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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Respect


For those of you that haven't read my profile, the name of this blog "Invisible Woman" is based on the book by Ralph Ellison "Invisible Man". It is a fictional account of a black man's invisibility in white society, but it might as well be non-fiction. It is super eloquent, and just as relevant today as it was decades ago when it was written. Undercover Black Man gave out a little info on my man last week:

It’s amazing the amount of cultural information at our fingertips via the Internet. With enough time, one could give oneself a college-level education in world history or literature or philosophy.

You want to know a supremely cool resource? Public radio archives.

In June, Stanford English professor Arnold Rampersad spoke with David Inge on WILL-AM 580, the University of Illinois radio station. The subject was Rampersad’s new book, “Ralph Ellison: A Biography.”

Their conversation makes me hungry to read Ellison’s “Invisible Man” again; I haven’t since high school.

Prof. Rampersad has interesting insights on the major mystery of Ralph Ellison’s creative life: Why, after having written a great American novel, did he never finish a second one?

You can download the full 50-minute interview as an MP3 podcast here. (Click on the headphones icon, then save to disk.)I’m streaming a 4½-minute audio bite on my Vox annex, dealing with the criticism Ellison received from black nationalists and separatists. The clip begins with a question from David Inge. Click here to hear it.


From IW: For those of you interested in the black classics, I hope you check it out.

3 comments:

Undercover Black Man said...

Thanks for the linkage, IW. Some while ago, I thought I'd found audio of Ellison himself speaking... but now I can't find it on my hard drive, and don't remember where I saw it on the Web. My hard drive is like a junked-up attic... I need to do some spring cleaning or something.

Anonymous said...

My parents had this book on the shelf when I was a kid. Everytime I saw it I wondered how do they know he is a man if he is invisible.

Later I understood the meaning and the definite value of Ellison's literary skill. Reading him was when I grew up.

Invisible Woman said...

Clean it out, UBM...I'm sure you have the treasures of the Sierra Madre in there! @debo: I started reading that book at least 5 times before I read it in it's entirety, don't feel bad. I guess I really wouldn't have been ready before anyway.