|
|
|
Ralph Ellison: A Biography
Book Review by Kam Williams
"I know by now that all my little triumphs are
in reality defeats." -- Ralph Ellison, 1961
When Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) won the National Book Award for
Invisible Man in 1953, little did he know that he'd never publish
another novel during his lifetime. Still, his acerbic examination of
racism through the eyes of a black man in search of an identity was a
masterpiece which permanently established the author in the pantheon of
great African-American writers on the strength of this contribution
alone.
Ellison, a World War II veteran and college dropout, would spend the
next forty years in a futile quest to replicate the success of that
literary feat. According to his biographer, Arnold Rampersad, all the
attention and accolades which arrived in the wake of Invisible Man,
probably prevented the perfectionist from ever focusing on his work to
the degree necessary to attain the same level of excellence again.
Rampersad, professor of English at Stanford University, devotes
almost 700 pages to chronicling his subject's confounding spiral towards
irrelevancy, if not obscurity. Fortunately, this encyclopedic
examination of the enigmatic Ellison's life proves to be fascinating,
partially because Ralph was so outspoken and given to making
controversial, conservative remarks which ultimately left him ostracized
by and estranged from the community he had once so eloquently spoken
for.
A black beatnik still banging on his bongo, Daddy-o, long past the
time when his people had begun marching to the beat of a different drum.
Ralph Ellison: A Biography
by Arnold Rampersad
Alfred A. Knopf
Hardcover, $35.
686 pages, illustrated
ISBN: 0-375-40827-4
|
|
|
 Lloyd
Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who
writes for 100+ publications around the U.S. and Canada. He is a member of
the African-American Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics
Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee, and Rotten Tomatoes. In
addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from
Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam
lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.
IMDiversity and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN are committed to presenting diverse points of view.
However, the viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of
the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or
employees at IMDiversity, Inc. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
