INVISIBLE MAN

Definitely not H.G. Wells! Eloquent, passionate, sardonic, shocking and surreal, this first novel of Ellison won a well-deserved Pulitzer and has since become a classic of American literature. An unnamed African-American tells of how he discovered that he is invisible to whites and how he learned to make the most of it. Narrator James does a merely serviceable job here, sometimes misinterpreting the text and at no time investing much of himself in it. If he has not given us the tour-de-force the material demands, he at least has delivered the considerable beauty of the writing. Y.R. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/MAR 01]