Synopsis
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 existential statement, permeated with the author's ironic perceptions about the absurdity of human existence.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1995-03-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 581 pages | | Height: | 8.0 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 16.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
Compelling story of an anonymous black man who experiences a variety of adventures in the South and later in New York City during a fervent quest for personal identity and social visibility.
Industry Reviews
"This is not another journey to the end of the night. With this book the author maps a course from the underground world into the light. 'The Invisible Man' belongs on the shelf with the classical efforts man has made to chart the river Lethe from its mouth to its source."
New York Times Book Review - Wright Morris (04/13/1952)
"An exceptionally good book and in parts an extremely funny one. That is not to say that it is without defects, but since they are almost entirely confined to the intolerably arty prologue and epilogue, and to certain expressionist passages conveniently printed in italics, they can easily be skipped, and they should be, for they are trifling in comparison with its virtues."
Anthony West (05/31/1952)
"The greatest American novel in the second half of the twentieth century."
R.W.B. Lewis
"The Negro American experience...is indispensable to any profoundly American depiction of reality....This background provides the Black writer with much to write about. As fictional material it rivals that of the nineteenth century Russians."
essay - Ralph Ellison
"A book of the very first order....[A] superb book....[W]hat a great thing it is when a brilliant individual victory occurs, like Mr. Ellison's, proving that a truly heroic quality can exist among our contemporaries."
Commentary - Saul Bellow (06/19/1952)
"'Invisible Man' holds such an honored place in African-American literature that Ralph Ellison didn't have to write anything else to break bread with the remembered dead."
New York Review of Books - Darryl Pinckney (05/15/1997)
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