Book #48: Invisible Man
Invisible Man is hands-down one of the most powerful novels I’ve ever read.
I read the novel in college, and I don’t know whether it was age or maturity, but Invisible Man slapped me across the face this time around. I won’t forget it.
It starts with an unnamed protagonist—the “invisible man” modeled after the unnamed protagonist in Dostoevsky’s Notes From The Underground—who grows up in Harlem in the middle of a racist society. To earn a scholarship to college, he has to participate in a “battle royal” while blindfolded with other young black men.
Older white men mock them from the crowd and then force them to scavenge for coins on an electrified rug. It’s one of the most degrading scenes in literature…but, because of that, it’s one of the most powerful openings in literature as well.
The story continues with the narrator getting kicked out of college by the school’s African-American president who caters to the white trustees. He then finds a job in a New York factory before finally settling in as a speaker for “The Brotherhood”—basically a group of white communist men who are looking for support in Harlem.
