Book Club: Invisible Man

I happen to have that book sitting in my reading pile at the moment.

We are going to start talking about this book on 11/11. Quite a few of us are reading it, or about to start (I'm in the latter group). I'd discourage discussion now, because I think that it might stop some people reading it, since they might feel that the discussion has taken place already, without them. The reason for giving plenty of notice was to suit people who can't get through a fattish book in a week as well as those who can. Obviously I am not imagining that I can go forbidding discussion now, but my vote is to leave it until the agreed date.

From what I can remember, however, Invisible Man is ace.

hehe...it could've been like that C4 'comedy drama' called book club. did anyone see that?

it was formed by this american student studying in glasgow. they had a PhD student (who was a junkie too), three gorgeous footballer's wives, a disabled person (works in a leisure centre) and this other guy who can barely read (but is a football fanatic, coincidence or what?) as part of it. loads of twists and subplots and really funny. i enjoyed it.

each episode was a book club organised in the house of each of the participants.

I like this book a great deal. I think his writing may seem simple, but there is a force and a cunning that is not far beneath the straightforward surface. Some of the scenes are extraordinarily potent and memorable (much as I'd like to forget the boxing match and scrabble for pay, for instance), though the paint stuff is a touch Symbolism By Numbers. I was a little exasperated with our hero, in that Ellison's avowed aim was to write about the black experience of the time with an intelligent, aware narrator, something he claims hadn't been done before (I'm no expert, but certainly Ellison's protagonist is less angry and far more thoughtful than the precursors that I know in Wright and Himes), but he seemed frustratingly slow to spot when he was being deceived or mistreated in anything but the most overt ways, almost a Candide-style naif. Maybe that's the reading of someone fifty years on, though.

I'm also not at all sure how well it pulls together into a novel. Strong episodes for the most part, but some are weakly coupled, and the thematic unity didn't quite suffice for me (less effort to make a realistic story might have made that work better, perhaps becoming some kind of Postmodern picaresque). This seems also to relate to his subsequent career, decades struggling to make thousands of pages of writing into a new novel (or trilogy, maybe), that posthumously was shaped into Juneteenth, if you can call what you end up with 'shaped'. Maybe Ellison was a great writer but a rotten novelist?

It's now a few years since I've read it, as mentioned upthread, but I remember thinking that he was a far less naive protagonist than Bigger Thomas, particularly at the end. Certainly he starts off that way, and its worth bearing in mind that throughout the course of the novel he is beaten from pillar to post and not in sound mind half the time. I always thought that the narrator, speaking as he does at the end of his experiences (does he have a name? I can't remember), seems rather too aware of his position, beaten down by life and withdrawn from it. "I am an invisible man because people refuse to see me" seems very jaded and world-weary to me.

What did you think of Ras the Destroyer?

What struck me on the personal level is how the novel is now a period piece to an extent that illuminates history; the general descriptions of the left of the time come down as vaguely saintly, people turning to an approach in the wake of World War I and later the Great Depression and eventually getting crucified for it as the Fifties rolled along. Here they, or at least those the narrator encounters, come as humorless, willfully self-blinded, manipulative prigs -- they care or claim to care, but won't engage, preferring to mediate with someone willing to do their job for them. The narrator may be a faux-naif, but it's important to consider his state of mind and of self early on in the novel, and how strong his desire to carry out the Founder's dream, of uplift, is. It's little surprise he takes the opportunity to do something about that when he does; where the frustration comes in is when he can't understand why the Brotherhood doesn't recognize or credit his own work. That whole series of confrontations was excellently written, it was such an interlocking of racism, intellectual stubbornness, personal blinkers at play and the groping inarticulacy of communication where all sides can talk and understand what is being said but an essential gift of interpretation and reaching a truer understanding is lost.

And it's just so sharp with its language sometimes, many times. One can tell it's a novel inheriting and working with modernist ideas, and there are so many purely wonderful moments of description. One random line that stood out from so many, when he speaks of trying to seduce Sybil near the end -- "I had neither itch nor etchings." A subtle referring to a more familiar cliche that avoids the cliche and shoots a sense of the doubt into the whole process, just wonderful.

Mm, more thoughts later...

I agree with Martin that it is more a novel of memorable scenes than of a cohesive plot. But the theme was strong enough to propel me from one scene to the next, so I didn't really mind, though occasionally Ellison's presentation of it (the theme) felt a little heavy-handed.

I'm not sure what to think of Ras the Exhorter/Destroyer...he was I.M.'s alterego, in a way, and I thought that the realization that he was being played just as much as I.M. was really illustrated the sense of futility I.M. must have felt at the end (and in race relations of the time?)--as in, violence or brotherhood, what's the difference?

What did you all think of Clifton's puppets? A little over-obvious symbolism? And what about Rinehart?

Let the record show that when Dan asked me to guess which line was his favorite the other day I immediately responded with this. ;-)

I wonder...there is an echo of Candide in all this, yes? Or am I trying to force a connection here? The two narrators aren't equivalent, but I think that's the whole point...

Ras the Exhorter/Destroyer was great because when he first gets mentioned right at the start it's so out of nowhere -- I was wondering, "Who or what is this character? Some weird dream figure? A touch of fantasy?" Which perhaps in a way he was. I do like the hints of context given him, such as the clipping about Marcus Garvey in the possessions of the old couple who are evicted.

Clifton's puppets seem grotesquely heavy-handed nowadays, but on the other hand you don't have to go far to find people who'll tell you that Robinson's Jam withdrawing its gollywog symbol in, I guess, the early '70s, was political correctness gone mad: in 1952, it was something well worth pointing out.

Did only four of us actually read this, or are there more to come? I'm suspecting that this book club thing may not last...

once I finish I'll contribute.

which book next? i suggest Orwell's 1984.

In other words, you should all keep up with the book club, just to make my life better. :-)

I haven't read Candide in ten years, so could someone tell me what the similarity is, exactly?

Dan just preemptively answered my question, but I'll let it stand, anyway.

I thought it was interesting because I haven't read many books addressing racism, and it had a different take on it than anything I have read. The difference was in the narrator's naivete at the start (mine as well), and the idea that everything had so many hidden causes and effects that it's hard to pinpoint what exactly is the right thing to do or the right party line to follow. What Dan said about other people seeing you as what they need you to be wasn't something I'd thought of in this context before, or really at all.

I haven't read Candide, so I can't take part in this part of discussion. But I wouldn't have read Invisible Man if I hadn't had this book club deadline organized thing, and I'm glad I did, so let's keep the book club.

And of course, no book club death. That would be wrong.

Also, I never really gave it that much thought, but slavery in this country ended less than two centuries ago. There are conflicts and societal problems all around the globe rooted in incidents that happened THOUSANDS of years ago; it's not suprising that US still has race issues based on something so recent (likewise, it puts a VERY different perspective on Isreal's reactions in the Middle East, considering there are still people living today who experienced The Holocaust).

I came home and skim-read a few of what I thought were key moments of the book, so I'd be willing to chuck in my two cents whenever - I'm sure there are other people who have read the book on here, even if they read it ages ago or just haven't got around to posting yet.

Anyway, I think Martin's right about a lot of the imagery seeming slightly obvious now (the black chemicals IM drops into the paint to make it whiter, Ras the Destroyer up on his horse chucking spears in the middle of Harlem, the Sambo puppet as previously mentioned) but they would have had trememdous power back in the 50s. I don't find them especially cliched even now, such is the resonance within the context of the novel.

One of my favourite things about the novel was the way that the characters move from being fairly concrete and believable in the first half of the book - Dr Bledsoe, the white guy who IM shows around the college and takes to that dodgy bar - and they get considerably more outlandish and almost hallucinogenic as the novel progresses. You really don't know whether Ras is *really* up there chucking spears on a horse (as I've said, in the midst of a Harlem riot it seems unlikely) or whether this is just the way IM chooses to see him at this point - the mirror works both ways. Likewise, do we ever actually see Rinehart, or is he just a shadowy figure, which IM then adopts to suit himself, playing the appearance game to suit himself, in much same way recommended by the guy on the coach up to New York? Appearance and reality get progressively confused.

And IM running away from the drunken Sybil - a deliberate echo of Native Son? Is the IM escaping Bigger's fate, only to wander into something almost as desparate?

Alternatively, judge for yourself - you can read Native Son in a day fairly easily, it's like reading a thriller.

I think that's entirely dependent on what you think Ellison's message is. I didn't find all that much about _Invisible Son_ to be ambiguous (or rather, I didn't find the themes to be ambiguous).

Anyway. I struggled enjoying the book this time around, having read it about 5-6 years ago and finding it immensely gripping. This time, though, a whole bunch of things that I saw for the first time (the IM's early density, etc.) made the effort more laborious. Add to that what I felt to be Ellison's at times clunky prose (which may just be the recent shift in my focuses, more towards style and aesthetics), the indecisiveness of the narrator who sez constantly throughout the novel words like "seemed to," "it was like," etc., and this aesthete was very upset. Granted, this sort of language is probably supposed to suggest IM's mental state, overly intent at classifying and defining things perfectly, but because society is obv. not so cut and dried, that the indefinite and chaotic is the ruling principle beneath the surface, he kind of fizzes out of existence and into madness (as Dan sez); I still found the style grating.

Another issue that I've wanted to address and have addressed is the reliability of IM. A possible inconsistency that I noticed was that the book began with IM's ironic, cynical voice in the prologue, and continued into the first chapter then seemed to fade into a more, as-it's-happening voice. I don't want to think that it's a mistake on Ellison's part, so what are other people's thoughts? Also, I had the sneaking suspicion that IM was literally dead after he fell into the sewer, as a way to play on the invisibility theme, and that we do have "a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe" (btw, was "spook" a slur when Ellison was writing?), and a crazy ghost at that. After all, he tries to become a negating entity as opposed to the person he was before, constantly craving affirmation from his superordinates.

A thought -- I have to admit that at the start of the story I didn't see IM as insane, necessarily. Reclusive, to be sure. But maybe it's because his 'insanity' seems so normal to him...

One reason for the perceived inconsistency might be that it took a while to write (seven years or so) and parts were published as stories (most famously the boxing match episode). I don't mind reading each section as if written immediately, but it's true that chapter 1 proper does have a more knowing narrator, though our protagonist's attitude seems consistent with later episodes.

!!!!!!!

THAT IS A HELLA COOL INTERPRETATION. (I'm certain that "spook" was a slur when this was written; it it wasn't, this book might have inadvertently introduced it!)

The ghost idea is neat because it's reverse symbolism compared to English class or something, when the teacher would go on about how an actual ghost would just be symbolic of alienation - it's quite the opposite!

Obviously, the idea of playing a role is a prominent issue, from the naif to the idealist to the cynic; and when IM assumes these roles, he's positively affirming the various qualities that go with these roles as presences. Even when he suggests that his current role is outdated, he avoids using negative language: "Yet it had been mainly a time for listening and, being a talker, I had grown impatient" (p. 358 my version). This binary of alternatives has components (talker vs. listener) which are not necessarily opposites.

Yet such binaries couched in positivistic terms is often fraught with instability. "The uptown rhythms were slower and yet were somehow faster" (423, second sentence of chapter 20). We see his tendency to fit things into narrowly defined roles/words, but here he manages to create both a contradictory and indefinite image. A likely source of these problems is IM's preoccupation with his grandfather's words (i.e. he is haunted by this advice), which amounts to outward affirmation that eventually will lead to the destruction of whites IIRC.

So it's appropriate then that when he is a ghost, his language is negative: "No, I am not a spook like those who haunted EA Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms... I am invisible, simply because people *refuse* to see me. Like the *bodiless* heads..." (p. 3). Even the TS Eliot epitaph begins with negation. So it's rather appropriate that IM decides to become a negating force when he's in the void of the sewer in which he rejects all things that everyone considers kosher.

And sorry for the academese.

might this be because in the prologue he is coming from an epilogue mindstate (speaking from within his hole thinking back on his experiences), then as he gets into the story proper, the narration takes on a tone appropriate to his life at that time, with more hope and focus?

one thing which i found interesting was that in scenes of intense action, violence, passion, etc. the writing would turn suddenly more poetic, disjointed (i'm not finding the words i want) - capturing the craziness of being swept up in the moment, and at the same time a bit harder to follow ;-)

"I had started toward the elevator when I heard the voice raised in laughter and turned to see him holding forth to a group in the lobby chairs and saw the rolls of fat behind the wrinkled, high-domed, close-cut head, and I was certain that it was he and stooped without thought and lifted it shining, full and foul, and moved forward two long steps, dumping its great brown, transparent splash upon the head warned too late by someone across the room. And too late for me to see that it was not Bledsoe but a preacher, a prominent Baptist, who shot up wide-eyed with disbelief and outrage, and I shot around and out of the lobby before anyone could think to stop me."

other moments that were similar to me were the heat of the argument with jack where the eye comes out, and the chase leading to clifton's shooting. am i making any sense?

sorry i'm late in finishing this, will try to do better with M.B. - luckily significantly shorter ;-) my reading habits / disciplines are horrible, but that is why i hope this book club keeps going, motivation...

I read Invisible Man before Native Son and only noticed the parallels when I read the latter.

;-)

reading this amazing book the last few weeks and kicking myself for not doing it sooner. the opening comment in this thread: Does anyone else find Ellison's prose to be underdeveloped and naive? is so staggeringly wrong i find myself wondering what the hell was going thru that dude's head.

it is a pretty amazing book. the last half is kind of hazy in my memory but the first few chapters are as vivid and powerful as anything i can remember reading.