The Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

There has been a heavy amount of praise for this book, first published in 1952, so the main question for me was how it lived up to those expectations. It is considered by some as a modern American classic.

The writing itself is a well-crafted joy to read. The images in many of the scenes work to create vivid moods and pictures in the reader's mind, as in this early scene when the main character describes how he had stopped himself from stabbing another man:

And I stopped the blade, slicing the air as I pushed him away, letting him fall back to the street. I stared at him hard as the lights of a car stabbed through the darkness.

The main character does not have a name. When the main character joins a political group, his only option for finding suitable employment after a number of failed attempts in areas where he thought he would find success and build his career, he is given a new name which is never revealed. His associates only refer to him as "brother." Having no name is surprising as there is nothing for which the reader can associate, no handle for the personification of the message, which makes it feel, somehow, more omnipresent. It is not simply the cry of a luckless fool weary of the world.

And I defend because in spite of all I find that I love. In order to get some of it down I have to love. I sell you no phony forgiveness, I'm a desperate man–but too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost, unless you approach it as much through love as through hate. So I approach it through division. So I denounce and I defend and I hate and I love.

The story has a positive message. It's not a science fiction about a man who cannot be seen by other people, but rather, the story of a black man as he discovers that the world does not pay attention to him because of the color of his skin. It isn't only about race, though, and the well-known struggles against racism in America. It's about how the main character learned to see the world and make his own decisions, how he learned to take his life into his own hands, without letting other people use him for their own selfish devices.