Adventures in Cultural Consumption:
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison: This pretty much has to be the other contender for "Great American Novel," does it not? All that symbolic and expressionistic writing--very Dostoevskian, in its way--piled on top of a narrative that marked a track not unlike the one Malcolm X would go down ten years later--with some different beats--and that ending. I pretty much need to find a job where I can teach politics and literature to get some students talking about the last ten pages.
I've had the good fortune so far this year to read a number of books of higher-than-average quality, but this was certainly the best.
And, in a connection I'm sure Ellison wouldn't mind, this most elegant reflection on the life and worth of Earl Scruggs.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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