Book notes | Invisible Man
Members of UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club, meeting on September 24 to discuss Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, agreed this is not a one-dimensional novel about racial unrest. It is an odyssey of institutional myths, from meek assimilation and religious consolation in the South to nationalist Africanism and radical activism. Great lessons result in great truths. Truly a book rich in ideas.
Throughout, the narrator, a nameless Black American, comes up against authority figures that use their power to serve their own interests.
It is often a tale of deception and betrayal. Racial equality and the promise of a free society are hollow myths.
We agreed that there was a lot more to say, therefore the discussion will carry over to our October meeting. There was a problem with the two reminders that were emailed prior to the September meeting. As a result, there were fewer Fourth Friday members in attendance than normal.
The subject of our October 22 meeting will be A Confederacy of Dunces, as planned, with time for further discussion of Invisible Man.
—Dorothy Marden, Fourth Friday Book Club
Book Club II to meet September 24
Fri, Sep 24 2021, 2pm
The Fourth Friday Book Club selection for its meeting at 2 p.m. on Friday, September 24, is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
First published in 1952, Invisible Man was the recipient of the National Book Award and numerous other literary awards. It is the perspective of an unnamed Black, first-person narrator. It reads as a catalog of formative institutions that confound something as fundamental as human identity.
First in the Deep South, and then in New York City, the protagonist is “invisible” in a very real sense. Throughout, the narrator comes up against authority figures that use their power to serve their own self interests. It is often a tale of deception and betrayal.
The many obstructions are real. In the face of one stereotype opposing another stereotype, of one ideology diminished by a competing ideology, racial equality and the promise of a free society are hollow myths.
Expansive rite of passage
The characters are richly drawn. They are educated, articulate, and self-aware: the president of an all-Black college; advocates of violence; leaders of reform movements; spokesmen of political parties, common-cause brotherhood communities, and others.
“Most impressive of all is Ellison's expansive rite of passage, it is the very ideal of artistic generosity. Its exuberant, Hegelian movements blend diverse literary genres and traditions, from Mark Twain to William Faulkner, from the slave narrative to the surrealistic Kafkaesque parable, from black folklore to Freud,” wrote author, professor emeritus, and National Book Award winner Charles Johnson in a preface to the novel.
Zoom information will be sent out one week before the meeting.
Please contact Dorothy Marden or Margaret Catambay for further information.
—Dorothy Marden, Fourth Friday Book Club (aka UMRA Book Club II)
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