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Editorial Reviews
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"[A]n extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall."--Newsday
From Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man--the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular--the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech--at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.
"Tell me what happened while there's still time," demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss's history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood; bucolic days as a filmmaker, lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it all lies a mystery: how did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals? Brilliantly crafted, moving, wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
"[A]n extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall."--Newsday
From Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man--the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular--the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech--at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.
"Tell me what happened while there's still time," demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss's history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood; bucolic days as a filmmaker, lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it all lies a mystery: how did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals? Brilliantly crafted, moving, wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Related Reviews
Genius on a level with Joyce's Ulysses
Of course, this book was difficult to read at times. Anyone who has read Invisible Man had to expect that. Nonetheless, there is a complicated genius that emerges in Ellison's life-work the same way Joyce's Ulysses rewards those who make it to the end. I tried reading this book at the beach, which was a mistake. I was more successful finishing it at home with a serious outlook, an overstuffed chair and long sittings. Whatever you do, don't quit in the middle.
Ellison captures the ambiguity of racial and ethnic heritage in the identities of individual characters. While the large racial drama has played out through our country's history, individual players have lived in their own unique spaces within the play. Hickman and Bliss are exquisitely drawn examples.
I found the book a little too much for my liking. But the audio version(Blair Underwood-reader)excellant. He has a wonderful voice and captures the spirit of the story.
A difficult but worthwhile read
Juneteenth was a difficult, but worthwhile read. I have read "Invisible Man" and have been exposed to his prose and masterful imagery before and was somewhat prejudiced about reading "Juneteenth". However, I was not disappointed. The author very rarely slips out of Ellison's prose and carries the mood, the scenes and the language well. It is by no means an easy piece of literature to read. The story is serves as a background to the more prominent foci of the novel which are Ellison's highly descriptive and detailed scenes, the deep-rooted, backwoods southern language and the psychological escapades of a young boy. This book takes some determination to read as it takes much effort to grow accustomed to Ellison's style and I recommend reading "Invisible Man" before reading "Juneteenth". However, despite the work, I enjoyed the novel overall and at times was captivated by the wild scenes and intrigued by the thoughts of Bliss.
As with any other unfinished work (The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Garden of Eden, etc.) it is difficult to read this without wondering what it might have been if Ellison had finished it. On the downside, there is much here that needs explanation and fleshing out. There are interesting nods in certain directions that leave the reader longing for more. And there is the inevitable feeling that a much richer story lies just beneath the surface. However, there are rich passages of prose in this book which are a welcome addition to Ellison's body of work. The concept, the plot, and the route taken to get there is full of rewards along the way. "Juneteenth" is a sketch of something that could have been truly magnificent, but is still nevertheless a fascinating look into the mind of one of America's greatest writers.
Just say no to post death editing!
I gave this book two hundred pages before I called it quits. Edited down from 2,000 pages to a few hundred pages, I had no clue where the book was going. The early scenes with Bliss and Hickman were the best part. The flowing from past to present was confusing at best. I'm waiting for an edition that is less edited and allows us to see where Ellison wanted to go. We can't go there now that he's gone, but even Moses at least got to glimpse the promise land. As with Alex Haley's post death career, I'm disappointed with the lackluster results; and more commited to NOT seeing an author's reputation tarnished by work that, in the end, isn't his.
Not Finished, but Neither Is the Fight Against Racism
Much of the attention surrounding this posthumously compiled and titled novel Juneteenth, has focused on it's unfinished nature. True, in many spots the prose is difficult and plot trasitions are hard to follow. However, Ellison's mastery of the language and his awareness of race relations in the US, make this novel, though unfinished, a poignant follow up to Invisible Man. Ellison, via Callhoun's splicing, delves into the possibilities for equality among races, and the hope that one day we might all, black and white, be led out of the bonds of slavery and into a glorious promised land. Unfortunately, in Ellisons rendering, that Moses is sick and dying, and desperately in need of remembering who he is and where he came from. The end of the novel, although it may be abrupt and full of more questions than answers, might actually be closer to the truth than Ellison might have hoped to achieve. It leaves us as readers to ponder who we are and what we think the outcome might be (infact the last of his notes suggests this kind of relationship of this novel to his redaers). Is racisim truly an eternal bond that we shall never be free of? As in the novel, the answer is up to you.
This book gives you an interesting glimpse into what had the potential to be a truly masterful and brilliant novel. I'll give Callahan credit for making a valiant attempt at pulling together this great work. While there are passages that give you glimpses into what this work could have become, the whole just doesn't hold together well. It's very disjointed, as you would expect an unfinished work condensed from thousands of pages to be. At the end of it, I was glad to have read it, but I wasn't sure exactly what I had read or what had happened.
The interesting thing is that the introductory notes, and the excerpt notes at the end gave me a better feel for what this work's potential was than the actual novel itself. It aspired to greatness, and that has to be admired, but missed the mark.
A novel about the truth as seen through the eyes of a fiction--indeed, the truth, to Ellison, was always suspect to the lie and again, as in the phrase the emancipation myth, where freedom wasn't given by the law but the law was only subject to the people who inforced it as truth, and thus Juneteenth, as the title of the last great work by an even greater artist, seems to be apt, for it suggests this dichotomy that Ellison was to work in all of his career.
Always a symbolist at heart, Ellison demonstates in Juneteenth the potential of words to turn even the most innocent of scenes on its head, fleshing out the meaning of slavery in something so unrelated as a circus as when Daddy Hickman takes Bliss to the circus, and Bliss innocently asks how come the lions don't catch the trainer, and Daddy Hickman explains that the lions are mastered. And with that small amount of information, the reader is instantly transported into the real scene Ellison wants his reader to notice. Of course, the genius of all this is Ellison's use of the word "mastered" instead of "trained," as that one word becomes the window through which we begin to see the ritual of the circus as having the potential to speak to us about the deeper convention of race.
And that is Ellison par excellent, for he is always using unrelated events to talk about other things.
There are so many things that can and should be said about Juneteenth that I could never exhaust the subject. Not that I am trying to, but one thing is for sure, those who have an intimate knowledge of Shadow and Act, and Going To The Territory and of course Invisible Man will see the influence of those books on Juneteenth. In scene after scene, Ellison calls up his references like a bandleader calls on the Brass section to riff on the beat, to live in the music, and Ellison, in Juneteeth, is more than anything else, living inside himself, inside the basement of Invisible Man, inside all of the history of literature and once in a while he peeks out at us, peeks as from a glass darkly to see if it okay to come out and play.
Always a symbolist at heart, Ellison demonstates in Juneteenth the potential of words to turn even the most innocent of scenes on its head, fleshing out the meaning of slavery in something so unrelated as a circus as when Daddy Hickman takes Bliss to the circus, and Bliss innocently asks how come the lions don't catch the trainer, and Daddy Hickman explains that the lions are mastered. And with that small amount of information, the reader is instantly transported into the real scene Ellison wants his reader to notice. Of course, the genius of all this is Ellison's use of the word "mastered" instead of "trained," as that one word becomes the window through which we begin to see the ritual of the circus as having the potential to speak to us about the deeper convention of race.
And that is Ellison par excellent, for he is always using unrelated events to talk about other things.
There are so many things that can and should be said about Juneteenth that I could never exhaust the subject. Not that I am trying to, but one thing is for sure, those who have an intimate knowledge of Shadow and Act, and Going To The Territory and of course Invisible Man will see the influence of those books on Juneteenth. In scene after scene, Ellison calls up his references like a bandleader calls on the Brass section to riff on the beat, to live in the music, and Ellison, in Juneteeth, is more than anything else, living inside himself, inside the basement of Invisible Man, inside all of the history of literature and once in a while he peeks out at us, peeks as from a glass darkly to see if it okay to come out and play.
Don't listen to the naysayers. If you love Ellison, you must read this. Albeit a diamond in the rough, it's all here: vivid characters in the round, profound feeling and humanism, musical qualities underneath and at the surface... It's Ellison and it's worth it.
Well worth the effort required to know.
Yes, his work is difficult to embrace and truly know. Yet, the effort is well rewarded. Perhaps the best method to know the work is through the audiotape read by Blair Underwood. One might say that Underwood does justice to this sometimes elusive literary masterpiece or, in balance, that this novel allows the expression of the the performance genius of Blair Underwood. This is a hard-studied, finely tuned work of art performed by this gifted actor. After having "studied" Invisable Man, I had learned that one simply does not read Ralph Ellison but must strive to understand genius and to "hear the rhythm and the beat". That is the attitude one must bring to Juneteenth. And then the rewards will flow. If nothing else, buy this tape presentation for Tape 2, Side B, where Underwood gives a remarkable performance of Reverend Hickman's explanation of the essense of the Juneteenth celebration. If I were an educator, I would make it a mandatory part of the curriculum.
Although not Invisible Man -- what book is -- Juneteenth is a good work by an inspiring author. I particularly liked the call and response pattern between Hickman and Bliss, however, I was sometimes confused by Ellison's movements between the past and the present. Those aspects of the novel warrant a close reading so the reader can get a good grasp of what is happening. I give John Callahan credit, taking a huge manuscript and turning it into a workable novel, especially by today's standards, is no easy task. He did a fine job with it. In the afterword to the book Callahan promises another edition with more of Ellison's manuscript included. I can't wait. In the meantime, I can't help wonder what might have been...
Blair Underwood reading adds a resonance to Ellison's words
While the first (of four) tapes begins as a traditional "reading", the actor in Underwood soon emerges in response to Ellison's literary power. He "becomes" Reverend Hickman and you begin to visualize Juneteenth on the stage. Powerful rendition of a remarkable symphony of words.
Complex, brilliant, choppy, hard to read....
From over 2000 pages of manuscript, John Callahan, the literary executer of Ralph Ellison's estate has done his best to patch together what might have been Ellison's last great novel. Unfortunately while some of the prose is wild and beautiful in Ellison's way, the whole of this effort may leave the reader with a very choppy, unhinged body of work. The basis of the story is a good one, young white boy (Bliss) adopted and raised by big African American southern preacher (who is also something of a con - part and parcel), Alonzo Z. Hickman, boy becomes first a scam artist (in the guise of a movie maker) then a horribly racist US Senator (Allan Sunraider).... book begins when the then old preacher comes to Washington DC with a group of his more elderly churchgoers to visit with the Senator ('before it's too late") and is not allowed to see him. The group with the preacher are in the Senate Gallery days later when a young man near them stands up and peppers the Senator with bullets. The body of the book is a compilation of stream of consciousnesses, dialogues, monologues, conversations, and described situations during Bliss's/Sunraider's life. In Ellison style, much of the book is what is going on in the minds of the character(s) during given situations. So much is happening in this book - so much of what Ellison wanted us to understand, to draws parallels with, to see more 'racially' clearly... and I simply found it tedious to wade through. The extensive introduction written by Callahan at the beginning of the book, and the very interesting "notes" section at the end were a positive addition to helping me to more clearly 'hear' what was happening in the minds of these two men during the end of Bliss's life.
Deeply felt message about race--too bad it's not finished
This book reads exactly like what it is: a book Ellison worked on off and on for most of his life, and never finished. Only after he died did someone piece together his drafts into a "finished" novel. Of course, it isn't finished--or Ellison would have sent it off to the publisher himself. This explains why it meanders forever in spots, and doesn't have (in my opinion) a satisfactory end.
All that aside, I don't agree that this book is "unreadable" or a waste of time. Ellison always had powerful things to say about race in America, and a mastery of language to bring to the task.
Ellison's point in Juneteenth is that Blacks are martyrs in their acceptance of the suffering imposed on them by whites, and that whites are irredemably evil--and, if I read the end right, damned to spend eternity in hell as a result.
Apparently this is true even if whites "see the light", are reborn black, and raised black--as Bliss--one of the books two real characters--as, most obviously through nightly staged "resurrection" out of the coffin, but at least symbolically at birth, and then again when he suffers an almost fatal illness as a very young child. Despite these early influences, as soon as Bliss reached adolesence, he abandoned blacks, turned white, and became a populist racist demagogue politician.
In contrast, Daddy Hickman (the other character) undergoes his own salvation (turning, through the influence of Bliss' birth and near fatal illness) from a life of a road musician to become a man of god. Even as a traveling preacher, he becomes more Christ-like, in contrast to the typical portrayal in literature (and movies) of white evangilists as charltain hustlers. In the end, Daddy Hickman apparently has the power to reach right into hell to try to save (yet again) Bliss from the eternal fire. It is, of course, unclear whether Hickman succeeds in saving Bliss, but similarly it is unclear (I think this is Ellison's underlying message) whether white America is beyond salvation.
On one level, this is a book about the unsettled state of race relations in America. On another level, the story of Bliss is the oft told story of balck and white friendship which is inevitably destroyed at adolesence (triggered here by a white female movie star).
I thought Juneteenth was interesting, certainly has a well defined point of view on American race relations, and continues (in spots) Ellison's powerful way with words. But clearly this is not a finished novel, and no one should expect that it is when they pick it up.
Frame your mind to the Latin Mysticism genre
Even though I knew I was supposed to chain myself to a presupposed United States South, I found myself referenced all over Latin America, dropped into the chaos theory of psychological writing and life beyond our known spectrum of light and ensuing color. This book is not for everyone. You will know by the first ten pages if you will stick with it. Caution: skip the Introduction. You need as clean a slate as possible to meet and submit to the demands of this book.
This could well be the great American Novel that was anticipated. The ideas are powerful and cross racial bounderies. Ellison is a master and re-creates moods with skill. He glorifies the commonplace.
Ellison again brings us his paradigms on race relations in America, but this time, through an editor. John F. Callahan seems to have put this together as best he could, but I don't find the organic unity which is present in Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN. JUNETEENTH seems to be quite a few stories (and wonderful stories, at that) strung together to make a novel. They are related, but not unified. The language, however, is very compelling; the surreality of it is very powerful, reminiscent of Faulkner.
In the presence of a literary genius
It is apparent that Juneteenth is a patch-and-paste job. But, there is nothing wrong with the work. Ellison's prose is the best that has come down the road in years. You will not find any book that will come close. He has no equal.
Let the thirteen page Introduction be a warning to anyone who dares venture beyond. Anyone who reads more the Introduction does so at his or her own peril. The book is barely readable. It should be obvious to even a casual reader that this book was cobbled together. This book does an injustice to the name and legacy of Ralph Ellison.
A little known book. This could be the American novel that transends time and place. The characters and descriptions are of the depth that is rarely described in modern literature.
amazing. gives one a TON to think about...the language is unforgettable, and the story incredible. a masterpiece. not an easy read, but a welcomed break from the average wack novel.
If you didn't like Invisible Man...
The idea of paternal reconciliation across race lines was what inspired me to choose this book for a summer read. Though the idea is one that could have been a page turner, the stream of consciousness style that is Ellison's trademark completely killed it for me. If you did not apprecitate Invisible Man, reader beware. This book was difficult for me to read as well as enjoy.
A wonderful beginning gives way to a mish-mash of verbiage. This is not a book, but a splice job of a book that was far from finished. The Invisible Man is a masterpiece, but these are simply loose ideas floating around.
The worse piece of fiction since the Warren Report.
I read and thouroughly enjoyed Ellison's Invisible Man. In my opinion, that was one of the best pieces of American Literature. When I heard that there was another, undiscovered piece of his work, I was excited.
However, after trudging through the first three chapters, I was so dissappointed that I did not even finish the book. The author switches from the present, to the past, to the distant past in the blink of an eye without informing the reader of where he's going or why. In chapter two I believe, the majority of it is a political soliloquy that is uninteresting and uninspired. I mean, had I actually had the chance to know the character speaking, then I might have been interested in reading what he had to say. As it is, the characters were not developed in a manner in which I would have liked.
Granted, perhaps my perspective would be different had I read the whole book. But it was so uninteresting that i'd much rather regrout my bathroom than read this book.
Ralph Ellison is back on our desks. His posthumous novel, marvellously edited by John F. Callahan, is the continuation of the reality and vision of Invisible Man. It is a book on identity, the identity of the black man, beyond the long period of suffering under slavery, and then discrimination. It is a visionary book about the future rising of the black man over these circumstances and into the future. But it is also a very accurate portrait of the black man's self-inflicted alienation : I mean religion, I mean the rite of Juneteenth to celebrate the end of slavery as a myth of rebirth, in June, in continuation with ancient summer rites, and a total blending with the Christ's resurrection and the belief in a life after death. We feel in the main character, a preacher of that new era, his fear for and defensiveness toward the modern world, the cinema that he accuses of giving the viewers an illusion about reality, without seeing that what he calls the Truth, that is to say his belief in God's will could be seen as an illusion too, but also without seeing that men and women, children and adults are fascinated by new communication techniques, hence by the cinema. And we do know better than this character. Ellison shows very precisely how the black preacher is trapped in his own illusion, in his own fantasmagoric world of
Although Ralph Ellison's prose is masterfully, I found the body of work within Juneteenth to be disjointed and nonlinear in scope. Perhaps in someways it parallels Joyce's Ulysses, but falls woefully short of the mark.
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One cannot help but wonder what JUNETEENTH would have been like had the original copy not burned in Ellison's legendary house fire. Would it, in fact, even have been called JUNETEENTH? Callahan says he believes this is what Ellison intended to title his multi-volume epic, but we will never know. It is merely speculation. It is an "editorial decision," as is the whole book. And therein lies the problem with the novel.
JUNETEENTH is a monumental testament to the power of friendship and editorship (Callahan and Ellison). I am not denying the bravery and dedication it had to have taken Callahan to sort through all the disparate notes, and passages of dialogue, and sections of narrative told in the bits and pieces that Ellison left behind, and then to dare to somehow put it all together in some sort of coherent form. It was a monumental task, and Callahan is to be commended. But the final result is messy, incomplete, and largely unsatisfying.
As the editor of an unfinished volume, Callahan was left with making authorial decisions on the line of narrative structure, and character development development, etc. He had to repeatedly ask himself (as editor) questions that only an author can fairly ask, and so I'm afraid the book is finally more Callahan's than Ellison's.
While there are scenes in JUNETEENTH that hint at Ellison's lyrical and haunting brilliance, the "jigsaw puzzle" effect of the storyline is finally disappointing, leaving me with a mixture of emotions--sadness that Ellison never lived to finish his great life work, and anger that JUNETEENTH, as we have it, is a novel that maybe never should have been published.