Ralph Ellison Books

This biography is a must have for all Ellison fans. I could barely put it down to sleep!

I loved this bio of Ellison, the first to be published, and its focus on the early years. The writing is top-notch and Jackson has clearly done exhaustive research to uncover an amazing amount of fascinating detail. Belongs in any reader's collection devoted to American and African American literature and history.

This is the most detailed look at Ellison's life that I've seen. This biography covers his path from poverty in Oklahoma to becoming part of the literary elite in the early 1950's. The author examines Ellison's involvement in the black rights movement and his relationships with Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. From start to finish, this is a fascinating read.

The above quote is from one of Ralph Ellison's letters to Albert Murray and it summarizes both of these two men's positions on both art, as well as their outlook on African-American advancement in this country. I found this book to be extremely inspring, partly because these two men are/were very brilliant, partly as black history, partly as literary criticism, and very much for the fact it changed my conception of these two men. While these two cats are seen in the public imagination as some sort of conservatives in American culture, their letters show them to be two men very involved in black vernacular expression and very understanding and apprecieative of regular, as Sly Stone said, "Everyday People", and also, as people who show great disdain for bourgeise pretensions.

One of the striking things for me about this book is the fact that both of these men are older than my father, who was born in the thirties. It totally explodes my misconceptions about black people before 1954 (Brown vs Board). While messrs. Murray and Ellison talk about many issues pertaining to blacks and that include prejudice, they are in no way limited by racism, and it only periphirally comes up during their letters. Their focus is on how black expression is deeply ingrained in the American sensibility. And this is prior to the advent of Elvis Presley and Rock & Roll (for the most part). Jazz and Blues of course are the primary conduits of this. But the two also discuss Willimam Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain in terms of how the motif of the black American influences their work. They're fans of great writers like Andre Malraux, Dostoyevsky, and James Joyce, and in their work they see parallels in their work to the black struggle and want to in their work describe the black experience with the same type of literary mastery.

Also very heartwarming is these two mens concern for each other and each others families. It's big fun to follow their adventures through Europe and the United States and the insights they get from them. Not to mention their love of cameras and photography.

What impressed me the most about this book though, besides the literary/cultural concerns which resound throughout all of these writers work, is the down home, city slicker, hipster black language and viewpoints of Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison. In their own way, they remind me of the "keep it real" hip hop generation and the "no sellout" soul/black power generation. In one example, Ellison tells Murray that Murray is the type of cat who would, "eat chitlins at the waldorf (astoria)", and that he'd do it not just to "slum" or "keep it real", but becuase he thought they were as good a food as any other. These two cats exemplify that old black, old American goal of not fogetting where you come from. As black intellectuals, they also have their times when they're very disdainful of black bourgeise institutions.

As an example in one instance of discussing response to Ellisons "Invisible Man", Murray refers to "...also saw Jet (magazine)'s expected stupidity. This reminds me of a line Chuck D said in Ice Cube's "Endangered Species", "When we die, then we'll make Jet." In several instances Murray and Ellison talk about things that prefigure the attitudes of hip hop. And I know this is ironic becuase Stanley Crouch, a disciple of these two men, is one of the most vocal black critics of hip hop in the world today. Examples of this are definetly these two men using the "b" word at certain points, Ellison actually takes being called a "hell of a n...." as a compliment, and Murray uses the "n-word"to denounce his former employees at Tuskeegee. Of course these men are not gratuitous with this type of language, but they take poetic liscence with them (as the greatest of tasteful M.C's like Chuck D, B.I.G, Tupac, Nas, Daddy Kane etc.) do. They totally explode the silliness of some of the cultural gatekeepers in the black community that these words should never be uttered. As artists they don't look at words morally, they use them were they fit. However they do use them with taste, and being middle aged men and educated men, they don't hafe to use them for every other word. But some of the language in this book is proof to me that the hip hop generation by no means came up with this lingo on their own, we got if from our pops, and uncles, and men in the community. However, we could also get a good lesson in taste, and how to take our "chitlins to the waldorf" from these two cats.

If you love black history, get this book. If you want to see the genesis of the modern African-American mentality and how it relates to the old, get this book. If you want fresh literary perspectives, get this book. If you want an example of black intellectuals who didn't forget where they came from, get this book. If you want inspiration for your own art, run and get this book, becuase in the words of Albert Murray:

"Maybe I really broke the bed down, and then maybe I ain't done nothing but hit it a lick and promise. Maybe I ain't no certified cocksman yet, but that g-ddamn chick is pregnant due: you examine her. Maybe i'tll be a nine-pounder and maybe we'll hafe to put it in an oxygen tank, and maybe it'll be a f*c***g miscarriage; you examine it....

I could not put this down. It is a funny, warm, and insightful jam session on the subjects of literature, jazz, and American culture. This is a must have for any student of those subjects. It's also gives fascinating background into the lives and intellectual development of these literary giants.

This is an excellent book. Fans of Ellison and Murray will appreciate the intimate look at the lives of these writers that can be gained from reading the letters published in this work. Moreover, the call and response nature of the letters beautifully mimic that which can be heard in some of the classic jazz and gospel songs of America. You'll have a hard time putting this one down...

not merely a statement on being a black man in america, but on being a man period. ellison is not a militant negro nor is he a white man's negro. he is a free spirit who keeps his mind open to art , music, and life. i loved all the essays. he had cosmopolitan background growing up in oklahoma city, the product of middle-class parents. he read all types of literature, not just one kind and became a writer, simply by accident. his true love was his music. the middle third of this book proves this is the essays he wrote about jazz and opera, especially his loving tributes to milton's playhouse and charlie parker. he was a true renaissance man, who never lost the common touch. conquering any challenge that came his way...

Ralph Ellison, the musician and the author of the extrememly well-conceieved and paced novel "Invisible Man" (a rare instance wherein the plotting falls perfectly in sync with the decsriptive; falling, as with the eloquence and precision of the inernal mechanics into the ornate casing of a timepiece; a statement as much as a parody concering perceptions), here provides many surprises, all attesting to the immensity of his talents and array of his interests: There are articles on Jazz, BeBop, and some of best first-hand renderings upon the scene as it had developed at a period between literal non-accepatnce to a greater receptability; Eliot, as in the author's pechant and interest for the motifs, messages and stylistic of "The Wasteland"; Faulkner and the South; Historic American literary recurrances involving language, rythmic and individual, and some very valuable and erudite selections whose range -both autobiographic and literary- are as indispensable as they are of true merit and eloquence. This edition (and it is a shame there had not been more!), legitimizes the talents and perspectives of a gifted author whose legacy -although saddly never fully realized- shall always stand above any field of the discordant (as in the Wasteland), ringing more true than any pause between a jazz riff's sometimes-disquieting
strains.

First off: I am biased: Ellison is one of my Literary Fathers. Invisible Man tremendously impacted me and my Art. These interviews are priceless because they allow us a limited, but valuable, peak behind the Mr. Ellison's Idealogical curtain; where we can clearly see many of his ideas in the their purest and most accessible form--ordinary conversation. Anyone that believes Ellison to be an important Literary figure should have this book in their personal Library. I would highly recommend picking up a used copy (I got mine here at Amazon for only $4.99).

Eric Sundquist's book is an invaluable resource for information when trying to understand the background of Invisible Man. This is the place to start if you're doing research on the novel. Not only does Sundquist present the prolific sources that Ellison used and referenced through the novel, the editor also provides additional resource materials for each reference. It's wonderful if you're writing a research paper, and helpful for the curious reader who wants to be even further convinced of Ellison's genius.

I'm a white guy who just finished reading "Invisible Man." This is a classic work of 20th century American literature. The narrator of the novel, told in first person, is never named. What a concept! After all, he's invisible, right? This young black man starts out in the South and then moves to New York City, circa the 1940s (even the time frame in this book is hard to figure.) The leading character constantly gets into trouble for doing the right thing or just being honest. At times, his adventures seem the stuff of bad acid trips or journeys through an "Alice in Wonderland" kind of world populated by people spouting intellectual sophistry if not outright b.s. He joins "the Brotherhood" whose members are white and black, its politics cynical and pragmatic. This group pays him money to give speeches and be an administrator. But he eventually discovers their true motives. The narrator's only friends are the married white women who throw themselves at him for purposes of stud, his only bad karma in the book. Yet he's certainly a likeable, introspective fellow, a Kafka-esque victim of society.

Moreland's insightful, persuasive book blazes a new trail for anyone interested in teaching or reading 20th century American lit. This book is essential to the developing New canon.

Raised in Oklahoma City, Ralph Ellison studied classical music but was also immersed in jazz. He dropped out of Tuskegee Institute for lack of funds, and moved north to Harlem in 1936, where he was nudged toward writing by friends like Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. Infusing both his love of music and his voracious reading habit into his writing, Ellison created a uniquely American kind of prose in his seminal novel, INVISIBLE MAN.

This is the newest offering in Morgan Reynolds' "World Writers" series, and as always, the author treats young adults with respect and assumes them capable of comprehending complex topics and times.

Many reviewers found the main theme in the book to be about race relations, and in particular, about black identity in a white world. I don't entirely agree with this take on the book - at least not for the book as a whole. Some reviewers group this book in with a genre of "African American Literature". Sure, one can conclude this because the protagonist is black, but I think it belongs in the realm of "classic literature" without the African-American qualifier. I think so because though the protagonist is black, not all his experiences are uniquely experiences of a man as a black man but rather as a man dealing with other people regardless of his and their race.

The book starts out as some of the other reviewers have stated. The narrator does ponder what his role as a black man is in a "white" world, but really this happens primarily when he is in college and in his first few months in New York. He feels invisible because he feels people only see him as a black man and not as a man period (his humanity is unseen). The narrator feels others, both black and white, have defined who he is and who he should be based on the factor of race alone.

After his experience with the Brotherhood, however, you realize his central driving concern has transformed from: "Why do people (black and white) try to box me into their definition of what it means to be a black man?" to "Why don't they see me as an individual with my own value based not on their preconceived notions of who I am but by the quality of my own beliefs, my own intellect, and my own actions?".

The narrator joins the Brotherhood (a Communist group that has both black and white members) because that group, he believes, does not define him as a black man but as a "man". It turns out to be true that the Brotherhood, as a group, does not see him as a black man per se, but they know that others (in Harlem) do, and so he discovers that to the Brotherhood he is a tool to advance their communist agenda in Harlem (they pick him because they know no black person in Harlem would ever buy anything a white man has to say about "progress"). To the Brotherhood, the narrator does not have an identity as an individual but rather is a cog in a machine. So where he is invisible to people outside the Brotherhood who only see him as a black man, his individuality disappears altogether inside the Brotherhood and so becomes invisible to them as well.

The reason the book is not about a black man's struggle against the white man is that there is a character in the book whose central role is just this and our narrator gets in two vicious battles with this man. The man is Ras the Exhorter/Ras the Destroyer. His is a world of white oppression against the black man. This man thinks that black men in the Brotherhood have sold out to their white oppressor. The narrator, as evidenced by the battles, disagrees.

I think the most pointed evidence of the narrator's search for human identity (not necessarily black identity) is when he delivers his first speech as a member of the Brotherhood. At this point, he misunderstands the underlying purpose of the Brotherhood and delivers a speech that meets with considerable disfavor from the Brotherhood members. They don't like his speech because in it the narrator says, rather evocatively, "... I feel, I feel suddenly that I have become more human..." Here the narrator expresses the affirmation of his individual humanity, not black, not white, not as part of a group, but as a man that is defined by what he believes. Why not black identity? Because throughout the book he gets into battles not just with Ras the Exhorter (who is black); but with Bledsoe from the college (who is black); and with Lucius Brockway from the paint factory (who is black) and with the black members of the Brotherhood. His battles with these other black men are not just physical or verbal; they are symbolic, as each of these men conceives his identity as that inextricably tied to his race. To Ras, the right black is to be just black; to Bledsoe, the right black is the conjured, helpless black; to Lucius Brockway the right black is the white man's black; and, to the black members of the Brotherhood, the right black is not to be black at all but to be "gray". The narrator wants his own definition of himself made by himself for himself.

There's so much more to this book than what I describe above. There are the supporting themes of awareness and blindness as well as despair and hope. There is his relationship with Mary, with his grandfather, and with Sybil. There is incredible pathos in his regard for his briefcase, again another symbol. Each serves as a microscope for us to see just who he is and give his spirit form. It is an incredible book, deserving of all the "hype".

He speaks truth to power, and when you speak truth, you are going to be despised.


One of my many favorite Ralph Ellison's truths:

"I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was more satisfied -- not even I. On the other hand, I've never been more loved and appreciated that when I tried to "justify" and affirm someone's misgtaken beliefs; or when I have tried to give my friends the incorrect, absurd answers they wished to hear. In my presence they could talk and agree with themselves, the world was nailed down, and they loved it. They received a feeling of security. But here was the rub: Too often, in order to justify them, I had to take myself by the throat and choke myself until my eyes bulged and my tongue hung out and wagged like the door of an empty house in a high wind. Oh, yes, it made them happy and it made me sick. I became ill of affirmation, of saying "yes" against the nay-saying of my stomach -- not to mention my brain."

Never truer words spoken. I feel ya Ralph. Preach brother Preach! Ashe' an Amen.

I highly recommend this book, that is, if you ain't scurrred of the truth.

Triumph of 20th century Afro-American literature and that specific historical/cultural perspective. For me, much more powerful and
instructive than Native Son, Song of Solomon, or any such treatise.
Enjoy.

This novel, a model of creative writing, describes what it is like to land in a big city and then be sucked up into the black hole of urban life in America. It is a story told by a black man coming of age in the mid-1940s, and thus is about black anonymity in a white world. But one of the primary strengths of the novel is that its "meta-messages" are all about anonymity and thus makes it universal and applicable equally to any race and even to any urban culture.

It is existential in the sense that it is as much about cultural alienation in a modern world as it is about how to confront the barbaric social rules of a racist American culture. However, race is only one of the many themes in a subtext rich and textured with many sub-themes. Fear, distrust, betrayal, treachery, coming of age, and being invisible in plan sight, are just some of the other themes that run on parallel tracks in the subtext.

The story itself is a rather complex, if not altogether tortuous and improbable plot, betraying an otherwise cleanly written and logical structure. It seems to have been "jerry-rigged" to assist in the convergence of, and the resolution of, the many disparate threads and themes. That he pulled them all together in the end is itself no small technical feat, and probably accounts for the books inordinate length.

The author speaks in the (invisible) voice of the first person, leaving as few emotional clues as possible -- under the set of literary and emotional rules that he operates under and exploits. Other reviewers have compared his use of these devices to those used by Dostoyevski in his "Notes From the Underground," which is one of my favorite novels, and although I cannot disagree with these reviewers interpretations, I prefer to compare them with those used in Kafka's "The Trial." I believe the tensions created, and the way the novel is finally resolved, as well as the way he exploits the idea of being constantly controlled by larger forces, are equally palpable in both novels.

As for the issue of race, the highest marks must be given to Ellison both for his craft and for his artistic temperament, for not succumbing to a direct attack on American racism, using instead an oblique attack. Not that a direct attack was not a requirement of the times, but that it would have been viewed as being too angry, or too bitter. Quiet, sublimated rage worked much better, and as an unintended bonus, successfully linked all of the sub-themes up into another orbit of humanity. This was all to the good.

Among other things, this novel proves that good writing calls on all of one's inner strengths resources, as well as on ones talents.

Five stars.

This is a superb novel about a young black man trying to find his place in the world. It is filled with interesting characters and scenes and has a decent pace. I believe this book is more than about race: it applies to all people trying to form an identity for themselves. I have read some of the negative reviews, and quite a few of them seem to be from high school students. I think many of their points are valid, but I wonder if a little age and experience can make one look at this story in a different light. Perhaps this novel is better appreciated once we realize our dreams are greater than our abilities.

This particular edition has an introduction by the author that is of some interest.

Ralph Ellison

Reviewed by Charles Shea LeMone www.allwordman.com

The National Book Award in 1953 went to Ralph Ellison for his highly acclaimed fictional novel, Invisible Man--a sometimes satirical look at the alienation, powerlessness and vulnerability of the black man in America. Although he skyrocketed to prominence as the most hailed "Negro" writer of his time, and was paid a hefty advance on his next novel, Invisible Man proved to be Ellison's first and last novel.

The author of this enlightening biography, Arnold Rampersad, does an extremely credible job of delving into Ellison's complex life in a style that is easy to read and digest. From Ellison's days as a poor youth raised in Oklahoma, to his aborted education at Tuskegee, and his early days in New York City, circa the late `30s, Rampersad chronicles the mind and the uncertain times of a gifted yet enigmatic artist who grew to maturity during the Depression.

Like most black intellectuals--at a time when unions excluded blacks and only two blacks were employed by the New York City telephone company--Ellison embraced Marxism. His socialistic beliefs also influenced his writings as a literary critic--which helped launch his writing career. In that capacity, many years before and after Invisible Man, Ralph refused to review the work of other black writers. The one exception was Richard Wright, who had once been his close friend and mentor--and author of the explosively controversial Native Son.

Ellison eloquently slammed a host of young black writers, which included Chester B. Himes, Amiri Baraka and Ismael Reed. Ellison's literary heroes, which he never hesitated to point out, were spearheaded by Emerson, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, and T. S. Eliot. Paradoxically, William Faulkner, the renowned voice of the South, was high on that same list.

Also of note, the author paints Ellison as an intensely self-indulgent and insensitive man when it came to his relationships with his mother and his wife, Fanny. Furthermore, Ralph held rank on numerous committees--too many to mention--yet failed to write a single word of acknowledgment about black women writers such as Alice Walker, Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. In fact, it was common knowledge that he adamantly opposed the membership of women of any color to the prestigious, men-only, Century Club in midtown Manhattan.

Rampersad also suggests that Ellison became increasingly bitter as time passed and a new generation of "black power" politically motivated students booed and ridiculed him during his speeches on college campuses. According to a new progressive way of thinking, Ellison was a has-been Uncle Tom and a front-running apologist for America's apathetic approach to racial issues.

More than forty years after the publication of Invisible Man, right up to his death in 1994, whenever Ralph was asked about his novel-in-progress he continually claimed that he was in the process of tying up the loose ends and would be finished soon. Fortunately, Arnold Rampersad was more diligent on this project and did an impressively masterful job in the process.

Ralph Ellison was a magical writer. A look at his bio only partly explains how he was able to accomplish "Invisible Man," a surrealist existential odysey through Harlem during the Jazz Age. I agree with an earlier reviewer that, now that two extant biographies exist, the previous written by Lawrence Jackson, the two must be looked at side by side. The first, by Mr. Jackson, was written with the much more warm tone of an admirer. Admiration brings one close to the subject in a way that a critical view doesn't. Jackson seems to understand the very jazz rhythms that underpin the prose of Ellison. Rampersad's Ellison is much more petty and pompous. I'm sure both views reflect some of the reality of this complex figure. But as an admirer of Ellison myself, I thought Jackson's book was far more generous and insightful of the man, and the times that gave birth to his masterpiece.

Ellision is also somewhat of a tragic figure, and Rampersad certainly draws this out - he was never able to publish a second novel. Rampersad highlights the mythical fire that at each recounting consumes more and more of the would-be manuscript of a second work of fiction. Rampersad's book is meticulously researched, rich in detail about the later half of Ellison's life. I also agree with earlier reviewers that the essays Ellison produced during this second phase of his career are quite significant, and perhaps not sufficiently appraised by this biographer.

I feel Rampersad is a bit unfair to Ellison in his harping on how much he didn't do during the Black Power era. This is a judgment call - not every African American was wearing a dashiki during those days, and Ellison shouldn't be raked over the coals for this on every other page. It is saddening that he had this distant side to him, but more of an effort should have been made to understand why. Perhaps his and the country's traumatic relationship with communism during the Thirties into the McCarthy era had something to do with how he later tried to separate art from politics. I also suspect that an encounter between the two men colors the book: perhaps Ellison was less than generous with Rampersad when the two met in person for the research on Rampersad's Langston Hughes bio. Perhaps the bad blood continues.

Lawrence Jackson's book is a far better portrait, particularly of the genesis of "Invisible Man." Nevertheless, the scholarship is such in this second bio that it will prove to be an important addition to the understanding of the life of a complex man.

Biographies are usually hit or miss. So much depends not on the life the subject led, but on how the storyteller presents it, which, of course, depends on how intimately he or she has lived with the subject, which, ultimately, depends on how much of a paper trail the subject left behind for the storyteller, which, finally, depends on whether the subject thought his or her life was worth preserving at the time he or she was living it.


Following this brand of home-spun logic, Ralph Ellison, his wife, Fanny, and their friends and correspondents evidently knew a biographer would want to investigate the puzzling, charmed, but unmistakably heartbreaking life of the author of Invisible Man one day; for the breadth, depth and range of sources Arnold Rampersad canvassed to piece together this significant biography is staggering. On the surface Ellison could very easily be (and has been) dismissed as an elitist, an Uncle Tom, a one-hit wonder, a token Negro; just as easily he could be lauded as a genius, a tribute to his race, the standard bearer of black American literature. But in Rampersad's hands he is nothing short of a man worthy of unyielding compassion. Lest we forget, Ralph Ellison was a black man who in the middle of this nation's troubled twentieth-century aspired for entry into the privileged American society through art and, for all intents and purposes, achieved just that with his first book. Without ever having tried his hand at a novel, Ellison devoted nearly seven years - practically his entire thirties - to writing Invisible Man. Chew on that for a moment. Just let it sink in. He had that much belief, that much faith, in himself at a time in our nation's history when blacks had all but lost their faith in American democracy. And the literary world validated that faith with the highest honor given to an American novelist, the National Book Award. Besting the likes of his literary hero, Ernest Hemingway, Ralph Ellison became the first black author to win the award in 1953, a year before the Brown decision, two years before the Rosa Parks would refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.

What does that kind of success do to a relatively young man, especially one whose roots were as humble and unassuming as Ralph Ellison's? In what ways does it affect his psychology, not to mention the trajectory of his life? In a certain respect the meat of this biography is an investigation into the trappings of fame, unhinged ambition, uncompromising perfectionism, idealism, and rugged individualism. One wouldn't be too far off in comparing Ellison's meteoric rise to literary stardom in the middle of the century to a high school phenom being drafted in the NBA Lottery straight out of high school. One might even say his rise was even more dramatic, seeing as the immediate success of Invisible Man among the white literary elite signaled an unparalleled intellectual achievement in a society that customarily denigrated black intelligence.

But the same sense of individual fortitude that drove Ralph Ellison to the heights of artistic excellence with IM was also what alienated him from the wider issues of his day, and arguably stifled his art-hence the cautionary tale theme that undergirds all of his achievements and awards and accolades. As Rampersad makes plainly evident through his own conclusions and those of informed insiders such as Saul Bellow and Toni Morrison, Ellison put such tremendous pressure on himself to carry the weight of the entire race via his art - forget simply living up to Invisible Man, which never seemed to be his issue - that he could never finish his second novel. Nothing would ever be good enough for him, and not just because he set his standards for himself so exceedingly high; because he believed that much was at stake. Say what you will about Ralph Ellison as a man (and I had plenty to say about him throughout the often irritable reading of his life story) but he took his craft as serious as any writer who ever lived. To him literature was sacred. In a very literal sense, literature was his religion. Through his art he sought to construct the symbols that gave meaning to the "complex American experience" that he spent his entire professional life post-IM championing. Indeed, one of the prevailing theories surrounding Ellison's prolonged (to put it mildly) gestation period between novels was that he got lost in the power of "myth, symbol and allusion." Of his one-time housemate and longtime associate Saul Bellow once said, "Ralph fell into the trap of seeing himself as an authority on this and that. He did not allow himself to be free and grow." Another theory, this one suggested by his wife, was that he got too caught up in the comforts of fame. In fact, Rampersad makes it abundantly clear that Ralph Ellison was no anti-establishment bohemian artist. He was a social climber, a status seeker, an acquisitive consumer. Ellison enjoyed the limelight. He reveled in his associations with power. He openly and unabashedly pined for entry into the hallowed halls of the American elite, for he believed in those institutions that celebrated American excellence, and made no bones about excluding anyone, particularly other blacks, who did not measure up to his standards. Following a lecture he once gave in northern Illinois a young white professor asked Ellison how it felt to "go places where most black men can't go." Rather than take offense, Ellison, always with his flair of dramatic irony countered, "What you mean is, how does it feel to be able to go places where most white men can't go."

The secret to his success (and his failure some would say) was his sense of himself as an American. He was a Negro (he deplored the label "black" when it came in to use in the 60's) and quite proud of that fact. But he considered himself an equal to all men by birth and to the most elite by dent of effort. But he was clouded by his own success. He believed too uncritically that his own rise to prominence could be utilized as an example to other blacks. If he could achieve on his own merit, then why couldn't every other black person? Why did other black writers need to resort to cheap racial ploys to attract attention to themselves? Why could they not simply hone their craft as he did? The problem with this logic was that Ellison hadn't achieved on his own. All along he was blessed with backers and boosters - nearly all of them white - who at times literally secured his survival or opened the necessary doors for him to enter. As for Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, both of whom played critical roles in nurturing his pursuits early on, Rampersad's evidence shows that Ellison grew increasingly critical and combative toward them once he no longer needed their guidance and support. "No, Wright was no spiritual father of mine," Ellison wrote in the early `60s, "certainly in no sense I recognize."

Indeed, Ellison's relationship with black people in general was cool at best. He was nostalgic and sentimental about Oklahoma City and the people who populated his memories of youth, but he had absolutely no interest in the newly liberated Africa (aside from collecting African art). He spent the better part of the civil rights era making a good deal of his living by lecturing on race (he was a devout integrationist who denounced the Black Power concept and yet was critical of Dr. King's style as well) and yet he would never lend his name or support (aside from he and Fanny's annual donation to the NAACP) to the civil rights movement proper. He was quick to accept writing assignments from leading white publications, but he routinely rejected the requests from fledgling black publications. He supported the Vietnam War despite the fact the young black men were being sent overseas in droves. In spite of its declining condition, the raft of crime and he and Fanny's financial wherewithal, the Ellison's categorically refused to leave their Riverside Drive apartment, and yet from the publication of IM on he was increasingly estranged from black Harlem, not to mention everyday blacks in general, a fact which some critics believed stifled his ability to capture the changing social reality of black American in his fiction.

But then, just when you think it's safe to write him off as a self-hating opportunist, the ever-irascible Ralph Ellison shows you something you didn't expect. When the socialist critic Irving Howe published the essay "Black Boys and Native Sons" lauding Wright's Native Son as the standard by which all black fiction should be judged because it expressed what the critic considered authentic black rage, Ellison eloquently dismantled Howe's essentialist rhetoric in the name of the broad tapestry that is black life. When he was invited to speak to the Panel of Educational Research and Development, he defended black youth and black culture against what he saw as the unfair and uninformed attacks being leveled against it. When Ronald Reagan began dismantling the New Deal structures that had "made it possible for me to go from sleeping on a park bench to becoming a writer," Ellison became a national sponsor of the Emergency Black Survival Fund.

Hiram Hayden, the one-time editor of the American Scholar, said it best when he described Ellison's "lonely burden" as that which belonged to "certain black men of a transitional generation..." "Scorned by militants," Rampersad continued, "too liberal for conservatives, lionized by liberal or calculating whites," Ellison was a man outside of time, which to some extent mirrored the surrealist style in which the final segment of IM is written. At once he was ahead of his time and behind his time, but never completely in it. At intervals his insistent positions made him the object of scorn and ridicule, as when, in what might be the book's most touching moment, Ellison breaks down and cries in the arms of a black student leader at a college in Iowa after being verbally assaulted by a young black man who accused him of being an "Uncle Tom" and a "sell-out." "I'm not a Tom, I'm not a Tom," wept the deeply wounded author. More often, his convictions made him the subject of adoration, as when he received literally countless awards for his independence and artistry.

No one ever chose his battles for him, and, upon closing this outstanding biography, that is what clearly mattered most to Ralph Ellison. He lived and died on his own terms, with his own demons, shortcomings-what have you. Lesser men would have retreated from public life in the face of unfulfilled expectations (Salinger, for example), but Ellison, as embarrassed as he was by his own lack of productivity, continued to stride toward his destiny, even if clumsily at times. Despite Rampersad's intimation that at some point Ellison stopped believing he was going to finish the second novel (Juneteenth), and that he secretly believed it was doomed, he never stopped working on it, never stopped trying to make it measure up to what he wanted it to be. And maybe that is the lesson. That even when we achieve our wildest dreams, the drive toward perfection is never complete; that however much we contribute to the world, we should never be satisfied; that no matter which road we choose there are bound to be thorns, ditches and roadblocks; that the absolute best we can hope for is that our lives are worth writing and reading about long after our time has run out.

Thank you Mr. Ellison for living a life worth reading about. And thank you Mr. Rampersad for bringing that life back to life.

The obvious place to begin is a comparison with Lawrence Jackson's 2002 unforunately named "Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius." Both are the same length, but Jackson covers Ellison's life only to 1952 when he won the National Book Award, while Rampersad goes to his death in 1994. Also, Rampersad had full access to the Ellison archives in the Library of Congress, while Jackson was permitted only the literary drafts and manuscripts there. This meant that Jackson did not have access to Ellison's personal correspondence, although he could view letters to other significant figures, such as Wright, Baldwin and Hughes who have their archives elsewhere.

There is also a lot going on behind the scenes here. Jackson started his book as a PhD dissertation at Stanford while Rampersad was faculty there; Rampersad claims in his acknowledgements that he finished his manuscript in 2003, but that it was delayed for three years due to pressing administrative duties (Hmmmm); in his acknowledgements section Jackson praises Robert O'Meally (now at Columbia) as his mentor, and Rampersad gives a lot of ink to Ellison's trashing of O'Meally's 1980 book on him; and Jackson mentions Rampersad in only one short sentence in his acknowledgements, while Rampersand ignores both Jackson and Howard University (his employer) entirely in his. I smell hard feelings here.

The verdict? Jackson's is by far the better book. Believe it or not, the access to Ellison's personal correspondence is Rampersad's Achilles' heel. Jackson's book was very good. Having read it (I don't believe Rampersad's "I finished mine in 2003" line for a minute) Rampersad realized that the only original thing he had was the previously closed correspondence. That was mostly family and personal letters (Jackson had already tracked down the literary material in the open files of the other authors) which emphasized the daily petty trials and tribulations of life. So by avoiding the material Jackson covered and using the fresh stuff, most of which was personal and trivial (I mean, he's not going to spend a lot of time writing to Irving Howe about his hemorroids) the book makes Ellison come across as personal and trivial.

The problem isn't that Rampersad wants to do a hachet job on Ralph Ellison, it's that he came in second to the line to a very well done book, and at least for the first half of his subject's life, he doesn't have a lot to add, and the last half of Ellison's life wasn't his best. (However, let's wait for Part II of Jackson's bio.)

Sure, go ahead and buy this book. It's not a heavy read. But I caution you, read Jackson's bio first, or all you'll get is a medicine cabinent view of the man.

James Baldwin dismissed the increasingly irrelevant Ralph Ellison with this description, and the biography perfectly captures Baldwin's assessment. Baldwin himself never won the National Book Award, but he and novelist John A. Williams could write rings around Ellison on a good day, thus evidencing the highly political nature of the literary world. Just as Richard Wright drifted away from his muse by expatriating himself to France, Ralph Ellison deliberately divorced himself from the black community here at home. He dined out on "Invisible Man" for over forty years, promoting the con game and lie that his second book was "in progress". Ellison loved the tokenism of being the Only Negro In The Room, disparaged women writers, and turned his back on young black writers seeking a hand. Tapped by the NY literary establishment for the role, he embraced being the black gatekeeper, pontificating ad nauseum about the western European literary tradition and screening out other black writers who might have challenged this view. He made a big deal about "craft", yet his noisy novel does not stand up to his own analysis. Frankly, John A. Williams was superior to Ellison in almost every aspect, and his signature novel, "The Man Who Cried I Am" is fully superior to "Invisible Man". But Williams told the unvarnished truth in his work and was marginalized by the NY literary establishment as a result. Rampersad does a terrific job with his subject, but I'm sorry I bought the book, as it adds nothing new to the outsized legend of Ellison.