Invisible Man
By Ralph Ellison
Motivated by a recent PBS documentary on the writer and the
only novel he ever completed – which made the Top 20
of The Modern Library’s 1998 list of the best English-language
novels of the 20th century – I decided to dust off
the paperback I originally read in college and see if it
was still as powerful. Indeed it is. Ellison’s use
of language is scintillating and each chapter has enough
dramatic arc and emotional depth to stand as an independent
work. The opening paragraph of Chapter 5, in particular,
is as rich and lyrical a descriptive passage as I’ve
ever read. Never named, Ellison’s hero is naïve,
intelligent, and deeply concerned with playing by the rules,
which, to his confusion and chagrin, keep changing depending
on the company and part of the country he is in. Ultimately,
he (and we) must confront this conundrum: if society wishes
him (us) to be invisible, what is his (our) place in that
society? Jason M. Rubin
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