Book Review: Invisible Man is a classic, a work of brilliance, and it's my huge loss (probably a crime in many states) that I didn't read it until now. I'm so glad I did.
This is a book about race, but also an existentialist novel. Part of Ellison's brilliance is how he intertwines the two to show how existentialism is peculiarly part of the African American experience, inextricably linked. For blacks especially, life in America is solely an existential experience. The treatment of, and therefore the life of, American blacks, has no rules, no morals, no meaning ("the same they we always mean, the white folks, authority, the gods, fate, circumstances"). The rules are different for blacks and white, and the rules on which black Americans feel they can rely, may change in a second (there is no legal protection). The long history of the treatment of American blacks, has reached incredible levels of immorality, such that there is no morality ("the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie!"). Even the religion in which many blacks so devoutly believe has a tragic history. In the end, life is meaningless, leaving the individual disoriented and confused, stunned ("I believed in nothing"). Dispossessed.
Our hero leaves his home in the South, hopeful and eager, determined to succeed, attends a "Negro" college, looks for work in upper Manhattan (white New York City -- leading to more absurdity), and then winds up working for the Communist Party in Harlem. The book ends in a mix of dark humor and a hellish vision of chaos. At the same time, philosophy crashes through the scene in a final moment of existential realization, after the many moments that preceded it.
While reading I kept feeling that somehow this book was Candide meets The Trial. Although our nameless protagonist is naive and gullible, he is not quite as unbelievably so as Voltaire's hero. And although The Trial, another great existentialist work, seemed surreal to me, fantastic, allegorical, Invisible Man stays just on the real side of reality; there are moments that may perhaps seem implausible, but always possible. As in The Trial, our hero faces a number of challenges that he cannot understand, that have no meaning, demonstrating that the world is not as he thought, and leaving him alone and lost. He becomes irresponsible, because there is no one to be responsible to: is the purpose of life to see or to blind us?
For those who enjoy unpeeling the layers of the ogre, this book includes symbolism on virtually every page. A leather briefcase, a glass eye, a metal coin bank, life insurance policies marked "void," and many more elements give innumerable levels of meaning to the book. For readers whose hobbies don't include decoding novels, Invisible Man is still an enthralling, engaging, exciting read, and the reader may safely ignore anything that resembles a symbol; the book will still be meaningful, and is still a work of comparative humanity. There are so many brilliant, emotional scenes. But for me the death and funeral scenes are overwhelming in their power. The repeated discussions and evocations of identity are another enlightening strength of this book (as in the hospital, when we meet Rinehart, etc.): "I was and yet I was invisible ... I was and yet I was unseen." He is not there in so many ways, as a student, friend, man, even as a lover.
A small note: early in the book Ellison mentions Ralph Waldo Emerson, and then again throughout the novel. If the reader doesn't realize it, the author's name is Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after the American essayist. This naming seemed to have troubled Ellison throughout his life. For grail hunters, Invisible Man is one of the novels that is in the running for the "Great American Novel." Meaningful, historical, profound, yet one of the most accessible classics I've ever read. No American should be allowed to graduate college without reading this book. [5★]
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