Ellison's Invisible Man Should Remain So By JayZ on Jan 08, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

It's long; it's tedious; it's depressing; it's Ellison's Invisible Man. Indeed, I feel the hours of my life I poured into this 600 page monstrosity were funneled directly down the drain. The book is, by all accounts, difficult to read and only a further pain to analyze. The plot focuses on a young, black, and unnamed (and therefore invisible) man. The character is subjected, as is traditional motif by now, to the horrors of oppression and racism. He screams for peace and integration but is met only with chaos and destruction. All this is very cliche by now and ultimately boring. However, I suppose I am being a bit unfair with Ellison's work. There is no doubt his novel is deep, moving, even. After all, it teaches that perseverence is always met, if nothing else, by self actualization. But still, 600 pages is far too many to reach such a moral. Often Ellison repeats himself and often the plot flows circularly. For example, the protagonist finds himself giving speech after speech, and always the same one. Indeed, Invisible Man is a novel best left unseen by the typical reader.