Man Gone Down

I've just finished Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas and am late sending it on to Gretchen. It is an incredible novel, and I look forward to reading it a second and third time to understand more of it. Before I started, I snuck a peek at the extratextual descriptions on the back and saw that it was compared to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and then later saw the phrase "Homeric odyssey." These and other references guided me in my reading. The unnamed narrator wanders through his life-- present, past, and future, through his racial identities, through New York city, through his education--formal and informal. As he wanders, each moment is paradoxically intentional, detailed, and explicit but without resolution. I'm wandering here myself, I realize, trying to find words to say how great and significant I think this novel is. Here are a few passages: "The new world regarded the old world. The old world clung to its mother's legs." (You'll understand this when you have the proper context!) Okay, here's a better one that shows the humor of the novel--the opening lines: "I know I am not doing well. I have an emotional relationship with a fish--Thomas Strawberry." "And it occurs to me not to ask about the dream deferred, because almost everyone knows what it is, on some level, to fail."