Online Shop
|
Invisible Man (Essential Penguin)Snagging.org In association with Amazon.co.ukOnline Shop | Property Guides | Kitchen & Home | Garden Tools | Power Tools | Consumer Electronics Get the Snagging Checklist Here!  List Price: £8.99 Amazon.co.uk's Price: £6.99 You Save: £2.00 (22%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 813 EAN: 9780140287578 Edition: New Ed ISBN: 0140287574 Label: Penguin Manufacturer: Penguin Number Of Pages: 480 Publication Date: October 07, 1999 Publisher: Penguin Studio: Penguin Related Items:
Editorial Review: Amazon.co.uk Review: A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, The Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists in a very peculiar state. "I am an invisible man," he says in his prologue, "When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me." But this is hard-won self-knowledge, earned over the course of many years. As the book gets started, the narrator is expelled from his Southern Negro college for inadvertently showing a white trustee the reality of black life in the south, including an incestuous farmer and a rural whorehouse. The college director chastises him: "Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of an education are you getting around here?" Mystified, the narrator moves north to New York City, where the truth, at least as he perceives it, is dealt another blow when he learns that his former headmaster's recommendation letters are, in fact, letters of condemnation. What ensues is a search for what truth actually is, which proves to be supremely elusive. The narrator becomes a spokesman for a mixed-race band of social activists called "The Brotherhood" and believes he is fighting for equality. Once again, he realises he's been duped into believing what hethought was the truth, when in fact it is only another variation. Of the Brothers, he eventually discerns: "They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves.... Here I thought they accepted me because they felt that colour made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either colour or men". Invisible Man is certainly a book about race in America, andsadly enough, few of the problems it chronicles have disappeared even now. But Ellison's first novel transcends such a narrow definition. It's also a book about the human race stumbling down the path to identity, challenged and successful to varying degrees. None of us can ever be sure of the truth beyond ourselves, and possibly not even there. The world isa tricky place, and no one knows this better than the invisible man, who leaves us with these chilling, provocative words: "And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" --Melanie Rehak, Amazon.com Average Rating:
 Rating: - A Thought Provoking ReadI wont go into a full blown analysis of the background to this outstanding novel as it has been covered in depth by many of the previous reviewers, but I will concur that this is an excellent and genuinely thought provoking novel. Literally excellent. Rating: - I don't know what to tell youI guess I've been really dreading writing this review. Not because I don't know what to say, I just don't think I know how to say it. I'm not yet sure how to formulate my thoughts and get them effectively across to you, the reader. I mean, you must be reading this review either because you have already read the book, and are therefore a bit weird, we should be friends, or, more likely, you are thinking about buying it and want to know if it is any good. Well, it is very good. I guess I should start the review by telling you what I actually thought of the book. I loved it. There, I really did love it. I have never read a book quite like it to be honest with you. And, I guess, that is the problem I'm having. How exactly do you review something as unique and original; definitely genius, as `Invisible Man'. Well I'm starting here. Right here. Exactly where your eyes are focused. I'm not sure if I should, but it is and I want to. Storyline wise, this a journey type book. The main character, an unnamed black man from the south, goes on a journey that changes him, and as is expected with journey books, makes him question almost everything he's ever come to know as truth. Well, obviously it goes deeper than that. The writer, Ralph Ellison, puts our unnamed `hero' through a lot. He starts out what could almost be considered a racists dream and turns into, over the course of his journey, a free thinking man, capable of challenging all past beliefs, that has grown wiser and learns the full sum of his parts. Anyway, something like that. I dropped out of college so I'm not going to start analyzing the book. Though, I would probably do an alright job of it. But why do I like it so much? There are plenty of journey books. Plenty of stuff to read, and much of it written more recently than the fifties. Well, like `Alice in Wonderland', another great journey book, this is just plain fascinating to read, and an absolute joy to smash your ever expanding brain into. The characters are all incredibly realized, have their own realistic agendas, and constantly question themselves throughout the novel. People change, circumstances change, settings change; all over the course of the novel nothing is left untouched. Ralph Ellison has taken his subject and molded it perfectly into a work of almost impassable genius. He seemingly with ease tackles complex characters and situations, most of which are unflinching in their graphic and realistic depictions of subjects ranging from racism so disgusting you'll wonder how it could be committed; incest; to the bizarre fantasies of upper class women. All handled in the hands of a master. Something Ralph Ellison undoubtedly was. So, how was my short review? Should I have been nervous about writing it? Did I do a good job? Well, I hope I did. Seriously, I really did love this book. In my opinion, insignificant as it may always be to you, `Invisible Man' is one of the best novels ever. It is just so powerful, and Ralph Ellison so sure of everything he writes about, you just have to open up to it. The way he crafts the novel, the language he uses, the well depth of the main character; all combining, mix in a bowl, and you have this book, faulted as all that which hailed as perfect is; a work of genius; maybe even perfection. Rating: - Invisible ManRalph Ellison's debut novel is a startling and unforgettable vision of racial tension and inequality in 1950s America. In a sprawling and unpredictable narrative, Invisible Man veers between surreal, near-farcical episodes and shocking realism. As much as Ellion's nameless protagonist seems to slip in and out of visibility, so does the novel slip in and out of verisimility, between razor sharp observation and obscurity. The underlying madness of the race question is presented subjectively with ferocious black humour, and the reader is swept violently into the narrator's position early in the novel with a brutal boxing match. We are forced to view things close up and only half understood, between distorted observation to grim lucidity - like the murder of his friend Brother Todd Clifton, a virtuoso piece of writing. It's a book overflowing with ideas and experimentations, but not to the total detriment of readability. The narrator can be a difficult perspective to empathise with, but this enforces the underlying ontological question at the core of the book: "When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me." Buffeted from one situation to another, he spends the first half of the book sucked into and spat out of the American social machinery before being co-opted by a weirdly masonic communist party called The Brotherhood, which manipulates his perceived penchant for public speaking to enhance their outreach in a fast-deteriorating Harlem. The book's apocalyptic climax takes place in the Harlem race riots, a social meltdown presented as a nightmarishly surreal epiosode part-provoked by a horseback Caribbean fantatic, Ras the Exhorter. An extravagant and powerfully emotive work of the imagination. Rating: - Possibly the best book I read for my English degree...I'm not going to bore you with what the book's about as the other reviewers have explained a little about the book. I started the book hating it, and it does begin in a graphic manner to say the least. However, I had to persevere with the book for my exams, and I'm glad I did! It opened my eyes to issues of race in, I felt, a realistic and sometimes horrific way. It's not an easy book, but it's worth grappling with. It's one of the few books I'd like to read again despite its length! Rating: - literary modernism meets gospel!I came to this novel knowing very little of it's context. Subsequently I have read Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Claude McKay, etc.. That is to say I was so moved, I simply couldn't stop reading and through this book I have discovered a rich seam of Literature. Not only is it an accessible rollercoaster of a read, but also a doorway to so much more!! It is worth bearing in mind that at it's time of writing 'Invisible Man' contained signifiers to much of the black literary cannon: Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, Marcus Garvey, The Brer Rabbit folk tales, etc.. Oral traditions, and Literary Traditions alike. It passes through several generations while using a single character, all framed against the black migration north. And what is the premise??? - Simply put, a search for meaning and Identity.  Try searching the Internet for "Invisible Man (Essential Penguin)" or Ebay for "Invisible Man (Essential Penguin)". You might also be interested in the following great products:
|