Today’s review is on “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison—ah-ha! You all read this review’s title and thought ole Kevin was losing his marbles, reviewing the same book twice. But no—this is another book about invisibility, metaphorical invisibility, where Ellison tries to capture the black experience through fiction.
***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***
What I love about this book:
This book is really a series of stories, loosely strung together by our unnamed protagonist, a young black man. Because of circumstances mostly out of his control, he leads several lives that make him an excellent everyman character—who is black. I say he’s an everyman character, but part of the novel’s point is he’s also no one because of his persistent anonymity. The whole device of never properly naming the protagonist of the story is clever in supporting this theme.
Sometimes funny, “Invisible Man,” for the most part, is rather poignant. I believe its most salient point is that—despite how society acts—black people aren’t all a homogenous group. They are people, some good, some bad, some apathetic, and others deeply caring and loving. They don’t all think the same, they don’t all value the same things, but they all have the shared experience of being black, which in America, historically and today, is a mixed bag—often negative. All that, plus the marginalization and being robbed of agency in one’s own life, is what I believe Ellison was trying to capture with this novel.
Ellison had to have known he would ruffle some feathers with this novel because he takes an unsparing examination of all society. Not just with what you might expect—topics such as racism and how violence tends to only accomplish more violence, but his critiques also wither things that are nearly universally considered virtues. His point, I believe, is that under the right circumstances, even good things can be corrupted—and that’s a brave and subtle point to make.
What I don’t love about this book:
The whole medical experiment scene, while creepy, and I like creepy, just ends awkwardly. I get the spirit of what Ellison was driving at—a sort of Tuskegee Experiment vibe—but plotwise, it’s an episode somewhere in the middle of the story that feels out of place. After the protagonist is injured “accidentally” at the paint factory he is working at, he’s taken to the company doctor to be treated. And sure, that was a popular thing back in the day and relevant to the black experience. If you’ve ever read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” you’ll know that the medical profession has had some troubling track records with black people. But why it doesn’t work for me is it doesn’t add or take away anything in the novel. It happens, the protagonist has an odd conversation with the doctor, and then he leaves. But other than suffering from feeling faint for a bit, he has no further complications, and it’s as if nothing happened.
Narratively speaking, occasionally, the transition from one scene to the next got a little foggy for me. I’ve considered that might be an intentional move by Ellison to further the novel’s surreal atmosphere, but, for me, any time I miss a mental gear change as I did several times in this book, it just annoys me.
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***The Spoiler part of this review***
***Ye be warned to turn back now***