only to find hurt, pain and disappointment in all the commercially prescribed solutions. The work is epic by covering the most salient facets of modern American life from a psychological perspective which attempts to heal the narrator and the reader as well. A little dated in the sense that it doesn't approach drugs/alcoholism or gay identities, Ellison had little choice but to be conservative so as not to blur the meaning of his message as well as to avoid the political oppression going on in the country at the time. The novel is sophisticated, intellectual, humorous, magical, adventurous, gargantuan, approachable, and best of all a good read. I thoroughly recommend this work NOT as an African American novel on identity, but as a novel on AMERICAN IDENTITY.