Reading post: Invisible Man

Well, for me, the Classics Challenge is now over: I have read my 12th book. And it was something of an anticlimax. For category #2, "20th Century Classic," I read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, which was published in 1952, and is truly a classic, having won the National Book Award a year later. According to Wikipedia, the Modern Library ranked Invisible Man 19th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century and Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. And I'm sure it's on other "best" lists as well.

But I didn't like it. In fact, I actively hated it. It took me about a week to read it, and I had to force myself. Each night when I went to bed, I thought, oh no, I have to read that book. I counted pages, I made deals with myself involving cookies ("if you read 50 more pages you can have a cookie"), I sighed deep sighs of relief when I closed the book each night and prepared to sleep.

So why did I hate it so much? And why is it a classic?

First, some positive notes.

• The novel is extremely well written. Although I did not enjoy its content, I made my way through its 581 pages with some ease, because the language flows so smoothly and beautifully, and with such intense forward movement. 
• I liked the main character a lot. This was true despite the fact that we do not learn his name and he claims to be invisible. We don't meet his family, he has no close friends, he has no real romantic relationships during the book (just a couple of icky dalliances with older white women). He is very much alone. But still, he is appealing. A smart guy, a thoughtful guy, a guy you can trust. I wanted to know him better.
  
• The novel is very intelligent and raises a lot of questions. I enjoyed the sections where the narrator muses about complex ideas.
• The novel is sometimes funny. The spots of humor help to relieve the misery. Not enough, but I appreciated what there was.
  

And now, what didn't I like?

• Everything that can go wrong for the narrator, goes wrong. I understand that this was meant to represent the Black experience in America, especially in the 1930s and 40s (Ellison was born in 1913). I did not see it as unrealistic. Maybe a little exaggerated, but not much. But unrelieved misery is hard to read about. Even when the narrator is having some success, such as when he works for the Brotherhood (the Communist party), you can feel the other shoe out there, waiting to drop. I found it agonizing. Just kill him already, I wanted to scream. But he doesn't die. He lives on, in a world that is constructed to destroy him.
• There is never a way out. It isn't that he makes the same mistake over and over. He tries different approaches. None of them work. He tries to follow the rules, he tries to stand up for himself, he tries to be a good person, he tries to connive. Everything leads to the same place: a hole in the ground (a pit toilet? a grave?).
• The narrator calls himself an invisible man because he is invisible to white people. This is amply demonstrated throughout the book. But because of certain choices Ellison makes -- not giving the narrator a name or a personal life -- he is too invisible. Yes, I liked him very much. But in the end, where was the rest of him?
  

Invisible Man is beautifully written, full of complexity. It is art. It is also a protest novel. It is a long, complicated, intelligent, literary novel that protests against the appalling reality of Black life in America. Ellison argues, rightly I think, that that there is "no dichotomy between art and protest." A successful novel can embrace both. For me, this one doesn't. There's too much protest, not enough art -- beautiful writing isn't enough.

I don't want to summarize the novel, even though a "review" usually contains a summary. There are summaries of this novel all over the web. OK, here's my summary: the narrator tries to do the right thing; he gets expelled from college. The narrator tries to do the right thing; he is injured and loses his job. The narrator tries to do the right thing.... and that's enough of that. I can't stand stories like this.

At the very very end, page 581 in my copy, the narrator says he's tired of his hole, he's coming out. I don't buy it for a second. What's he going to do if he comes out? The world he's shown us is unremittingly horrible. Why get all perky all of a sudden, on the very last page?

I'd leave things there except for something I read about the novel that really bothered me. Beginning in the 1950s, the literary journal The Paris Review began to conduct and publish fascinating interviews with novelists. I used to own a few collections of these interviews, which served as my introduction to a number of authors. Anyway, Ralph Ellison was interviewed in 1955, and the interview was reprinted in a book I have called The Black Novelist, edited by Robert Hemenway (Charles E. Merrill Literary Texts, 1970). So I read it, expecting something marvelous.

And it was awful. In 1955, even The Paris Review was racist and stupid. Here are a few exchanges:

Idiot Interviewers: But isn't it going to be difficult for the Negro writer to escape provincialism when his literature is concerned with a minority?
Ellison: All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority. The universal in the novel--and isn't that what we're all clamoring for these days?--is reached only through the depiction of the specific man in a specific circumstance.
Idiot Interviewers: But still, how is the Negro writer, in terms of what is expected of him by critics and readers, going to escape his particular need for social protest and reach the "universal" you speak of?
Ellison: If the Negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him, he's lost the battle before he takes the field....

 ....

Idiot Interviewers: But these are examples from homogeneous cultures. How representative of the American nation would you say Negro folklore is? 
Ellison: The history of the American Negro is a most intimate part of American history. Through the very process of slavery came the building of the United States. Negro folklore, evolving within a larger culture which regarded it as inferior, was an especially courageous expression.... We can view it narrowly as something exotic, folksy, or "low-down," or we may identify ourselves with it and recognize it as an important segment of the larger American experience--not lying at the bottom of it, but intertwined, diffused in its very texture. I can't take this lightly or be impressed by those who cannot see its importance; it is important to me....

All the interviewers' questions were so dumb, so white-centric, so 1955, and all Ellison's answers were so brilliant, so nuanced. I found myself starting to change my mind about the novel in protest against those interviewers.

But I didn't really change my mind. I did not like this novel. And yet, it's amazing. It's truly a classic. I'm glad I read it and I never want to read it again.

Trudging along

Another November Sunday. Our snow from last week has melted, and we're in the low 50s, but now we have high winds. Friday night there was a wind gust of 79.6 mph up at NCAR (on the hill above us), and at 6:15 pm yesterday there was one that registered 74.3 mph. The winds have died down a bit this afternoon, but not enough -- we had another 50 mph gust a few minutes ago. Our huge Siberian elm has been dropping limbs like a champ -- whoosh! in the bushes! whoosh! on the shed! whoosh! in the side yard! whoosh! on the roof! 

Yesterday morning I went out to find a gigantic branch STUCK in a big overgrown clump of pfitzers. It was so heavy, and had fallen so hard, that I couldn't pull it out. I got the idea to twist it, and finally I was able to pull it free. Once it was free, though, it was pointed the wrong direction for being pulled through the gate to the front yard. So I had to drag this humongous thing around the yard until I finally got it headed the right way. I was wearing gloves, so I didn't hurt my hands, but my calves were exposed (in 30-degree weather, yes, I know) and they are now covered with little cuts and scrapes. This morning there was another branch down, not quite so large. I made the twins come out to "help" me, but in the end I dragged it to the front yard by myself. "Ooo, it's cold!" screeched the wimpy twins, running back into the house. I threw the latest branch on the pile with all the others that have come down since September. And then, about 1 pm, a gigantic truck came down our street and picked up our branches.

They left all the leaves that had gotten stuck in the branch pile, many of them (I'm sure) from other people's lawns. As the truck drove off down the street, another gust of wind blew many of the leaves across the street and down the block after them. Probably by tomorrow they'll all be gone -- no need to rake them up. Yesterday I found an Amazon box (empty) addressed to someone three blocks to the west of us. We probably have some of their leaves, too.

Another Sunday, another enormous coronavirus death total. Last week it was 237,875, today it is 245,777. That's 7902 for the week, or roughly 1129 deaths per day. If it gets a little worse, we'll reach 300,000 deaths by the end of the year. Of course, the number of cases is going through the roof, so this is still a small percentage, but come on. So many people are sick, so many people are dying. There's a vaccine, we think, but when can people get it? Meanwhile, people continue to die. Most of them are older, 70s 80s 90s. I'm older. I'm 60 (and I'm fat). Rocket Boy is 66. My older sister is 71. I have cousins in their 80s. 

So we continue to wear masks and social distance and watch things shut down. The kids' school has now shut down completely again, until at least January 5th. I am so sad about that, but with what the kids told me, I think it was the right decision. They went to school this week, on Thursday and Friday, and they said there were only about four kids in each of their classes. Is it worth keeping the middle school open for four kids per class? Most people are keeping their kids home. Might as well close down. We have one more week before Thanksgiving break (Rocket Boy shows up on Friday for a one week visit). Then three weeks in December before the two-week Winter break. Then we'll see.

Last Sunday, feeling blue, I thought I might like to "go to church" (i.e., watch a service online). I'm trying to find support wherever I can -- currently I'm attending an online grief group and an online parenting group each month. So I searched the web and found a local church that sounded promising (Open & Affirming, eco-friendly, pro Black Lives Matter, etc.). I was nervous about signing into the Zoom service, however, because I thought people might see me/my name. I only wanted to do this if I could be completely anonymous. So I poked around on their website and discovered they post their services online. I watched the November 1st service and felt very good afterwards.

This week I thought I might be a little braver and attend the actual service, but when I started to sign in, sure enough, it was a regular Zoom call and they wanted me to connect my camera and microphone. Too scary! I quickly signed off, studied the website some more, and confirmed that yes, if I "attended" services, my picture or my name (in big white letters on a black screen) would show, and if someone else on the call knew me, they would recognize me/it -- and that seemed way too embarrassing. (What if someone called me afterwards and said, "I saw you at church today!" I would just die.) So I went back to the page with the recorded sermons and watched the November 8th service. The pastor started out with a quote from Mother Teresa: "Not all of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love." And I started to cry. Again, I watched the whole thing and felt better afterwards. The sermon was about how we can approach becoming a whole country again, which is something I've been thinking about a lot since the election.

Now I'm watching the website to see when they post the new services, to try to figure out whether I could actually watch next Sunday's recorded service on Sunday. It's now 3 pm and the service isn't up yet -- maybe they're posted later in the week. I have a feeling I'm going to have to stay one week behind if I can't get brave enough for Zoom. Another possibility would be to use one of the kids' Chromebooks. Not embarrassing (to me) to have one of their names showing. And I could turn off the camera. Hmm, it's a thought. 

Well, Rocket Boy will be with us in five days. The house is a pigsty -- I haven't been following my cleaning schedule since he left. I do the laundry, I clean the kitchen, I grocery shop and cook, I supervise school, I read to the twins, I read to myself. I don't seem to be able to do anything else. I haven't even put away the Halloween stuff yet, although much of it is gathered on a table. Just need to transfer it into the Halloween storage boxes. Can it really be that hard? This week I'll try to do a bit of cleaning each day, so the house isn't quite so horrible looking when he arrives. It won't be great, but every little bit makes things a little less horrible. My new motto.

We won -- still can't believe it

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election. I have to keep telling myself that, and writing it down, and talking to other people about it, so that I can absorb its reality. I guess there are still ways for Trump to win, illegally and unfairly -- weird things that involve the Supreme Court and states with Republican governors and whatnot. I hope those things don't happen. I'm not spending a lot of time thinking about them. Trump has clearly and decisively LOST the election, legally and ethically. I wish the GOP had also lost the Senate and won less in the House and all that, so that Biden could actually manage to accomplish something, but the most important thing was to reject Trump...and that has happened. 

It was a terrible week for me, as I know it was for so many other people. I couldn't sleep the night before the election, the night after the election, and the two nights following that. Friday night I finally slept my preferred seven and a half hours, but it's going to take a while to recover from last week. When I say I couldn't sleep, I mean I woke up too early. Actually, the first two nights I also had trouble falling asleep, but the worst part was waking up at 3 am or 4 am or 5 am and realizing that sleep was over for the night. I wasn't manic, my mind wasn't racing. I was just awake, filled with dread and misery. 

And when Friday came and it became clear that Biden/Harris would win, and especially on Saturday morning, when Joe was declared the winner (we had chocolate cake to celebrate), I felt this deep sense of peace and relief. Also, oddly, I felt great sympathy for Trump supporters. All week I had been angry at them, angry that over 70 million adults in the U.S. voted for Trump -- after four years of him, after KNOWING what he is, what he does. Honestly, I've been furiously angry for the last four years, even since Hillary lost despite winning the popular vote. But when Biden won, and it was clear he would also win the popular vote by a wide margin, I let go of some of that tension, that anger. I thought about how sad and lost the Trump supporters feel. I wondered how to bring them back into the fold. Baaaa.

A week or so ago I watched part of a Trevor Noah show online, in which one of his people went to a Trump rally and interviewed people there. One blond woman made me so sad (starting around 4:35 on the video). She was clearly very worried about something she'd probably seen on Facebook. "I can't live under socialist rule," she said. "Biden's not going to last four years and then the Camelback will take over." (Beautiful Michelle Obama was sometimes referred to as a gorilla. Apparently lovely, stylish Kamala is going to be a camel. Does it make white people feel better to refer to people of color as animals?) She said that if Biden won, with his socialized medicine and all that, she was thinking of leaving the country. Trevor Noah's person asked where she would go. "I'm thinking about Costa Rica," she said, and he noted that they have universal healthcare, but she didn't get it.

I felt sad for the blond lady. In addition to being a racist bitch, she was so afraid! She didn't seem very bright, but she was also trapped in a maze of misinformation. I don't want people to be so afraid that they relinquish their minds to Trump. Can we work together on any level? I'm tired of hating half the country. I don't care if it sounds naive. I just want to find a way to coexist.

The covid news is scary this week: 237,875 deaths so far. Last Sunday it was 230,703 -- so that's an average of over 1000 a day this week, very bad. Of course the number of cases has gone way up too, higher than ever, so the deaths are still a smaller percentage of cases than they used to be, which is good -- but nothing else about this is good. Boulder County's caseload has gone way up -- 123 average daily cases. They put us back on "Safer at Home," which I think just means fewer people allowed in stores and restaurants. If we go up quite a bit more, they'll close us down again. Or so they say. I'm thinking I'd better get my hair cut before it's too late.

Schools have been relabeled as "critical," so my understanding is that they may stay open even if many businesses have to shut down. But the kids' school is having a hard time staying open anyway. The boos went to school in person on October 29th and 30th. Then a student in the other cohort was diagnosed with covid and everyone who had interacted with that student had to go on quarantine, including various teachers. So they closed the school entirely last week. It's supposed to reopen on November 12th. I'm hopeful, but I'm not holding my breath.

I thought this quarter would be easier, but it sort of isn't. They are both taking life science, PE, and an artsy class (music for Kid B, drama for Kid A). The artsy classes are going the best, I think, though Kid A continues to insist that he doesn't want to take drama (it wasn't his choice). 

PE is proving to be quite challenging -- for ME. In the "synchronous" hour they study Health topics with their teacher, but in the "asynchronous" hour they have to exercise. Once a week they do a yoga video, once a week they do a very strenuous aerobic video, and once a week they go for a 20-minute run (the other two days are "choice" days, when a walk is OK). Kid B has an interest in obeying the teacher, so I do the exercises with him. I'm sure it's quite amusing to watch me trying to do the yoga video (I used to like yoga!) or the aerobics video. Kid A refuses to do both of those, but last week I did manage to get both boys to do the run. The problem is that they have PE at different times. So from 12:21 to 1:12 I helped Kid B do the run, and from 2:07 to 3:07 I helped Kid A do the run (don't ask me about the funky times -- the only explanation I've come up with is that the person who set up the schedule isn't very good at math). I myself did not actually run -- I walked with them and cheered them on whenever they ran a little (it's OK for them to combine walking and running). But altogether I walked for about 40 minutes, which for me, at my enormous weight, is a lot. 

I thought they'd do well in science, since they both liked it last year, but it doesn't seem to be going well. Life science shouldn't be done via a screen. Each week they are expected to do a small independent project (called a "4er" because they do it to earn the 4th point possible each week) and that has especially not been going well. I don't think Kid A has done any 4ers yet, Kid B maybe one (or maybe not). This week one of the 4er options was to take a nature walk and then create a piece of art about it, so I thought we could do that (other options: write a song about science, record yourself teaching one of the week's topics...um, no). On Saturday we drove out to Walden Ponds, off 75th Street, and walked around the fishing pond. But it wasn't a very successful outing. The boys were more interested in skipping stones across the water (really great for the man out there trying to fish!) than observing "nature." And granted, November in Colorado is not the best time to observe nature. I kind of like the gray-brown look of everything, but it's not exciting. It's too subtle for 12-year-old boys, at least my two. I took a bunch of photos to remind them of what we saw, and I'm still hoping I can convince them to turn this into art by tomorrow (the 4ers are due Monday night), but I might be kidding myself.

Well, it's getting late and I still need to do some raking and maybe get the kids to help. Then finish the laundry, clean up the kitchen, think about dinner. There are several other things on my list, but I think surviving the week is the most important thing. Today, Sunday, can be my day of rest.

It's finally November

Even though I love Halloween, it's something of a relief to reach November. This was more true when I was younger -- I spent October dressing in black and purple and fluorescent green, sometimes all at once, and when November came I switched to navy blue and brown. October was for parties and chasing guys; November was for catching up on homework.

In recent years, I haven't worn much black and purple, and I don't bring out my spider earrings until October 29th or 30th. But still, I feel the change. October is for ghost stories and November is for presidential biographies (while sneaking chocolate out of the twins' bowls of candy). This year, though, there isn't any chocolate to steal because the twins did not go trick-or-treating! Yes, faced with the prospect of having to wear a cloth mask with their costumes (not that they HAD costumes, but they figured they could cobble something together), they decided they'd rather stay home and play stupid video games and look at stupid TikTok. The mind boggles. I would NEVER have made that choice at their age. 

On the other hand, my last year of trick-or-treating might have been seventh grade. Or was it the year before? I was quite tall at 11 and 12, close to 5'6", and people commented on that somewhat critically as I went door to door. The twins aren't that tall (Kid A is about 5' and Kid B an inch or two shorter), but clearly their trick-or-treating years are nearing the end, if they haven't ended already. Next year, if masks are no longer required, will they go out? I'd say it's unlikely. We'll see.

Our neighborhood was very big on socially distanced trick-or-treating, with many people delivering the candy through long pipes or chutes of some sort. I just put a little table at the entrance to our porch, added some saucers full of tea lights so the kids could see what they were getting, and poured out some candy onto the table (sorry the photo is so dark -- forgot the flash). People were very polite, only taking a few candies at a time, despite the fact that I was indoors watching a movie instead of standing there staring at them. I heard one little girl say, "I'm going to take THREE pieces." Very cute. I had bought three bags of Skittles and Starbursts and I think we went through about 1.5 bags. There's a lot left over, but it isn't anything that interests me. Should have bought some chocolate.

We had no luck with our pumpkins either -- they froze in the frigid weather we had last Sunday & Monday. Should have brought them inside on the really cold days. I tried to carve faces in them anyway, but they started to collapse when I did so (I didn't scoop out the seeds, which definitely would have made them collapse). I moved them from the front porch to these flower pots (with mostly frozen annuals in them), because they were leaking orange liquid and it was gross.

Well, there was no reason to expect that Halloween would be fun this year. Covid has just wiped out 2020. There are 230,703 deaths in the U.S. as of today -- last week there were 224,999, so that's an average of about 815/day this past week (last week the average was 740/day). The numbers are getting bad in Colorado. Boulder had gone down to 10-15 cases per day and now we're back up over 100 a day. The kids finally got to go to in-person school last week for two days, Thursday and Friday, but I wonder whether they'll close the schools down again soon.

And this brings us to what November really means -- not necessarily presidential biographies (you'll notice a lot of non-presidential books in my current to-read pile), but a presidential election. I was so sure Joe Biden would win -- and he probably still will -- and the Democrats may very well take the Senate, and they undoubtedly will keep the House -- but every time I read that the polls have tightened in this state or that race, I get a sick, painful feeling in my stomach. It's PTSD from four years ago. In 2016 we were so sure Hillary would win, and look what happened. Even if Biden does pull out the win, even if he wins by a LOT, it still makes me feel sick to think about all those people in the country who support Trump. Why do people support a liar? Is it just because Fox News presents him as a good person? How is it possible to fight back against Fox News without violating free speech?

I can't read any article about polls anymore. I'm hoping and praying for the best, but preparing for the worst. I've now given Joe $150, more than I've ever given any candidate ever. I've voted, long since. My ballot has been accepted and processed. I know I could be making phone calls, but I'm not. I'm trying not to think about the election. Obviously failing, but trying. Two more days of voting. Then days and days of counting. Then, who knows.

Please let it all be OK.