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otoolekr's review against another edition
1.0
Put this book in front of me again and i will violently have diarreia. Dont play me . This was actually the worst thing ive ever tried to read
italo_carlvino's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
steveatwaywords's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
My disappointment that Ellison could never finish this work is now all the greater. The opening of these characters: McIntyre, Hickman, Bliss . . . and the machinations beyond them and within them, have created such a reflective layering of challenges to identity and vision, to the word and the idea, are so much further in their ambition than Invisible Man. Even so, I cannot imagine how or where he might have taken them all to create a synthesis of any kind--no wonder he was so blocked. For that reason, I return to it for its long scenes and moments of characters sitting on a porch trading the wisdom of youth, of quasi-historical sermons, of asylum interviews. Read it for these, for the moments he created for us. And we take it where we will.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs and Sexual content
Minor: Violence
This book is unfinished--be aware than you are reading drafts of a novel in progress but never completed. Read it for Ellison's prose, not for a completed plot. The style of the novel is largely stream-of-consciousness, crossing back and forth over history through unconscious dreams and recollections dialogically.
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