Sometimes it is best not to awaken them...

“I remember that I'm invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

I can't believe I waited so long to read this. But part of me thinks I needed to wait to read this. Maybe, and this is hard to admit, maybe I wasn't ready for Ralph Ellison's masterpiece in my twenties or thirties. It was a fever dream. A jazz narrative. A hallucination of pain, beauty, struggle, and life. It was a Hegelian dialectic. It was a black whale just as real as Melville's Moby Dick. It still has me firmly in its grip. There are scenes in this book that are burnt into my mind and tattooed on my soul.

15 people found this helpful

Masterfully written; perfectly narrated

What made the experience of listening to Invisible Man the most enjoyable?

It is a compelling story, full of the suspense and uncertainty that could plague any invisible man. It is also a fascinating guided tour of the main character's feelings: how invisibility feels to him, and how he feels about the fact that he is invisible.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Invisible Man?

The moment when the main character experiences his second major surprise; when he realizes that he had still been running.

What about Joe Morton’s performance did you like?

It was perfect. At no point did I notice that the book was being narrated. I felt all through that the voice I was hearing was that of the main character.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I did not have an "extreme" reaction to the book, but I feel that it is one of the most memorable books that I will ever read.

Any additional comments?

This book is more than a mere good story or complex opinion piece. I feel that to fully appreciate this work, one must be ready to openly contemplate the themes therein.

42 people found this helpful

My volume control had a work-out!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend reading, rather than listening to this book. Joe Morton had a variety of wonderful voices; however, the volume of characters other than the narrator were quite loud. I had to keep turning the volume up and down - if I adjusted for the narrator, then many characters sounded extremely loud. Especially when in the car, I had to continually adjust the volume so not to destroy my ears. This was too long of a book to have that problem.

13 people found this helpful

How Did This Escape Me?

I've never been one to deplore my lack of quality education in public school. I figured that whatever I missed was likely due to inattentiveness and lack of inquisitiveness on my part; but after reading INVISIBLE MAN, I finally come away insensed! Angry and insensed that this book was not assigned to me as part of my upbringing. Even if I can forgive my public schools, then I must blame my private / public university and well-heeled graduate educations for not at least trying to make me aware that this great literature exploring MY American background exists. While I was raised in the most caucasion of caucasion communities, I feel I should still have been made aware--by somebody!--that I needed to read INVISIBLE MAN!

Well . .. now that I've raved a bit, I must admit that even in grad school I wasn't always the most attentive of students. I was deeply involved in whatever topics were discussed at hand, and I wrote stellar essays, I suppose . . . but I might have been daydreaming the day(s) that Ellison's profound influence on modern literature and social and racial issues was discussed . . . perhaps. What a masterpiece. I will read and study it again, and do all I can to influence persons whose education I hope for to read it and read it well.

By the way, if a reader orders this after reading my rant here, please make sure you listen to the introduction. It helps. The book is exquisitely performed and masterfully written. Not only does it provide an essential piece in one's education, but it's also a great, entertaining, riveting, and even humorous in many ways, read.

79 people found this helpful

Brilliant!

I remember seeing this book on my parents' bookshelf when I was a kid. I don't know what made me finally decide to check it out, but I am SO glad that I did! First of all, Ellison's writing is phenomenal. So vivid and bursting with rich, poetic detail. Second, actor Joe Morton's narration was so stunning and passionate, I felt like I was listening to a stage play. His performance was genius! Another reviewer mentioned that this was well worth getting and I couldn't agree more. It's a masterpiece.

Ellison's social commentary is sadly, still applicable today in some ways. But this story is told in a way that doesn't preach to the reader. Just enlightens. It is a fantastic listen--bravo to both Ellison and Morton.

33 people found this helpful

Overwhelming

This is a difficult book. On the one hand, this is a young man's story and it should be read by young people. The lessons in it are invaluable especially to those who might not have yet become aware of how power works; especially in the United States. I wish I read this just after getting out of high school.

On the other hand, reading The Invisible Man and grasping what it is about is, I think, nearly impossible for a young person. To a young person (like a younger me) Ellison's wisdom would sound, I presume, like the rantings of an old drunk in a dive bar. It's a rollercoaster of things that sound embellished. If such a drunk starts to tell you of the terrible things he's seen and done you look for the exit. And so you put away the book.

Sadly, if we could pay attention to the drunk we would learn things that change our lives--not that Ellison is a drunk in a dive bar; far from it. The world might start appearing in it's true and terrifying colors. But we're too damn young and arrogant to pay attention.

The Invisible Man is a life-changing book in the same way. Reading it when young is impossible, and reading when old excruciating. Brilliantly, this is precisely the dilemma of the protagonist, who doesn't see 'it' until it is too late.

I can't think of a comperable American novel. Gore Vidal was absolutely right in saying that the 'Battle Royale' section in a different novel would make it excellent. In The Invisible Man, it's just one of a series of equally eye-opening vignettes about America and Americans.

And this is not a book just about being black in America. To say so is an injustice to its brilliance. Ellison's insights can and should be generalized to all the relationships between the haves and the have-nots. Most of all, to the power dynamics between the young hungry masses and the old satiated elites. The protagonist's journey is a story of any young person's confrontation with real power. This is Kafka with an AK-47.

52 people found this helpful

You've been waiting, buy it, you won't be sorry...

Ralph Ellison's masterpiece comes to life in the hands and voices of Joe Morton. The author's prose is alive, urgent, commanding of your attention.

This is a reading which perfectly matches narrator to subject matter. Mr. Morton is to be commended for his dazzling ability to traverse generation, race, nationality, gender and regional dialects with ease, often in the same sentence. Many passages which deal with multiple voices, the narrator along with other speakers, are confronted with natural ease and pacing. I found, on several occasions, I had to pleasantly remind myself there was only one person responsible for the many clearly identifiable characters.

Invisible Man's absence from the Audible catalog has finally been rectified, and thankfully it has been given the reading and treatment it deserves.

49 people found this helpful

Wow. Yes, there's anger but also great truth

Wow. This book is over 60 years old and an award winner, and I can't believe I'd never even heard of it. Well, I'm glad I found it, and in a great format read fabulously by Joe Morton.

This is about personal identity, not just about race.....though make no bones about it, it's also about being Black in America, at least at the time Ellison wrote it (1953). Maybe it still applies, though I'm not in any position to say.

The book starts and ends with the protagonist (never referred to by name) saying he is an invisible man living homeless in a cellar, but the bulk of the book is about his experiences going to school in the south, then moving to Harlem, becoming an unexpected orator on the street and being recruited by a supposed colour-blind group known as The Brotherhood (loosely but pretty obviously based on the Communist Party). Those experiences all lead him to realize that he had been trying to gain an identity from everyone else (neighbours, family, school, bosses, compatriots, lovers, acolytes, clergy, even passers by on the street -- when he really needed to stop doing and acting as others wanted and determine his own idea of who he was.

"And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man."

"“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”"

There are some sobering thoughts and powerful ideas in this book, and it probably is worth a second listening, or reading, down the road. I'm sure I missed a few things.

11 people found this helpful

Difficult to Listen to

What didn’t you like about Joe Morton’s performance?

His range from loud to quiet made it difficult to listen to. I had to constantly turn the volume up and down in order to avoid deafness, then in order to hear what he was saying.

10 people found this helpful

This Great American Novel

Joe Morton lives and breathes this wonderful look into the life of an exceptional American who tells a story of life in this country. We couldn't have had a better, more passionate narrator.

Ellison delivers to us a rare glimpse into the lives of those who truly depict the soul of America and the state of the country in all its savage complexity and psychopathic depravity. The man with no name is all of us. Ellison says, in one book, what many great novelists take their entire careers to say. This is America at the crossroads and at the beginning of modern American civil rights.

It's a great book and a superb production.

18 people found this helpful