Something I find incredibly interesting about this book is Ellison's word choice and style of writing. When I read this book I feel like it's one of those endings really built up that you're anxiously awaiting just to see what happens. I can't decide if it is because the narrator has built up he post-invisible life and how he got there so much. He'll go on and on about something and then say something the the point of, "but that was all before I was invisible" and you're kind of back to where you started.
I'm also somewhat surprised at the disconnect between the north and south and the little that the narrator knew about the north. He was so surprised to see Harlem the way that it is which kind of made me surprised to believe that he was surprised. I almost wasn't sure if he was being too naive. When he was discussing Harlem he tried very hard to connect it to the South such as on page 164 when he says, "They reminded me fleetingly of prisoners carrying their leg irons as they escaped from a chain gang." The idea of city traffic is just beyond him. He makes little references to slavery like this quite often actually. He'll try to describe something in a way that hints towards slavery when really it doesn't have much to do with slavery. Another example is on 167 when he says "there was a command in the extended hand, and I obeyed it." There are plenty more throughout the book. It's almost as if choosing to say one word is what makes him say something in a different light than anything else.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Martha Lee that Ellison's 'integrative style' is more interesting than a straight narrative. The details he includes in this fashion are more organic; they are always something that the narrator would have reason to notice (like the men with the leather wrist pouches), and they always relate to the themes of the book, even if subtly. In connection with the narrator's perception of the North and New York as a dream-world, I think that scenes like those including these men or the one where the narrator is deterred from throwing away the broken bank serve to remind us that while the North is less segregated than the South, many of the same stereotypes, like blacks as criminals or lackeys, remain. I think this is something that the narrator will come to realize soon.
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