Invisible Man (Penguin Modern Classics) Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Invisible Man (Penguin Modern Classics) Book

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.comRead More

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  • Amazon

    Ralph Ellison's impassioned first novel, winner of the prestigious American National Book Award, tells the story of an invisible man 'simply because people refuse to see me'. Yet his powerfully depicted adventures go far beyond the story of one man.

  • Foyles

    'One of the most important American novels of the twentieth century' The Times'It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves'Ralph Ellison's blistering and impassioned first novel tells the extraordinary story of a man invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me'. Published in 1952 when American society was in the cusp of immense change, the powerfully depicted adventures of Ellison's invisible man - from his expulsion from a Southern college to a terrifying Harlem race riot - go far beyond the story of one individual to give voice to the experience of an entire generation of black Americans.This edition includes Ralph Ellison's introduction to the thirtieth anniversary edition of Invisible Man, a fascinating account of the novel's seven-year gestation.With an Introduction by John F. Callahan'Brilliant' Saul Bellow

  • TheBookPeople

    Ellison's blistering and impassioned first novel, winner of the prestigious American National Book Award, tells the extraordinary story of a man who is invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me'. Yet his powerfully depicted adventures - from a terrifying Harlem race riot to his expulsion from a Southern college - go far beyond the story of one man. The lives of countless millions are evoked in this superb portrait of a generation of black Americans.

  • BookDepository

    Invisible Man : Paperback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780141184425 : : 14 Jun 2010 : Tells the story of a man invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me'. In this book, the author from his expulsion from a Southern college to a terrifying Harlem race riot - go far beyond the story of one individual.

  • Blackwell

    Tells the story of a man invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me'. In this book, the author from his expulsion from a Southern college to a terrifying Harlem race riot - go far beyond the story of one individual. The lives of countless...

  • Penguin

    Ralph Ellison's blistering and impassioned first novel, winner of the prestigious National Book Award, tells the extraordinary story of a man invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me.

  • Pickabook

    Ralph Ellison, John Callahan

  • 0141184426
  • 9780141184425
  • Ralph Ellison
  • 2 August 2001
  • Penguin Classics
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 624
  • New Ed
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