Okay … so I finally finished reading “Invisible Man” (yes, it took me that long) and I take back all previous Ellison slander…. Ralph got bars! I found myself highlighting quite a few that I thought were pretty sick (well phrased), profound, funny, or simply struck a chord with me. Bars like:
“Time was as I was, but neither that time nor that “I” are anymore”
“History makes harsh demands of us all. But they were demands that had to be met if men were to be the masters and not the victims of their times”
“I wanted freedom, not destruction. It was exhausting, for no matter what the scheme I conceived, there was one constant flaw – myself. There was no getting around it. I could no more escape than I could think of my identity…..the two things are involved with each other. When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
“Power doesn’t have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it”
“It was as though I’d learned suddenly to look around corners; images of past humiliations flickered through my head and I saw that they were more than separate experiences and my experiences were me, and no men, no matter how powerful they became, even if they conquered the world, could take that, or change one single itch, taunt, laugh, cry, scar, ache, rage or pain of it.”
“Somewhere in the audience an old woman’s voice began a plaintive wail; the birth of a sad, unformulated song that died stillborn in a sob”
“Two huge women with spoiled cream complexions”
“A man of striking ugliness; fat, with a bullet-head set on a short neck, with a nose much too wide for its face….”
While reading, it was easy to see that Ellison was more than just an author, but also a poet, a musician, an advocate for people (human rights), and for change. However, there were several moments when I felt like he made the deliberate effort to display his diversity. I didn’t need 2 pages worth of a description of grass or random references to different musical pieces or terms. I thought those to be what I like to call “literary boasting” (© 2014). Overall though, it was a very good read … once I got past the fluff, it was difficult to put it down…. I can see why it’s considered a classic….. but then again, what do I know!
Would you consider the title fitting for the main character as opposed to what we know about the author?
ReplyDelete