Review by Choice Review
This overview of Ralph Ellison's literary career adds little to the understanding of an important African American writer. Competently written and accurate in its presentation of well-known information, it provides an overview of Ellison's early short stories, his reviews and critical essays, his magisterial novel Invisible Man, and the published sections of his work in progress. Employing a traditional humanist perspective and a New Critical methodology, Schor emphasizes the maturation of Ellison's craft and the unity of his stylistic and thematic concerns. Although Schor briefly addresses the importance to Ellison's work of black vernacular traditions which emphasize ambiguity, she claims somewhat simplistically that the main theme of Invisible Man is that "a person determines the nature of his own reality." Readers seeking an introduction to Ellison's work will be much better served by consulting Robert O'Meally's The Craft of Ralph Ellison (CH, May'81), which covers the same material with much greater depth and sensitivity. C. Werner; University of WisconsinDSMadison
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review