Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

The African-American's experience is so remote from my own. It is not an experience I envy, either: having to overcome racial prejudice, impoverishment, stereotypes, and ignorance. I also find it fairly counteractive to establishing equality when a category is created based on what the author looked like. Geographical or chronological bounds are easier to defend.

I was able to muster up sufficient admiration for this book, though. As my English teacher Mr. Rossi said, the search for individuality is a universal one. The protagonist was more or less understandable and likable. He gets kicked out of college over an indiscretion involving race, and he must fend for himself in post-Renaissance Harlem. He joins up with "the Brotherhood" and tries to help in the fight for equality, but everything turns sour. He finally discovers that the only way he can find his individual identity is through himself.

I thought it was a fine message. I was glad the protagonist did not find his identity in an organization, but rather in a disillusioned solitude. I could sympathize with his attempt to rid his culture of ignorance. I had to write an essay on a famous African-American, so I chose Frederick Douglass, and I enjoyed the correlation in the book between him and the protagonist.