I am an invisible man. ... I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me....
    When they approach me they see only surroundings, themselves, or figments of their
    imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me.

So begins Ralph Ellison's wildly uneven, overlong, emotionally excessive & oft-times hysterical 1953 National Book Award Winner Invisible Man--a book in search of an editor.

From it's opening scene at a Battle Royale, where young black men fight until only one is left standing, to it's closing scene in a Harlem riot, Ellison is always going over the top.  As one can see from Irving Howe's 1952 review, the book's shortcomings have been obvious since it was first published, but that same review makes clear the struggle of the white intellectual establishment to treat it honestly.  The result is, I think, a book whose reputation outstrips it's merit.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (C) Orrin C. Judd

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