Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
Shelby
AHH! Invisible Man even in the summer, school haunts me. facking dictates everything I read.
Invisible Man is the story of a guy who realizes he doesn't really exist. He's like, i'm invisible. I still don't get it.
He lives in the 1930s. He is a college student and he's driving around one of the white trustees of the college. But he takes him too far into the boondocks and shows him things he's not supposed to show him. So the dean of the college, Bledsoe, punishes him and sends him up north to "work for some money so you can come back in the fall." The protagonist thinks he's got all these letters of reccomendation for jobs up in New York. But, alas, they are letters of "sorry you had this guy in your office and just fill him up with hope and ignore him or something" so one of the offices tells him what's really up. So he tries to find work on his own. He gets in a paint factory accident and when he wakes up he can't even remember his name. Then someone reads it off his application or something and he's like "oh yeah, sure that's it."
So then he starts living as a tenant with this lady who's too nice to let him stay there. Then he's walking along, eating some yams, and he sees these old folks getting evicted. and he stirs up the crowd around them with a speech and they start a riot or something. then he gets recruited into the Brotherhood, which is a glorified cult, in my opinion. just ready to corrupt the corrupted community. an there's this jamaican guy on a horse wearing a lion skin.
it's just crazy.
I don't know WHO he is, or WHY he's invisible. But the book's mostly about him developing himself and race relations.
it's weird. and long. but really good, i thought.
