Invisible Man
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Joe Morton
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By:
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Ralph Ellison
About this listen
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.
After a brief prologue, the story begins with a terrifying experience of the hero's high school days, moves quickly to the campus of a Southern Negro college and then to New York's Harlem, where most of the action takes place. The many people that the hero meets in the course of his wanderings are remarkably various, complex and significant. With them he becomes involved in an amazing series of adventures, in which he is sometimes befriended but more often deceived and betrayed—as much by himself and his own illusions as by the duplicity of the blindness of others.
Invisible Man is not only a great triumph of storytelling and characterization; it is a profound and uncompromising interpretation of the Negro's anomalous position in American society.
©1952 Ralph Ellison (P)2010 Random HouseEditor reviews
An idealistic young man strives to make his way among the like-minded of his own Black community and the larger white world beyond only to experience cascading disillusionment in both. He is The Invisible Man, the protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece, electrifying today, and devastatingly so when published in 1953. A richly poetic and cinematic work carrying a searing social critique, the novel features a first-person narrative that seems written to be heard as much as read. And the actor reading to us here seems to have been born for the role; as the movie trailers say, Joe Morton is The Invisible Man.
From his nameless and hidden existence in a Manhattan basement, our narrator leads us through the events leading to his identity or lack of one. A high school valedictorian down South, he receives a scholarship from a white group after being brought onstage for a humiliating, bigoted burlesque. Honored at his Black college to chauffeur a visiting white benefactor, he accedes to the request to take a fateful detour through the town’s Black slums. As a result, the college’s president, a venerated yet utterly Machiavellian figure, scapegoats him. Expelled and directed north for redemption and employment, he again becomes the fall guy, literally and figuratively, when he is injured and laid off from his job in a union-embattled New York City factory.
Nursed back to health by the kind, maternal Mary up in Harlem, he seems to find his calling at the unlikely event of an elderly couple’s eviction. Spontaneously addressing the roiling crowd to temper their rage lest it incite the armed white evictors, the injustices he shares with them by race, as well as those befalling him for less obvious reasons, impassion him to eloquently encourage their defiance. His oratory draws him to the attention of Jack, head of ‘the brotherhood’ (Ellison’s stand-in for the Communist movement), who offers him work and successfully indoctrinates him with utopian propaganda and sets him up to lead the party’s Harlem chapter. Seduced by his prestige among the party’s white sophisticates and a long-craved sense of purposefulness he embraces his work, even standing down Ras, an afro-centric nihilist violently competing for followers. Intrigue upon intrigue later, a more sinister threat reveals itself in his dogmatically ruthless brother-mentor plotting to further his cause even at the expense of others’ lives. Racism, our narrator shatteringly learns, is but one form of man’s inhumanity to man. And so, he has hibernated, invisibly, until now, until a stirring in his soul and imagination suggests the possibilities of his own spring.
Propelled largely through its characters’ richly defined verbal personae, the novel is perfectly realized by Joe Morton’s masterful, dramatically distinct vocal embodiments; the protagonist himself is, not surprising, his tour de force. In the end, we experience the sensibility of actor and author as one and the same: a perfect match-up indeed. Elly Schull Meeks
What listeners say about Invisible Man
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- Anonymous User
- 26-10-22
Brilliant and enriching
The writing profound, and sadly timeless, has much to teach us all.
Joe M's reading, a perfect, captivating performance.
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- Anonymous User
- 27-02-21
A classic that needs to be listened to.
I would recommend this to any sociology student studying race and society. The narrator coast you through deception, hope and dreams of the main protagonist effortlessly. It is a great listen. It helped me get through lockdown.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-12-20
Great performance of a classic
Joe Morton is truly amazing in his performance of Invisible Man. He handles different voices with ease. He makes the book come alive.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-02-24
A literary treat of style and great substance, narrated by a fantastic voice actor.
The novel was fantastic, and the narrator was just as fantastic as the material. Amazing audiobook.
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- Anonymous User
- 12-08-21
Wow
Wow what a fantastic book. This book has been my favourite book on audible. The read is on another level. Joe Morton has a brilliant voice that just brings the words to life.
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- Anonymous User
- 18-03-23
Ahead of its time
The battle royal get this going, onto a slapstick satire of the all black university life, to being lost in NYC, the paranoia and absurdity of the Unions and non-unionised Labour force, a bizarre medical episode of electrodes to the brain, pain and recovery. Onto the brilliant final vision of the science of the brotherhood (the communists) and their cynical use of the black folk in their world political game… Việt Than Nguyen’s The Sympathiser feels like it grows out of this amazing novel.
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- Anonymous User
- 19-01-24
Stunning through and through!
A brilliant audiobook. This might be one of the best audiobooks ever produced! True perfection!
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- Anonymous User
- 02-08-20
A Seminal Work-Joe Morton's performance is flawles
Ive already read this brilliant work - a must. The reading is immaculate and has heightened my enjoyment of one of the most brilliant books of the 20th century on the human condition.
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- Anonymous User
- 24-01-23
Good story
Very good storytelling, I’ve only read the first two chapters but I’m very interested in where the book will end up.
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- Anonymous User
- 28-06-24
Amazing story teller!
absolute genius the way this was brought alive in the audiobook. A gift to be able to hear it read like this!
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