Augustine v. Ellison

In the case of Augustine v. Ellison, I must stat that I feel Ellison gets his point across much better than Augustine. It might just be the way I read or just that it got my interest, but the fiction aspect of the book gives the book a more interesting plot in my opinion. I did not enjoy reading about Augustine’s sins and his confessions of them, and their truth may be what made them so dry. However, this is not the case with Ellison and The Invisible Man, because the story adds to the plot, and his life becomes that more interesting.
I find that when reading both books, I can retain my attention while reading The Invisible Man, while with Confessions I could not do so, and instead would find myself asleep an hour later with the book still in my hand. Getting through Confessions was much harder that The Invisible Man, and I am happy to be reading this new book.
Augustine’s Confessions as a novel would have been, in my opinion, much better than the book itself. It would capture my interest much more than the true book does. At the same time, Augustine cannot be blamed for writing the book the way he did. The point he was trying to make would not have been easy to make if he was adding fiction into his account. Though I like Ellison’s style of writing more, I cannot hold a grudge against Augustine for writing the way he did.
Ellison could have written his book as Augustine did, which is as a straightforward autobiography. Yet, that would have been boring for me, and I would probably have not picked up the book, and I am sure many other people would not have read that book either. Ellison can write fiction, but when you enter non-fiction territory, I feel that the reading grows dry very quickly.
In the end, I love the fiction front that Ellison presents in The Invisible Man. It adds plot and makes the story much more worthwhile to read. That’s not to say Augustine’s Confessions isn’t a good book. It is when you get past the dry writing, but the problem is a lot of people refuse to get past the dry reading.