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A Confederacy of Dunces
Here is Ignatius Reilly: slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one, who is in violent revolt against the entire modern age, lying in his flannel nightshirt in a back bedroom on Constantinople Street in New Orleans, who between gigantic seizures of flatulence and eructations is filling dozens of Big Chief tablets with invective.
His mother thinks he needs to go to work. He does, in a succession of jobs. Each job rapidly escalates into a lunatic adventure, a full-blown disaster; yet each has, like Don Quixote's, its own eerie logic.
His girlfriend, Myrna Minkoff of the Bronx, thinks he needs sex.
Ignatius is an intellectual, ideologue, deadbeat, goof-off, glutton, who should repel the reader with his gargantuan bloats, his thunderous contempt, and one-man war against everybody: Freud, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Protestants, and the assorted excesses of modern times.
A tragicomedy, set in New Orleans.
His mother thinks he needs to go to work. He does, in a succession of jobs. Each job rapidly escalates into a lunatic adventure, a full-blown disaster; yet each has, like Don Quixote's, its own eerie logic.
His girlfriend, Myrna Minkoff of the Bronx, thinks he needs sex.
Ignatius is an intellectual, ideologue, deadbeat, goof-off, glutton, who should repel the reader with his gargantuan bloats, his thunderous contempt, and one-man war against everybody: Freud, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Protestants, and the assorted excesses of modern times.
A tragicomedy, set in New Orleans.
394 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1980
About the author
John Kennedy Toole
4 books1,250 followersJohn Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, best known for his novel A Confederacy of Dunces.
Toole's novels remained unpublished during his lifetime. Some years after his death by suicide, Toole's mother brought the manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces to the attention of the novelist Walker Percy, who ushered the book into print. In 1981 Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Toole's novels remained unpublished during his lifetime. Some years after his death by suicide, Toole's mother brought the manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces to the attention of the novelist Walker Percy, who ushered the book into print. In 1981 Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 18,832 reviews
September 20, 2007
I know I'm out on my own on this one, but I detest this book. I really think it glorifies whining to an extent never before seen in the human condition. Everyone I know loves this book, and I know I am in a minority here. But Christ... That this book is so popular with people in my age bracket and not so popular with people older or younger really makes me wonder if it is part of the problem or a reflection of the boring, whiny apathy of my generation. But if this book has any redeemable aspects at all, it is that it highlights just how lazy and worthless my generation is. It's reflected in the reverence people my age give this book, a book whose central lesson seems to be "whining is funny, and doing things is bad". For dark, astounding irony about inaction and the parodoxes of a corrupt society, read Catch-22 or some of the more comical writers of astroyphysics tomes. Confederacy of Dunces is the Forrest Gump of literature and I'd like to never have another conversation about this book as long as I live.
NC
NC
June 26, 2012
One fine morning Fortuna spun my wheel of luck and put me on a flight to NYC. The person who was sitting next to me, refusing to indulge in modern day perversities like movies, pulled out his book and sat down reading. He must have been enjoying it immensely, because he kept laughing out loud every now and then. Soon he realized that some people had started turning around to give him weird looks. Poor guy didn't have an option but to put the book down. But Fortuna being the degenerate wanton that she can sometimes be, was in a mood to play a cruel joke on him. Even after he had put the book down, he couldn't help suddenly bursting out into laughter. More stares. More embarrassment.
That was when I noticed that the book he had been reading was A Confederacy of Dunces. Having read it only a week earlier, I could understand that he wasn't a nutcase.
(To those who haven't read this book yet):-
WARNING: 'A Confederacy of Dunces' is extremely hilarious and is known to have caused uncontrollable laughter in several cases. Read it in public at your own risk!
April 6, 2007
There are a lot of ways to judge people, but I find that opinion of this book is one of the most accurate and efficient. With very few exceptions, I've found that how much I like someone is strongly correlated with how much they enjoy the book. Is it their favorite book ever, omg? Well, they're probably either a best friend, a comrade whom I hold in worship-approximating esteem, or my cool cousin or uncle or something like that. Do they not "get" it or find it boring? You aren't my type, sorry. To me, this book is like the little yellow canary that you send down a mine shaft to know whether to run the other way or not.
I re-read Confederacy piecemeal on my grinding morning commutes last fall. If you've ever ridden the DC metro at 7:30am you know that the cars are full of serious, silent business people. So, when I couldn't keep myself from cracking up, I was very obviously that weird possibly-schizophrenic girl that every user of public transportation dreads. I tried to be professional, but Christ, this book is FUNNY, and I can't help myself. And really, who cares what those people think anyway -- I'm sure Ignatius would find their mere existence is an affront to theology and geometry.
I re-read Confederacy piecemeal on my grinding morning commutes last fall. If you've ever ridden the DC metro at 7:30am you know that the cars are full of serious, silent business people. So, when I couldn't keep myself from cracking up, I was very obviously that weird possibly-schizophrenic girl that every user of public transportation dreads. I tried to be professional, but Christ, this book is FUNNY, and I can't help myself. And really, who cares what those people think anyway -- I'm sure Ignatius would find their mere existence is an affront to theology and geometry.
October 13, 2019
Read for the group On the Southern Literary Trail
Bounce
BOUnce
BOUNCE
Oh man ughh ooohhhhh.
BOUNCE!
BOUNCE!!
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Oh thank goodness my pyloric valve finally opened. I didn't know I even had a pyloric valve until I met Ignatius J. Reilly. I had no idea that little valve could be so pesky. I can only hope it stays open long enough for me to write this review.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
Ignatius is trapped in the delusions of his own grandeur.
Ignatius embraces the philosophy of Boethius, a Roman philosopher that was roughly walking the planet around 525AD. "Boethius will show you that striving is ultimately meaningless, that we must learn to accept." He likes Boethius because he validates Ignatius's natural slothful inclination to do as little as possible.
Boethius woodcut attributed to Holbein the Younger 1537.
In a short lived relationship with some black workers from a pants factory he discovered that they were striving for the wrong things. "In a sense I have always felt something of a kinship with the colored race because its position is the same as mine: we both exist outside the inner realm of American society. Of course, my exile is voluntary. However, it is apparent that many of the Negroes wish to become active members of the American middle class. I can not imagine why. I must admit that this desire on their part leads me to question their value judgments. However, if they wish to join the bourgeoisie, it is really none of my business. They may seal their own doom."
Ignatius is a guy that you don't want to work with. You don't want to live next to him. You certainly don't want to be related to him. He is bombastically opinionated, gaseous, arrogant, and looks at the world through a Ignatius kaleidoscope that has little resemblance to real life. For example after attempting to capture a stray cat on the street he is asked by his mother about some wounds on his hands. "I had a rather apocalyptic battle with a starving prostitute. Had it not been for my superior brawn, she would have sacked my wagon. Finally she limped away from the fray, her glad rags askew." Oh and did I mention that Ignatius is a compulsive liar. Every experience in his life is elevated to epic proportions.
Speaking of epic proportions. There is a life size bronze statue of Ignatius on Canal Street in New Orleans.
He is supported by his mother, with some supplementary income from his half-hearted attempts to find employment, and keep employment himself. He explains his failure to stay employed to his mother. "Employers sense in me a denial of their values. They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe." His mother paid for him to stay in college for 10 years living in poverty the whole time. She didn't see the changes in Ignatius that she expected for all that money spent. "You learned everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being."
The first time I read this book I absolutely loved it. The second time the joy was similar, but every reading experience of a book is different. I remembered more than I thought from the first reading, a tribute to Toole's ability to tell a memorable story or at least create a monolithic character, but there were things that I feel I missed the first time around or certainly did not pay proper attention to. This book is funny. I snorted out loud. I found myself shaking my head, smiling, giggling, widening my eyes at the audacity of one Ignatius J. Reilly.
John Kennedy Toole
John Kennedy Toole had an unhappy life and took his own life, unfortunately, before Ignatius was ever realized by the reading public. He had no idea that his character would become a descriptive term that even people who have never read the book will use in conversation, in some cases, without knowing the origin. The book is a bit fluffier than I remember, not a literary megalith, but certainly entertaining. If you decide to spend an afternoon with Ignatius you will laugh even if you don't want to, and as you turn the final pages you will wish that Toole had written just one more chapter or two.
f you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Bounce
BOUnce
BOUNCE
Oh man ughh ooohhhhh.
BOUNCE!
BOUNCE!!
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Oh thank goodness my pyloric valve finally opened. I didn't know I even had a pyloric valve until I met Ignatius J. Reilly. I had no idea that little valve could be so pesky. I can only hope it stays open long enough for me to write this review.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
Ignatius is trapped in the delusions of his own grandeur.
Ignatius embraces the philosophy of Boethius, a Roman philosopher that was roughly walking the planet around 525AD. "Boethius will show you that striving is ultimately meaningless, that we must learn to accept." He likes Boethius because he validates Ignatius's natural slothful inclination to do as little as possible.
Boethius woodcut attributed to Holbein the Younger 1537.
In a short lived relationship with some black workers from a pants factory he discovered that they were striving for the wrong things. "In a sense I have always felt something of a kinship with the colored race because its position is the same as mine: we both exist outside the inner realm of American society. Of course, my exile is voluntary. However, it is apparent that many of the Negroes wish to become active members of the American middle class. I can not imagine why. I must admit that this desire on their part leads me to question their value judgments. However, if they wish to join the bourgeoisie, it is really none of my business. They may seal their own doom."
Ignatius is a guy that you don't want to work with. You don't want to live next to him. You certainly don't want to be related to him. He is bombastically opinionated, gaseous, arrogant, and looks at the world through a Ignatius kaleidoscope that has little resemblance to real life. For example after attempting to capture a stray cat on the street he is asked by his mother about some wounds on his hands. "I had a rather apocalyptic battle with a starving prostitute. Had it not been for my superior brawn, she would have sacked my wagon. Finally she limped away from the fray, her glad rags askew." Oh and did I mention that Ignatius is a compulsive liar. Every experience in his life is elevated to epic proportions.
Speaking of epic proportions. There is a life size bronze statue of Ignatius on Canal Street in New Orleans.
He is supported by his mother, with some supplementary income from his half-hearted attempts to find employment, and keep employment himself. He explains his failure to stay employed to his mother. "Employers sense in me a denial of their values. They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe." His mother paid for him to stay in college for 10 years living in poverty the whole time. She didn't see the changes in Ignatius that she expected for all that money spent. "You learned everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being."
The first time I read this book I absolutely loved it. The second time the joy was similar, but every reading experience of a book is different. I remembered more than I thought from the first reading, a tribute to Toole's ability to tell a memorable story or at least create a monolithic character, but there were things that I feel I missed the first time around or certainly did not pay proper attention to. This book is funny. I snorted out loud. I found myself shaking my head, smiling, giggling, widening my eyes at the audacity of one Ignatius J. Reilly.
John Kennedy Toole
John Kennedy Toole had an unhappy life and took his own life, unfortunately, before Ignatius was ever realized by the reading public. He had no idea that his character would become a descriptive term that even people who have never read the book will use in conversation, in some cases, without knowing the origin. The book is a bit fluffier than I remember, not a literary megalith, but certainly entertaining. If you decide to spend an afternoon with Ignatius you will laugh even if you don't want to, and as you turn the final pages you will wish that Toole had written just one more chapter or two.
f you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
April 26, 2016
This is the book that almost broke my book club.
John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces is as famous for its back-story as it is for its content. It was published posthumously in 1980, over a decade after Toole ended his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning. Despite having been earlier rejected by publishers, the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
A Confederacy of Dunces is a rambling, aimless, comedic novel centered on Ignatius J. Reilly, a buffoonish overweight man-child with poor fashion sense, worse social skills, and deplorable hygiene. Through 400 pages – which is relatively long for a book in which nothing happens – we follow Ignatius through various minor misadventures: Ignatius goes to a bar; Ignatius gets a job at Levy Pants and attempts to unionize the factory; Ignatius sells hotdogs; Ignatius – in what passes for a large set piece – attempts to use a gay soiree as a political rally.
Comedy is all about personal, subjective reactions. Thus, any artistic medium that relies heavily on comedy is likely to engender varied responses. For my book club, at least, those responses were all passionate.
It was my buddy Colin who picked the book. He’d loved it as an eighteen year-old; now, fourteen years later, he thought it a propitious time to revisit it. Rule 1 of Book Club – at least our book club – is that the person picking the book has to have read it before. He is then forced to “defend” the book at our bimonthly meeting. In his opening statement, Colin declared his undying love. A hilarious romp with an indelible central character.
The salvos came fast and fierce. The group was roughly split on loving or hating the book, and responses lived at those two extremes. Colin was the chief defender. I was his chief inquisitor. No one at our meeting had an indifferent response.
Eventually, the others got tired, their attention drawn by the frozen pizza and beer. The debate came down to Colin and me battling away over the inherent worth of A Confederacy of Dunces while the others looked for a way to exit quietly.
I’ll tell you what I told him.
I hated it.
Hate is a pretty strong word. Perhaps a bit imprecise as well. Overall, I strongly disliked the book. But I hated everyone in it. Based on the epigram by Jonathan Swift, it is clear that Toole’s title refers to Ignatius’s worldview: that his inflated sense of intelligence, his delusions of grandeur, and his unrelenting condescension has created a paradigm in which he believes that every other person in this world is an idiot. And what is more, he thinks this idiot-filled world is in league against him.
I took the title differently. I assumed it to be Toole’s worldview. His evident intelligence, his publishing failures, and his depression clearly combined to lead him to his unfortunate end. Reading this book, I got the sense that Toole really thought himself a genius – one destined to be misunderstood. To that end, the “confederacy of dunces” consists of us – the hapless, clueless world.
There is a strong disgust for humanity permeating every page. There is not a single likeable character. There is not a single person walking the streets of Toole’s New Orleans who shows a flash of wit, warmth, or love.
The pro-Dunces members of my book club pointed out that I have a tendency towards “likeable” characters. I considered the possibility, and though there is a grain of truth, I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. It was not the characters’ un-likability that struck me; it was their creator’s disdain. Toole appears to despise his own characters. How could I feel otherwise?
Ignatius is a tiresome, boorish person to follow. He is disruptive, dishonest, and frankly disgusting. His interactions with others are marked by a tendency towards sociopathy. He is written for laughs – or so I am told, by those who found him funny – but he is clearly suffering from undiagnosed mental illnesses. But rather than seeing him to a hospital, we have to follow him as he plods and farts his way through each day, griping about his “valve,” unable to reach the tiniest bit of insight.
The side characters are just as bad. Ignatius’s widowed mother Irene is an alcoholic enabler – and so immensely irritating that I nearly defenestrated my copy of this book on several occasions. Ignatius’s long-distance “girlfriend” – for lack of a better word – Myrna is a sex-crazed New York beatnik who attempts to solve Ignatius’s problems by analyzing his sex life. (To be fair, her correspondence with Ignatius is fairly hilarious). Mr. Gonzalez, the manager at Levy Pants, is a clueless bungler who doesn’t realize that Ignatius is filing things in the trash. The owner of Levy Pants, Gus Levy, is dumb, indifferent, and put upon by his wife, a trite, do-it-yourself psychoanalyst. Patrolman Angel Mancuso seems to have a decent enough heart, but he is such an inept milquetoast that it’s impossible to care about him.
The one character with a semblance of actual (rather than perceived) aptitude is Burma Jones, a black porter at the club Night of Joy. He works there for Lana Lee and puts up with her unpleasantness so that he isn��t arrested for vagrancy. Burma rises above the crowd with his ability – not to be taken lightly in this novel – to accurately observe life as it swirls around him. He is, in other words, relatively sane. But even this character is marred by the black stereotypes and tropes he is forced to carry.
Honestly, I sometimes enjoy trashing a book. Especially a trashy book that deserves it. I don’t feel that way in this instance. For one, the background – Toole’s publishing woes, his death – is sad. For another, he was a man of obvious talent. A Confederacy of Dunces is a masterpiece in that it absolutely achieves – with great skill – exactly what it sets out to achieve. I simply did not like it.
After our book club disassembled, I didn't hear from Colin for awhile. I wondered if I hadn’t assaulted his favorite book a bit too hard. Books are personal. Sharing them is a risk. (Especially with our book club. We don’t stab in the back; we stab in the front). I almost texted him to apologize. But his wife was also expecting a baby any day, so it occurred to me that he had other things on his mind.
Then, the other night, I was taking an evening stroll when I ran into him and his wife as they walked around, trying to jumpstart labor. I was going to ask them about baby-related stuff, but Colin cut me off immediately.
“I’ve been thinking about A Confederacy of Dunces,” he said. “I’m more certain than ever that you’re completely f---ing wrong. It’s a great book. It changed my life.”
“Did it really change your life?” I asked.
“Well, no. But it’s really damn funny.”
So, there you have the dissenting opinion. I didn't care for A Confederacy of Dunces. But maybe I’m just completely f---ing wrong.
John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces is as famous for its back-story as it is for its content. It was published posthumously in 1980, over a decade after Toole ended his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning. Despite having been earlier rejected by publishers, the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
A Confederacy of Dunces is a rambling, aimless, comedic novel centered on Ignatius J. Reilly, a buffoonish overweight man-child with poor fashion sense, worse social skills, and deplorable hygiene. Through 400 pages – which is relatively long for a book in which nothing happens – we follow Ignatius through various minor misadventures: Ignatius goes to a bar; Ignatius gets a job at Levy Pants and attempts to unionize the factory; Ignatius sells hotdogs; Ignatius – in what passes for a large set piece – attempts to use a gay soiree as a political rally.
Comedy is all about personal, subjective reactions. Thus, any artistic medium that relies heavily on comedy is likely to engender varied responses. For my book club, at least, those responses were all passionate.
It was my buddy Colin who picked the book. He’d loved it as an eighteen year-old; now, fourteen years later, he thought it a propitious time to revisit it. Rule 1 of Book Club – at least our book club – is that the person picking the book has to have read it before. He is then forced to “defend” the book at our bimonthly meeting. In his opening statement, Colin declared his undying love. A hilarious romp with an indelible central character.
The salvos came fast and fierce. The group was roughly split on loving or hating the book, and responses lived at those two extremes. Colin was the chief defender. I was his chief inquisitor. No one at our meeting had an indifferent response.
Eventually, the others got tired, their attention drawn by the frozen pizza and beer. The debate came down to Colin and me battling away over the inherent worth of A Confederacy of Dunces while the others looked for a way to exit quietly.
I’ll tell you what I told him.
I hated it.
Hate is a pretty strong word. Perhaps a bit imprecise as well. Overall, I strongly disliked the book. But I hated everyone in it. Based on the epigram by Jonathan Swift, it is clear that Toole’s title refers to Ignatius’s worldview: that his inflated sense of intelligence, his delusions of grandeur, and his unrelenting condescension has created a paradigm in which he believes that every other person in this world is an idiot. And what is more, he thinks this idiot-filled world is in league against him.
I took the title differently. I assumed it to be Toole’s worldview. His evident intelligence, his publishing failures, and his depression clearly combined to lead him to his unfortunate end. Reading this book, I got the sense that Toole really thought himself a genius – one destined to be misunderstood. To that end, the “confederacy of dunces” consists of us – the hapless, clueless world.
There is a strong disgust for humanity permeating every page. There is not a single likeable character. There is not a single person walking the streets of Toole’s New Orleans who shows a flash of wit, warmth, or love.
The pro-Dunces members of my book club pointed out that I have a tendency towards “likeable” characters. I considered the possibility, and though there is a grain of truth, I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. It was not the characters’ un-likability that struck me; it was their creator’s disdain. Toole appears to despise his own characters. How could I feel otherwise?
Ignatius is a tiresome, boorish person to follow. He is disruptive, dishonest, and frankly disgusting. His interactions with others are marked by a tendency towards sociopathy. He is written for laughs – or so I am told, by those who found him funny – but he is clearly suffering from undiagnosed mental illnesses. But rather than seeing him to a hospital, we have to follow him as he plods and farts his way through each day, griping about his “valve,” unable to reach the tiniest bit of insight.
The side characters are just as bad. Ignatius’s widowed mother Irene is an alcoholic enabler – and so immensely irritating that I nearly defenestrated my copy of this book on several occasions. Ignatius’s long-distance “girlfriend” – for lack of a better word – Myrna is a sex-crazed New York beatnik who attempts to solve Ignatius’s problems by analyzing his sex life. (To be fair, her correspondence with Ignatius is fairly hilarious). Mr. Gonzalez, the manager at Levy Pants, is a clueless bungler who doesn’t realize that Ignatius is filing things in the trash. The owner of Levy Pants, Gus Levy, is dumb, indifferent, and put upon by his wife, a trite, do-it-yourself psychoanalyst. Patrolman Angel Mancuso seems to have a decent enough heart, but he is such an inept milquetoast that it’s impossible to care about him.
The one character with a semblance of actual (rather than perceived) aptitude is Burma Jones, a black porter at the club Night of Joy. He works there for Lana Lee and puts up with her unpleasantness so that he isn��t arrested for vagrancy. Burma rises above the crowd with his ability – not to be taken lightly in this novel – to accurately observe life as it swirls around him. He is, in other words, relatively sane. But even this character is marred by the black stereotypes and tropes he is forced to carry.
Honestly, I sometimes enjoy trashing a book. Especially a trashy book that deserves it. I don’t feel that way in this instance. For one, the background – Toole’s publishing woes, his death – is sad. For another, he was a man of obvious talent. A Confederacy of Dunces is a masterpiece in that it absolutely achieves – with great skill – exactly what it sets out to achieve. I simply did not like it.
After our book club disassembled, I didn't hear from Colin for awhile. I wondered if I hadn’t assaulted his favorite book a bit too hard. Books are personal. Sharing them is a risk. (Especially with our book club. We don’t stab in the back; we stab in the front). I almost texted him to apologize. But his wife was also expecting a baby any day, so it occurred to me that he had other things on his mind.
Then, the other night, I was taking an evening stroll when I ran into him and his wife as they walked around, trying to jumpstart labor. I was going to ask them about baby-related stuff, but Colin cut me off immediately.
“I’ve been thinking about A Confederacy of Dunces,” he said. “I’m more certain than ever that you’re completely f---ing wrong. It’s a great book. It changed my life.”
“Did it really change your life?” I asked.
“Well, no. But it’s really damn funny.”
So, there you have the dissenting opinion. I didn't care for A Confederacy of Dunces. But maybe I’m just completely f---ing wrong.
December 29, 2007
I hated this book. I almost gave up after the first 20 pages, but I decided to stick with it and give it a chance. Wrong. My first instinct was correct!
The only thing that might have saved this for me was if the main character Ignatius faced a long, slow, painful death. There was absolutely nothing about him that I found redeeming or appealing. Has there ever been a more annoying, obnoxious character in literature? If so, I don't want to know.
I had heard that this was supposed to be an hilarious book; I don't think I laughed once. I'm left to wonder if this book would have this much hype if it wasn't for the story of its author. (He killed himself; his mom found this manuscript and got someone to publish it. Then it won the Pulitzer.)
Truly, in the words of the great Dorothy Parker, this is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
The only thing that might have saved this for me was if the main character Ignatius faced a long, slow, painful death. There was absolutely nothing about him that I found redeeming or appealing. Has there ever been a more annoying, obnoxious character in literature? If so, I don't want to know.
I had heard that this was supposed to be an hilarious book; I don't think I laughed once. I'm left to wonder if this book would have this much hype if it wasn't for the story of its author. (He killed himself; his mom found this manuscript and got someone to publish it. Then it won the Pulitzer.)
Truly, in the words of the great Dorothy Parker, this is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
January 5, 2013
Authors who commit suicide find their Lovelybones-eye view from the afterlife brings them no comfort:
David Foster Wallace : Oh my God - look at that dreadful biography of me... and it's selling too... it's like they're murdering me all over again ... oh if I could only commit suicide all over again - but up here, you can't!
John Kennedy Toole : Oh shut up you preening self-regarding self-annotating depressing pedant, what about ME?? My God, if I'd only persevered for another year or so, I'd have been rich! Famous! Women would have wanted to sleep with me... maybe! Look at those sales figures! I'm so miserable! If there was only a way to commit suicide again up here again... but there isn't....
B S Johnson : Put a sock in it - your situation is, admittedly, redolent of a sublime irony, but the afterlife of a real artist - me - not you, me - a real avant-gardist, a true believer - is wretched - look - hardly any of my God damned books are in print any more. No one loves them, just the odd post-grad creep scribbling a note in the margins of something unreadable. If there was only a way to commit suicide again up here again... but there isn't....
Sylvia Plath : Bloody men! Up here! Again! No escape! And look! They're giving Ted Hughes a plaque in Westminster Abbey! Fuck!
David Foster Wallace : Oh my God - look at that dreadful biography of me... and it's selling too... it's like they're murdering me all over again ... oh if I could only commit suicide all over again - but up here, you can't!
John Kennedy Toole : Oh shut up you preening self-regarding self-annotating depressing pedant, what about ME?? My God, if I'd only persevered for another year or so, I'd have been rich! Famous! Women would have wanted to sleep with me... maybe! Look at those sales figures! I'm so miserable! If there was only a way to commit suicide again up here again... but there isn't....
B S Johnson : Put a sock in it - your situation is, admittedly, redolent of a sublime irony, but the afterlife of a real artist - me - not you, me - a real avant-gardist, a true believer - is wretched - look - hardly any of my God damned books are in print any more. No one loves them, just the odd post-grad creep scribbling a note in the margins of something unreadable. If there was only a way to commit suicide again up here again... but there isn't....
Sylvia Plath : Bloody men! Up here! Again! No escape! And look! They're giving Ted Hughes a plaque in Westminster Abbey! Fuck!
May 17, 2008
I thought the book was ok. One of my old boyfriends recommended it to me, and while I was reading it I told him what an asshole I thought Ignatius J. Reilly was, and that I was sick of hearing about his valve. He got pissed off at me and told me that I didn't get it. He said Ignatius was a misunderstood genius stuck in a shitty town with no one who understood him. To be honest, my eyes kind of glazed over and I don't remember the rest of his rant, but I finished the book anyway. I think the most valuable thing I learned was to lie on my left side to fart.
[One of my pet peeves is when someone says, "You just don't get it." No, I get it, I just don't like it. One time I saw this shitty band (I don't remember their name) open for the White Stripes, and they kept saying, "You guys don't get it. Some of you get it, but the rest of you just don't get it." NO, you guys just SUCK!]
[One of my pet peeves is when someone says, "You just don't get it." No, I get it, I just don't like it. One time I saw this shitty band (I don't remember their name) open for the White Stripes, and they kept saying, "You guys don't get it. Some of you get it, but the rest of you just don't get it." NO, you guys just SUCK!]
August 31, 2021
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole which reached publication in 1980, eleven years after Toole's suicide.
Published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a foreword) and Toole's mother, the book became first a cult classic, then a mainstream success; it earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, and is now considered a canonical work of modern literature of the Southern United States. Toole wrote the novel in 1963 during his last few months in Puerto Rico.
Ignatius Jacques Reilly is an overweight and unemployed thirty-year-old with a degree in Medieval History who still lives with his mother, Irene Reilly.
He lives in utter loathing of the world around him, which he feels has lost the values of geometry and theology.
One afternoon, Reilly's mother drives him 'downtown in the old Plymouth, and while she was at the doctor’s seeing about her arthritis, Ignatius had bought some sheet music at Werlein’s for his trumpet and a new string for his lute.'
While Reilly waits for his mother, Officer Angelo Mancuso approaches Reilly and demands that the latter produce identification.
Affronted and outraged by Mancuso's unwarranted zeal and officious manner, Reilly protests his innocence to the crowd while denouncing the city's vices and the graft of the local police.
An elderly man, Claude Robichaux, takes Reilly's part, denouncing Officer Mancuso and the police as communiss.
In the resulting uproar, Reilly and his embarrassed mother escape, taking refuge in a bar in case Officer Mancuso is still in hot pursuit. In the bar, Mrs Reilly then drinks too much. As a result, she crashes her car. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: یکی از روزهای سال 2014میلادی
عنوان: اتحادیه ی ابلهان، اثر: جان کندی تول؛ برگردان: پیمان خاکسار؛ تهران، نشر به نگار، 1391؛ در 467ص؛ شابک 9789646332836؛ چاپ چهارم تا ششم 1392، چاپ دیگر تهران، زاوش، 1392؛ شابک 9786007283189؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نشر چشمه، 1393؛ شابک9786002292742؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
سبک نگارش اتحادیه ابلهان، رندنامه یا همان «پیکارسک» است؛
چکیده: داستان زندگی پسر جوان عظیم الجثه ای به نام «ایگنیشس» است، که با مادرش زندگی میکند، و روحیه آرمانگرایانه دارد؛ در عین حال فردی تنبل است، که مدام برای خانواده و شهر خود دردسرساز میشود؛ او از جامعه مصرف گرای آمریکایی بیزار است، و جهان امروز را سیرکی سیار میبیند؛ یک مأمور مخفی دست و پا چلفتی، که برای تنبیه به مستراح ایستگاه اتوبوس تبعید شده، پیرمرد عاشق پیشه ای که فکر میکند همه پلیسها کمونیست هستنند، یک پیرزن فقیر دائم الخمر، رئیس بیانگیزه ی کارخانه ی در حال ورشکستگی تولید شلوار، و کارمندان و کارگرانی بدتر از او، زنی که به سبک بیمارگونه و مسخره ای نظریات نوین روانشناسی را بلغور میکند، و در حقیقت به هجو میکشد، هات داگ فروش متقلبی که برای ادای دین به سنت و تاریخ «نیواورلئان» لباس فرم دزد دریایی، بر فروشندگان خویش میپوشاند؛ اینها و شخصیتهای دیگری از این دست، در ماجراهایی موازی کنار و دوشادوش قرار میگیرند و در نهایت همانند تکه هایی از یک پازل، به هم میپیوندند، تا اتحادیه ای از «ابلهان» را در جامعه ای که نمونه ی عصر کنونی است، تشکیل دهند؛ آنها همچنین با کارها و حرفهای بیمعنی خویش، همانند دلقکها، بر باور «ایگنیشس»، قهرمان محوری رمان، که جهان امروز را سیرکی سیار میبیند، صحه میگذارند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 08/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole which reached publication in 1980, eleven years after Toole's suicide.
Published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a foreword) and Toole's mother, the book became first a cult classic, then a mainstream success; it earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, and is now considered a canonical work of modern literature of the Southern United States. Toole wrote the novel in 1963 during his last few months in Puerto Rico.
Ignatius Jacques Reilly is an overweight and unemployed thirty-year-old with a degree in Medieval History who still lives with his mother, Irene Reilly.
He lives in utter loathing of the world around him, which he feels has lost the values of geometry and theology.
One afternoon, Reilly's mother drives him 'downtown in the old Plymouth, and while she was at the doctor’s seeing about her arthritis, Ignatius had bought some sheet music at Werlein’s for his trumpet and a new string for his lute.'
While Reilly waits for his mother, Officer Angelo Mancuso approaches Reilly and demands that the latter produce identification.
Affronted and outraged by Mancuso's unwarranted zeal and officious manner, Reilly protests his innocence to the crowd while denouncing the city's vices and the graft of the local police.
An elderly man, Claude Robichaux, takes Reilly's part, denouncing Officer Mancuso and the police as communiss.
In the resulting uproar, Reilly and his embarrassed mother escape, taking refuge in a bar in case Officer Mancuso is still in hot pursuit. In the bar, Mrs Reilly then drinks too much. As a result, she crashes her car. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: یکی از روزهای سال 2014میلادی
عنوان: اتحادیه ی ابلهان، اثر: جان کندی تول؛ برگردان: پیمان خاکسار؛ تهران، نشر به نگار، 1391؛ در 467ص؛ شابک 9789646332836؛ چاپ چهارم تا ششم 1392، چاپ دیگر تهران، زاوش، 1392؛ شابک 9786007283189؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نشر چشمه، 1393؛ شابک9786002292742؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
سبک نگارش اتحادیه ابلهان، رندنامه یا همان «پیکارسک» است؛
چکیده: داستان زندگی پسر جوان عظیم الجثه ای به نام «ایگنیشس» است، که با مادرش زندگی میکند، و روحیه آرمانگرایانه دارد؛ در عین حال فردی تنبل است، که مدام برای خانواده و شهر خود دردسرساز میشود؛ او از جامعه مصرف گرای آمریکایی بیزار است، و جهان امروز را سیرکی سیار میبیند؛ یک مأمور مخفی دست و پا چلفتی، که برای تنبیه به مستراح ایستگاه اتوبوس تبعید شده، پیرمرد عاشق پیشه ای که فکر میکند همه پلیسها کمونیست هستنند، یک پیرزن فقیر دائم الخمر، رئیس بیانگیزه ی کارخانه ی در حال ورشکستگی تولید شلوار، و کارمندان و کارگرانی بدتر از او، زنی که به سبک بیمارگونه و مسخره ای نظریات نوین روانشناسی را بلغور میکند، و در حقیقت به هجو میکشد، هات داگ فروش متقلبی که برای ادای دین به سنت و تاریخ «نیواورلئان» لباس فرم دزد دریایی، بر فروشندگان خویش میپوشاند؛ اینها و شخصیتهای دیگری از این دست، در ماجراهایی موازی کنار و دوشادوش قرار میگیرند و در نهایت همانند تکه هایی از یک پازل، به هم میپیوندند، تا اتحادیه ای از «ابلهان» را در جامعه ای که نمونه ی عصر کنونی است، تشکیل دهند؛ آنها همچنین با کارها و حرفهای بیمعنی خویش، همانند دلقکها، بر باور «ایگنیشس»، قهرمان محوری رمان، که جهان امروز را سیرکی سیار میبیند، صحه میگذارند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 08/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
February 1, 2021
This was my second read of this unbelievable masterpiece from John Kennedy Toole who committed suicide 21 years before this book was rediscovered and published by his mother (he was thus the only person to receive a posthumous Pulitzer in 1981). Ignatius P Reilly is so incredibly unforgettable. I laughed from cover to cover. The parrot on his shoulder reminded me of the Mexico episode in Bellow's Augie March (which I also loved and reviewed here). There is never a dull moment here and the implicit criticism of American consumerism was and remains revelatory and thought-provoking. But what really clinches the book is Ignatius and his poor long-suffering, overbearing, manipulative, compulsively Catholic mother and his insane ex-girlfriend. Somewhere between Portnoy's Complaint and Don Quixote, this is a true modern masterpiece and well-worth the read.
Also, a good read now with Drumpf the tiny-handed Dunce in the White House. With a mustache and a hat with earmuffs, the resemblance with IP Reilly would be striking!
My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Also, a good read now with Drumpf the tiny-handed Dunce in the White House. With a mustache and a hat with earmuffs, the resemblance with IP Reilly would be striking!
My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
September 3, 2020
“¡Qué falta de gusto y de decencia!” “¡Qué falta de teología y geometría!”A ver, que yo soy tan misántropo como el que más, el ser humano me da razones a diario para aumentar sin pausa el número de individuos e individuas a los que despreciar con toda el alma. Lo que inevitablemente me lleva a compartir con Ignatius Reilly, el egregio grandote con gorra de cazador protagonista de la novela, el pesimismo más atroz y para el que solo encuentro consuelo en la seguridad de que en pocos años todos estaremos comiendo mierda, y eso si hay para todos, como añade siempre mi primo con esa gracia que el diablo le dio. Si algo envidio de Ignatius Reilly es, sin duda, su desvergüenza en la falta de consideración que tiene con casi cualquier individuo o individua que se le cruza.
“Si un blanco de la clase media fuera lo bastante suicida como para sentarse a mi lado, imagino que lo golpearía sonoramente en la cabeza y en los hombros con una manaza, arrojando, con suma destreza, uno de mis cócteles molotov a un autobús en marcha atiborrado de blancos de clase media con la otra.”Pero aun así, me niego a ver a Ignatius Reilly como un ser tierno y entrañable malogrado por una sociedad decadente contra la que luchaba en una guerra desigual. Nadie va a convencerme de ello, ninguna conjura logrará tamaña majadería conmigo. ¿Un Don Quijote obeso? ¿Un Cristo moderno? Ignatius Reilly es un haragán, sexófobo, cobarde y pontificador de soberbia infinita y luces muy justitas que se comunica con el resto del mundo a través del desagrado y que despotrica contra todo lo que se mueve con una elegancia y una gracia, eso no se lo puedo negar, que en ocasiones nos divierte por su despropósito, que en otras nos indigna, sin dejar de divertirnos, por el reaccionario y casposo espíritu que lo inspira, y que en otras tantas más, aunque en mi criterio son las menos, nos asombra por la inesperada agudeza con la que saca los colores a la sociedad de su época, en realidad de cualquier época que sea posterior a la edad media.
Tan es así que me veo en el inevitable deber de llamar la atención de todos esos pancartistas pro-Ignatius con la débil esperanza de que no pierdan el norte. Todo tiene sus límites, hasta la empatía, la comprensión o la compasión. Que uno empieza riéndose con estos seres solitarios que se pasan el día hurgando en su sucio ombligo con restos de patatas fritas en el bigote, tendidos sobre sabanas mugrientas en camas a punto de venirse abajo, garabateando en su ordenador personal sus necedades sobre la planicidad de la tierra o la salud incólume de Elvis para finalmente descubrir, con el consiguiente cerrazón de nuestra válvula pilórica, que algún cabronazo ha reconducido su odio, los ha agrupado bajo un nombre y los ha convencido de que un salvador mesiánico llamado Trump ha venido a salvarles de una conspiración de pedófilos adoradores de satán o lo que viene siendo un asqueroso atajo de degenerados comunistas.
Y no crean que esta es otra de las exuberancias quiméricas de nuestro obeso amigo. Un grupo con tales fundamentos ha surgido en el país de Ignatius Reilly bajo el nombre de QAnon, y hasta una adepta, Marjorie Taylor Greene, se presentará al congreso por el partido republicano en el distrito 14 de Georgia con muchas posibilidades de salir elegida. Ante cosas así uno abraza sin pensar las ideas con las que Ignatius pretendía cambiar todos los gobiernos del mundo, apoyando a muerte a su partido SMTD, Salvar al Mundo a Través de la Degeneración, y ayudándole en su afán de infiltrar a “pervertidos” homosexuales en todos los Estados Mayores de los países con el fin de metarfosear las guerras en orgías. Al principio lo mismo perdemos el voto calvinista de los conservadores rurales, pero los inicios son siempre duros.
Quedan ustedes oficialmente avisados.
October 9, 2019
Confederacy of Dunces is a masterpiece of satire and irony, a worthy recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for best novel.
It is funny, sometimes uproariously so, and I smiled and chuckled throughout. Toole’s depression and loss was not just of himself and his family, but also of us all, a genius who can create this comedic virtuosity might have written a folio of great work, and perhaps Confederacy was not even his greatest. Or perhaps, the spark that drove him to so bitingly observe our culture and time was also the flame from within that ate him away too, I guess we’ll never know.
Ignatius J. Reilly is to literature as Homer Simpson is to our later culture, a grotesque more than a picaresque, a satirical slap in the face of who we are, a fool’s loving but damning foil to the king. The comparisons to Don Quixote are unavoidable, but whereas Quixote was roguish and loveable, Ignatius never achieves the heroic, even mock heroism. And he is never loveable. And perhaps that is a mark of Toole’s true, painful vision, that our idiosyncrasies need to be made fun of, but there is no gentleness left, that only a rough and stinging rebuke will show through the neon and carnival barkers.
Maybe Ignatius was most timely amidst Toole’s own insanity, in the mid sixties, and by the time of Walker Percy’s “discovery” some of the edge had already worn away, or perhaps even, it was still just poking harmless fun at the products of society. Thirty years later, and the grotesque center stage with spotlights on Ignatius have become as common as reality TV shows, the characters no longer charicatures because of familiarity. So while Confederacy of Dunces is a modern classic, some of its stinging comment has been lost amidst too frequent of the same targets and too many opportunists to admonish gently. Thirty years later, Ignatius is no longer a caricature but a portrait.
But to its credit, Dunces has some redemption, some easy to find, other examples more subtle. By the end, Mrs. Reilly can stand her own ground, while still being a mother who loves her son, Gus Levy has excorsied the demons from his past and seems able to meet future challenges head on. And the true hero of COD, Burma Jones, who, by a lucky stroke of PR savvy, will be a vagrant no more.
Good book.
** 2018 addendum - it is a testament to great literature that a reader recalls the work years later and this is a book about which I frequently think. Ignatius is the memory and this portrait that Toole has given us is not just of this man, but he is a microcosm of a time and place, but in another sense, timeless.
It is funny, sometimes uproariously so, and I smiled and chuckled throughout. Toole’s depression and loss was not just of himself and his family, but also of us all, a genius who can create this comedic virtuosity might have written a folio of great work, and perhaps Confederacy was not even his greatest. Or perhaps, the spark that drove him to so bitingly observe our culture and time was also the flame from within that ate him away too, I guess we’ll never know.
Ignatius J. Reilly is to literature as Homer Simpson is to our later culture, a grotesque more than a picaresque, a satirical slap in the face of who we are, a fool’s loving but damning foil to the king. The comparisons to Don Quixote are unavoidable, but whereas Quixote was roguish and loveable, Ignatius never achieves the heroic, even mock heroism. And he is never loveable. And perhaps that is a mark of Toole’s true, painful vision, that our idiosyncrasies need to be made fun of, but there is no gentleness left, that only a rough and stinging rebuke will show through the neon and carnival barkers.
Maybe Ignatius was most timely amidst Toole’s own insanity, in the mid sixties, and by the time of Walker Percy’s “discovery” some of the edge had already worn away, or perhaps even, it was still just poking harmless fun at the products of society. Thirty years later, and the grotesque center stage with spotlights on Ignatius have become as common as reality TV shows, the characters no longer charicatures because of familiarity. So while Confederacy of Dunces is a modern classic, some of its stinging comment has been lost amidst too frequent of the same targets and too many opportunists to admonish gently. Thirty years later, Ignatius is no longer a caricature but a portrait.
But to its credit, Dunces has some redemption, some easy to find, other examples more subtle. By the end, Mrs. Reilly can stand her own ground, while still being a mother who loves her son, Gus Levy has excorsied the demons from his past and seems able to meet future challenges head on. And the true hero of COD, Burma Jones, who, by a lucky stroke of PR savvy, will be a vagrant no more.
Good book.
** 2018 addendum - it is a testament to great literature that a reader recalls the work years later and this is a book about which I frequently think. Ignatius is the memory and this portrait that Toole has given us is not just of this man, but he is a microcosm of a time and place, but in another sense, timeless.
October 8, 2022
The 1981 Pulitzer prize winner, a comedy/farce… not my type of humour, didn't make me laugh once. I found the humour juvenile. It was a recommendation of a good friend, but this book was really difficult to wade through, and I am personally shocked that this is loved by so many and seen as a modern classic! A Two Star 2 out of 12, because of its status, otherwise I would have given it a No Star, 0 out of 12.
2010 read
2010 read
November 28, 2023
Hands down one of the funniest books ever!
A Confederacy of Dunces was published in 1980, winning the Pulitzer Prize the following year.
Set in New Orleans, the star of this novel is Ignatius Reilly, a 30-year-old man still living at home with his mother.
This book is irreverent fun and hilarious. Ignatius is a larger-than-life character who is very extra. He has a vast vocabulary and is exquisitely intellectual; however, he has no practical experience (he even wears a green hat) but he also has no filter. I was laughing so much that people would ask what was going on.
Adding to the fun is Patrolman Mancuso who apparently goes around arresting suspicious characters but doesn’t do a good job of identifying who to pick up.
My favorite scene is the part with Dorian Greene which I can’t help but think is a not-so-subtle nod to The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Ignatius is one of those characters that you will never forget.
Sadly, the world will never hear more of Ignatius’s saga. The author committed suicide in 1969 at the age of 31. His mother found his manuscript, discovered that it was actually excellent, and would not stop until it was published.
One last word before I sign off this review. The audiobook is amazing, absolutely incredible! The narrator really gave life to Ignatius. When the character is upset, you can hear the indignation in his voice. Highly recommend!
How much I spent:
Electronic text – Free through Libby
Audiobook – Free through Libby
Connect With Me!
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A Confederacy of Dunces was published in 1980, winning the Pulitzer Prize the following year.
Set in New Orleans, the star of this novel is Ignatius Reilly, a 30-year-old man still living at home with his mother.
This book is irreverent fun and hilarious. Ignatius is a larger-than-life character who is very extra. He has a vast vocabulary and is exquisitely intellectual; however, he has no practical experience (he even wears a green hat) but he also has no filter. I was laughing so much that people would ask what was going on.
Adding to the fun is Patrolman Mancuso who apparently goes around arresting suspicious characters but doesn’t do a good job of identifying who to pick up.
My favorite scene is the part with Dorian Greene which I can’t help but think is a not-so-subtle nod to The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Ignatius is one of those characters that you will never forget.
Sadly, the world will never hear more of Ignatius’s saga. The author committed suicide in 1969 at the age of 31. His mother found his manuscript, discovered that it was actually excellent, and would not stop until it was published.
One last word before I sign off this review. The audiobook is amazing, absolutely incredible! The narrator really gave life to Ignatius. When the character is upset, you can hear the indignation in his voice. Highly recommend!
How much I spent:
Electronic text – Free through Libby
Audiobook – Free through Libby
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
May 7, 2007
Ugh. Most overrated book ever. What a smug pile of overripe garbage.
April 1, 2023
Dear Reader,
Fortuna evidently was smiling upon my being when I endeavored to undertake the consumption of this philosophical masterpiece. How amusing to stumble upon a comic homage to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, an homage that not only mirrors its source of inspiration in both content and structure, but moreover employs said source as a plot device of the most humorous kind. Certainly it was no mere accident; indeed it must have been a result of afflatus imparted by the goddess herself in collaboration with the muses Thalia and Calliope. Oh, what genius has the world lost with the tragic demise of John Kennedy Toole?
Through his quixotic anti-hero, Ignatius J. Reilly, Toole is disposed to explore the ideas of predestination and game theory. Is Rielly a misunderstood genius, surrounded by intellectual inferiors and thus a victim of their nescience? Or is it his own distorted reality, paranoid delusions, and ineptitude that is the impetus of his misfortune? It is for you, dear reader, to decide.
I found the descriptions of New Orleans particularly diverting. Such a cast of eccentric and delightful characters could only be found within the borders of the Crescent City (or Stars Hollow). Like Proust's madeleine, the wonderful references to NOLA summoned to my mind memories of a happier, pre-Katrina time in one of my favorite municipalities.
I must say that the numerous references to various and sundry bodily emissions offended my delicate feminine sensibilities somewhat. Perhaps this was the plan of some devious alpha-male, to thus corrupt the otherwise sheltered and virginal innocence of my mentality. As Ignatius said, "This subject deserves the attention of a profound thinker who has a certain perspective on the world's cultural development."
(If any perceptive film producers are interested in buying the movie rights to this Review, I might here make a note about the filming of this critique. A song performed by The Preservation Hall Jazz Band would provide excellent background accompaniment. Perhaps the actress playing your humble reviewer could be seated at a table at the Cafe du Monde, enjoying a cafe au lait and plate of beignets.)
Fortuna evidently was smiling upon my being when I endeavored to undertake the consumption of this philosophical masterpiece. How amusing to stumble upon a comic homage to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, an homage that not only mirrors its source of inspiration in both content and structure, but moreover employs said source as a plot device of the most humorous kind. Certainly it was no mere accident; indeed it must have been a result of afflatus imparted by the goddess herself in collaboration with the muses Thalia and Calliope. Oh, what genius has the world lost with the tragic demise of John Kennedy Toole?
Through his quixotic anti-hero, Ignatius J. Reilly, Toole is disposed to explore the ideas of predestination and game theory. Is Rielly a misunderstood genius, surrounded by intellectual inferiors and thus a victim of their nescience? Or is it his own distorted reality, paranoid delusions, and ineptitude that is the impetus of his misfortune? It is for you, dear reader, to decide.
I found the descriptions of New Orleans particularly diverting. Such a cast of eccentric and delightful characters could only be found within the borders of the Crescent City (or Stars Hollow). Like Proust's madeleine, the wonderful references to NOLA summoned to my mind memories of a happier, pre-Katrina time in one of my favorite municipalities.
I must say that the numerous references to various and sundry bodily emissions offended my delicate feminine sensibilities somewhat. Perhaps this was the plan of some devious alpha-male, to thus corrupt the otherwise sheltered and virginal innocence of my mentality. As Ignatius said, "This subject deserves the attention of a profound thinker who has a certain perspective on the world's cultural development."
(If any perceptive film producers are interested in buying the movie rights to this Review, I might here make a note about the filming of this critique. A song performed by The Preservation Hall Jazz Band would provide excellent background accompaniment. Perhaps the actress playing your humble reviewer could be seated at a table at the Cafe du Monde, enjoying a cafe au lait and plate of beignets.)
February 9, 2014
ETA: I recently came across a physical copy of this at my favorite used-book store. The eagerness with which I grabbed said copy--and the disappointment I felt in its previous owner for the lack of annotation I found in its pages--suggests that I liked this book far more than I hated its main character. Also, I am gleefully drunk at this particular moment so please forgive me for any logical or grammatical inconsistencies currently present in this preface. I might get around to fixing them once sobriety returns to me.
I've come to realize that, for me, a mere "liked it" is usually the most apologetic rating. A three-star rating is my literary equivalent of "It's not you, it's me," an embarrassed concession that I'm the real problem here. It's usually an unspoken understanding that I can recognize why a work is so universally lauded but that it just didn't tickle me the way it ought to have. Sometimes it's simply a matter of taste, sometimes it's just bad timing, sometimes it's me having a visceral reaction to a work of fiction that shouldn't get under my skin so deeply. My three stars do not do this book justice, I realize that: They do, however, reflect just how torturous it was for me to watch Ignatius Reilly not get the thorough comeuppance or righteous bitch-slap that both hands of Fortuna owed such a thundering manchild.
So I always thought this was written by a contemporary of Jonathan Swift's. Why? Maybe it's because of the title. Maybe it's because Toole is the first person since Swift who could make satire purr like a satisfied lap cat. Maybe it's because this is a novel packed with odious vermin of the highest order. Whatever the cause for my wildly mistaken notion, I don't remember what set me straight, nor do I recall why gaining such corrective insight propelled me on a frantic mission to both own and read this book as soon as humanly possible: All I am certain of is that the urge to get my hands on "Confederacy of Dunces" was impossible to put off 'til later, which is my preferred approach to doing almost anything. But every paper-and-ink copy I found had a cover that I absolutely hated (and now that I know the character, I'm annoyed that Ignatius looks more like a happy-go-lucky buffoon on many of the cover images when he is, in fact, a detestable, pretentious little wanker who masks his inability to relate to other people with an abrasive, overeducated front). The solution? Downloading this on my trusty but much-neglected Kindle.
It's not that I don't love my Kindle (because I do, to an almost psychotic extent). Nor does my bookworm snobbery extend to the assumption that digital books are automatically inferior to their traditional predecessors. It's just that, after my e-reader became less of a reading device and more of an avenue for proving my Scrabble dominance over that dick AI even though I almost always wind up with more vowels than I think the game really includes, I simply grew accustomed to not using Ruggles the Kindle for his intended nose-in-a-book purpose (no, I haven't given all of my gadgets Pynchonian monikers; yes, I do see the irony in naming my e-reader after an author who was famously reluctant for his works to be digitalized).
But this isn't about my Kindle: This is more about the shiny new iPhone I acquired recently, the very device that signaled another blow to my pseudo-Luddite ways by thrusting me into the joyous world of being owned by a smartphone (.... I'm actually not sure if that was sarcasm, either). Because the first thing I did after shelling out money on yet another Apple product, aside from blowing more than half of my monthly data allotment on downloading selections from my iTunes library before even leaving the Verizon store, was put the Kindle app on my as-of-yet unnamed phone.
Seeing as I am, however reluctantly, part of the generation that feels unsettlingly naked without one's phone, my phone goes almost everywhere with me -- and now, so does my Kindle's vast treasury of reading material. Suddenly, the hatred I felt (and still feel) for one Ignatius Jacques Reilly grew in all directions, as if it, too, were glutting itself on Paradise Hot Dogs. I hated Ignatius at work. I hated him at home. I hated him in the bathroom. I hated him in bed, on the couch, in other people's cars, while waiting at everything from the grocery store to the dentist's office to the gas station, I hated him in a variety of locations to rival Dr. Seuss's rhyming lists. My burning dislike of the book's main character slipped its tentacles of ire around nearly every facet of my life to the point where I was transferring my irritation to probably undeserving but still irksome strangers.
Reader, I hated him.
And it felt bloody freeing, even if I'll never get the closure of punching Ignatius right in his stupid, Vaselined mustache. I'm the kind of person who feels uncomfortable when characters in books or movies are staunchly positioned under a storm cloud of shitty luck and proceed to have misfortune rained upon them to an allegedly humorous effect: Being in a position to shamelessly enjoy every irate former employer's final tongue lashing, to celebrate everyone who peeved Ignatius the way he annoyed the hell out of me (Dorian Greene, I think I might actually love you), to snicker at every unflattering description of a character who I loathed made me feel less awful about finally reveling in the seemingly downward trajectory of a character whose downfall I wished I could have on my otherwise itchy conscience. It was such a nice change to embrace the inevitable onslaught of woe that came rushing at a story's main character for once.
But Ignatius even ruined that for me, as his titanic girth is buoyed by an ego that just won't quit. What willful refusal to accept responsibility! What blissful ignorance of one's own flaws! What enthusiastic defiance of reality! The mental gymnastics required in tirelessly painting oneself as the eternal victim would have impressed me if the character executing such skillful lack of accepting blame for his lot in life weren't such an overgrown brat.
Though it's not like many of the other characters had a whole lot more going for them other than reluctant sympathy and the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The duplicitous shrew Lana Lee probably should have been the most detestable member of the cast: While Ignatius is simply too emotionally immature to exist in harmony with the real world, Lana is straight-up starved of all redeeming qualities. As hard as I tried to sympathize with Irene, Ignatius's poor, long-suffering mother, she was clearly all talk and no action well before the book began, as Ignatius exhibits a lifetime of experience manhandling her into emotional submission -- let this book be a cautionary tale for the long-term damage of passive parenting! As for Mrs. Levy? She must have inflicted me with some kind of temporary Tourette's syndrome because I was helpless to squelch the string of profanities that wrenched themselves from my mouth every time she opened hers.
On the other hand, there were some redeeming dramatis personae to be found amidst Toole's merry band of walking character flaws. If Dorian's brief appearance was a breath of fresh air, Jones's presence was the life raft I clung to in a maelstrom of assholery. I might have actually cheered at the end when Officer Mancuso got the kudos he deserved after four-hundred-some pages of being shat on. I was pretty keen on Mr. Levy until Ignatius dug his teabag-scented claws into him. And, okay, fine: There were actually a lot of folks who I liked simply because they didn't annoy me, like Darlene and Mr. Clyde. Actually, Darlene's cockatoo might have been one of the most likable characters in the book by virtue of his role in kicking off the climax.
And then there's Myrna, who just might be the most effective foil ever. We hate in others what we hate most about ourselves, and Ignatius love-hates her because they're too much alike in all the wrong ways. Their letters are strokes of narrative brilliance, offering a richly suggested history between the two: I got such a kick out of how Myrna is the only character who gets even a kernel of truth from Ignatius and she assumes that he's exaggerating with every stroke of his pen. I probably would have liked her less had she been more of an active force here, so I'll be happy with how stingy Toole was with her scenes.
This should, by all rights, be at least a four-star novel. It's Toole's fault that he was too adept at creating characters that embody so much of what disgusts me in real people.
I've come to realize that, for me, a mere "liked it" is usually the most apologetic rating. A three-star rating is my literary equivalent of "It's not you, it's me," an embarrassed concession that I'm the real problem here. It's usually an unspoken understanding that I can recognize why a work is so universally lauded but that it just didn't tickle me the way it ought to have. Sometimes it's simply a matter of taste, sometimes it's just bad timing, sometimes it's me having a visceral reaction to a work of fiction that shouldn't get under my skin so deeply. My three stars do not do this book justice, I realize that: They do, however, reflect just how torturous it was for me to watch Ignatius Reilly not get the thorough comeuppance or righteous bitch-slap that both hands of Fortuna owed such a thundering manchild.
So I always thought this was written by a contemporary of Jonathan Swift's. Why? Maybe it's because of the title. Maybe it's because Toole is the first person since Swift who could make satire purr like a satisfied lap cat. Maybe it's because this is a novel packed with odious vermin of the highest order. Whatever the cause for my wildly mistaken notion, I don't remember what set me straight, nor do I recall why gaining such corrective insight propelled me on a frantic mission to both own and read this book as soon as humanly possible: All I am certain of is that the urge to get my hands on "Confederacy of Dunces" was impossible to put off 'til later, which is my preferred approach to doing almost anything. But every paper-and-ink copy I found had a cover that I absolutely hated (and now that I know the character, I'm annoyed that Ignatius looks more like a happy-go-lucky buffoon on many of the cover images when he is, in fact, a detestable, pretentious little wanker who masks his inability to relate to other people with an abrasive, overeducated front). The solution? Downloading this on my trusty but much-neglected Kindle.
It's not that I don't love my Kindle (because I do, to an almost psychotic extent). Nor does my bookworm snobbery extend to the assumption that digital books are automatically inferior to their traditional predecessors. It's just that, after my e-reader became less of a reading device and more of an avenue for proving my Scrabble dominance over that dick AI even though I almost always wind up with more vowels than I think the game really includes, I simply grew accustomed to not using Ruggles the Kindle for his intended nose-in-a-book purpose (no, I haven't given all of my gadgets Pynchonian monikers; yes, I do see the irony in naming my e-reader after an author who was famously reluctant for his works to be digitalized).
But this isn't about my Kindle: This is more about the shiny new iPhone I acquired recently, the very device that signaled another blow to my pseudo-Luddite ways by thrusting me into the joyous world of being owned by a smartphone (.... I'm actually not sure if that was sarcasm, either). Because the first thing I did after shelling out money on yet another Apple product, aside from blowing more than half of my monthly data allotment on downloading selections from my iTunes library before even leaving the Verizon store, was put the Kindle app on my as-of-yet unnamed phone.
Seeing as I am, however reluctantly, part of the generation that feels unsettlingly naked without one's phone, my phone goes almost everywhere with me -- and now, so does my Kindle's vast treasury of reading material. Suddenly, the hatred I felt (and still feel) for one Ignatius Jacques Reilly grew in all directions, as if it, too, were glutting itself on Paradise Hot Dogs. I hated Ignatius at work. I hated him at home. I hated him in the bathroom. I hated him in bed, on the couch, in other people's cars, while waiting at everything from the grocery store to the dentist's office to the gas station, I hated him in a variety of locations to rival Dr. Seuss's rhyming lists. My burning dislike of the book's main character slipped its tentacles of ire around nearly every facet of my life to the point where I was transferring my irritation to probably undeserving but still irksome strangers.
Reader, I hated him.
And it felt bloody freeing, even if I'll never get the closure of punching Ignatius right in his stupid, Vaselined mustache. I'm the kind of person who feels uncomfortable when characters in books or movies are staunchly positioned under a storm cloud of shitty luck and proceed to have misfortune rained upon them to an allegedly humorous effect: Being in a position to shamelessly enjoy every irate former employer's final tongue lashing, to celebrate everyone who peeved Ignatius the way he annoyed the hell out of me (Dorian Greene, I think I might actually love you), to snicker at every unflattering description of a character who I loathed made me feel less awful about finally reveling in the seemingly downward trajectory of a character whose downfall I wished I could have on my otherwise itchy conscience. It was such a nice change to embrace the inevitable onslaught of woe that came rushing at a story's main character for once.
But Ignatius even ruined that for me, as his titanic girth is buoyed by an ego that just won't quit. What willful refusal to accept responsibility! What blissful ignorance of one's own flaws! What enthusiastic defiance of reality! The mental gymnastics required in tirelessly painting oneself as the eternal victim would have impressed me if the character executing such skillful lack of accepting blame for his lot in life weren't such an overgrown brat.
Though it's not like many of the other characters had a whole lot more going for them other than reluctant sympathy and the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The duplicitous shrew Lana Lee probably should have been the most detestable member of the cast: While Ignatius is simply too emotionally immature to exist in harmony with the real world, Lana is straight-up starved of all redeeming qualities. As hard as I tried to sympathize with Irene, Ignatius's poor, long-suffering mother, she was clearly all talk and no action well before the book began, as Ignatius exhibits a lifetime of experience manhandling her into emotional submission -- let this book be a cautionary tale for the long-term damage of passive parenting! As for Mrs. Levy? She must have inflicted me with some kind of temporary Tourette's syndrome because I was helpless to squelch the string of profanities that wrenched themselves from my mouth every time she opened hers.
On the other hand, there were some redeeming dramatis personae to be found amidst Toole's merry band of walking character flaws. If Dorian's brief appearance was a breath of fresh air, Jones's presence was the life raft I clung to in a maelstrom of assholery. I might have actually cheered at the end when Officer Mancuso got the kudos he deserved after four-hundred-some pages of being shat on. I was pretty keen on Mr. Levy until Ignatius dug his teabag-scented claws into him. And, okay, fine: There were actually a lot of folks who I liked simply because they didn't annoy me, like Darlene and Mr. Clyde. Actually, Darlene's cockatoo might have been one of the most likable characters in the book by virtue of his role in kicking off the climax.
And then there's Myrna, who just might be the most effective foil ever. We hate in others what we hate most about ourselves, and Ignatius love-hates her because they're too much alike in all the wrong ways. Their letters are strokes of narrative brilliance, offering a richly suggested history between the two: I got such a kick out of how Myrna is the only character who gets even a kernel of truth from Ignatius and she assumes that he's exaggerating with every stroke of his pen. I probably would have liked her less had she been more of an active force here, so I'll be happy with how stingy Toole was with her scenes.
This should, by all rights, be at least a four-star novel. It's Toole's fault that he was too adept at creating characters that embody so much of what disgusts me in real people.
May 14, 2020
Side-Splittingly Funny Literary Novel: Ample Abderian Tomfoolery
The Big Easy's Mensa Motley Fool, its Baissière Barbare
oh boy oh boy oh boy...
When I first picked this up, it seemed too odd. Hell, the cover illustration shows this to be grotesque humour. I put it down not to pick back up for more than a year at which point I decided to read up to page 75.
What followed was not at all grotesque or surreal humor, but instead the funniest literary novel I've ever read. I LOVED IT. The 2016 Man Booker/Book Critics' Circle winner, The Sellout, is almost as funny at times. For my money though, no one holds a candle to Ignatius J. Reilly as the funniest character in a literary novel.
It's hard to describe the novel or Ignatius with sufficient detail to justify/explain the hilarity. The author John Kennedy Toole, a tortured soul, was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize 12 years after his 1969 suicide at the age of 31.
My best stab at a description of Ignatius is a brilliant bigoted buffoon in New Orleans (the Big Easy), and to give some quotes, though they are much funnier when read in context:
****
I recommend this winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize if you enjoy high-brow humour involving friends in low places.
The Big Easy's Mensa Motley Fool, its Baissière Barbare
oh boy oh boy oh boy...
When I first picked this up, it seemed too odd. Hell, the cover illustration shows this to be grotesque humour. I put it down not to pick back up for more than a year at which point I decided to read up to page 75.
What followed was not at all grotesque or surreal humor, but instead the funniest literary novel I've ever read. I LOVED IT. The 2016 Man Booker/Book Critics' Circle winner, The Sellout, is almost as funny at times. For my money though, no one holds a candle to Ignatius J. Reilly as the funniest character in a literary novel.
It's hard to describe the novel or Ignatius with sufficient detail to justify/explain the hilarity. The author John Kennedy Toole, a tortured soul, was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize 12 years after his 1969 suicide at the age of 31.
My best stab at a description of Ignatius is a brilliant bigoted buffoon in New Orleans (the Big Easy), and to give some quotes, though they are much funnier when read in context:
Ignatius: “I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate façade there may be a soul of sorts. Have you read widely in Boethius?"
N.O. Denizen: "Who? Oh, heavens no. I never even read newspapers."
Ignatius: "Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age," Ignatius said solemnly. "Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books."
Denizen: "You're fantastic."
Ignatius: "I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.”
****
Mother Reilly: “It smells terrible in here.'
Ignatius: "Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.”
I recommend this winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize if you enjoy high-brow humour involving friends in low places.
February 13, 2017
Have I lost my sense of humour?
Everyone seems to love this piece of writing, and I was highly motivated when I saw the Jonathan Swift quote in the beginning, giving the novel its name:
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
However, all I could discover in the story were the dunces, engaged in never-ending dull dialogues, showing off their vulgarity and stupidity without an ounce of fun. Slapstick, not irony or sarcasm, is the method to capture the audience here.
Had it been a short novel, I might have had patience for the silly main character, his mother complaining on the phone and all the rest, but to carry on for over 400 pages seriously annoyed me. I have not felt so bored when I was supposed to laugh since I was forced by my younger brothers to watch Dumb and Dumber and Wayne's World in the early nineties.
Over 400 pages, and nothing to quote. There is something between me and the Pulitzers. It just doesn't click, most of the time.
I had the time of my life with Beaumarchais yesterday, laughing out loud several times at his 1785 play, so maybe my sense of humour is just dated. Actually, there is one quote from Le Mariage de Figaro that describes the lazy hero of this novel quite accurately:
"Vous vous êtes donné la peine de naître, et rien de plus."
I doubt if he would agree, though - a master of self-indulgence and self-pity, representing the dunces of the world.
Everyone seems to love this piece of writing, and I was highly motivated when I saw the Jonathan Swift quote in the beginning, giving the novel its name:
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
However, all I could discover in the story were the dunces, engaged in never-ending dull dialogues, showing off their vulgarity and stupidity without an ounce of fun. Slapstick, not irony or sarcasm, is the method to capture the audience here.
Had it been a short novel, I might have had patience for the silly main character, his mother complaining on the phone and all the rest, but to carry on for over 400 pages seriously annoyed me. I have not felt so bored when I was supposed to laugh since I was forced by my younger brothers to watch Dumb and Dumber and Wayne's World in the early nineties.
Over 400 pages, and nothing to quote. There is something between me and the Pulitzers. It just doesn't click, most of the time.
I had the time of my life with Beaumarchais yesterday, laughing out loud several times at his 1785 play, so maybe my sense of humour is just dated. Actually, there is one quote from Le Mariage de Figaro that describes the lazy hero of this novel quite accurately:
"Vous vous êtes donné la peine de naître, et rien de plus."
I doubt if he would agree, though - a master of self-indulgence and self-pity, representing the dunces of the world.
February 10, 2012
A Whiff and a Sniff and I'm Off
Well, I finished and I'm glad I persisted.
You know how dogs sometimes sniff each other for ages before deciding to hump?
I was like that for a few years before I read the book, but more importantly I sniffed around ineffectually for the first 100 pages and could easily have blamed the book for my lack of engagement.
I read the last 300 pages in a couple of sittings.
I had to get on a roll.
But once you commit, the book pulls you, rather than you having to push the book.
In the beginning, I was afraid that it was going to be like a bowl of two kilos of green jelly that was just too rich or disgusting to finish.
Instead, I felt it was just the right amount.
So, some reactions.
Style
I thought "Confederacy" was very much like a zany TV sitcom.
There was minimal description of scene and action.
However, the dialogue was consistently high quality and very, very funny.
You do want to write down some of the lines, so that you can use them on your friends, but secretly you know that you'll never get into a situation where they'd be equally appropriate or funny.
You just have to recommend the book to the right person.
The Author/Protagonist
Initially, I probably made the mistake of confusing JK Toole with his protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly.
However, when I realised that Toole was a slim, neat, tidy English teacher, quite unlike the obese Ignatius, I started to imagine Toole reading extracts from the book in class.
Apparently, he was really popular with his students.
I could just imagine the sense of privilege hearing him reading from "Confederacy".
I can imagine the fits of laughter his students would have had as they heard some of the sentences and expressions emerge from his mouth.
I like to imagine Toole alive and vital.
Ignatius Reilly
Ignatius is a resident of 1960's New Orleans, the fat kid in school who turns out to be a genius, but has no social graces.
I don't recall him reading a book in the novel, but he is obviously well-read.
He has constructed his own medieval world-view by which he judges everything and everybody around him.
He sees himself as "an avenging sword" in a crusade on behalf of taste and decency, theology and geometry and the cultivation of a Rich Inner Life.
He speaks in a wonderful, bookish formality that really confounds and pisses off everybody around him:
"Do you think that I am going to perambulate about in that sinkhole of vice?"
When he combines it with a dose of sarcasm, it's hilarious.
Astounding Arrogance
Ignatius is intellectually arrogant, he judges others harshly, he is removed from reality.
He is literally and metaphorically larger than life:
"The grandeur of my physique, the complexity of my worldview, the decency and taste implicit in my carriage, the grace with which I function in the mire of today's world - all of these at once confuse and astound Clyde."
It's tempting to wonder whether Toole intended him to be an inept, but God-like genius, someone who came to the world in order to lead people to Heaven on Earth.
There isn't an evil bone in his ample body.
But he isn't virtuous as we would normally use the word.
He's motivated by the greater good, only he hasn't factored people into the equation.
When he ventures into reality for some purpose or other, it inevitably results in chaos and disorder, so there's a sense in which he's an agent of chaos.
Ultimately, I think Ignatius isn't the Messiah, he's just a haughty, naughty boy.
Infuences
Much has been written about the influences on the novel.
This is probably something better left to the individual reader, after you've read the book.
Suffice it to say that I probably wasn't conscious of a lot of the influences, other than the obvious references to Boethius' "The Consolations of Philosophy".
In one of his more benevolent moments, Ignatius says of "Consolations":
"The book teaches us to accept that which we cannot change. It describes the plight of a just man in an unjust society."
Ironically, Ignatius sets out to change just about everything in his life, whether consciously or subconsciously.
He is not content with conformity: "They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food."
Whatever the influences, "Confederacy" has an artistic integrity of its own.
The Cloistered Mind
Ignatius starts off sloth-like (nowadays he would play games and drink copious amounts of Coke all day and all of the night):
"I was emulating the poet Milton by spending my youth in seclusion, meditation and study".
His college love interest, Myrna Minkoff, is awake up to the fact that he has closed his "mind to both love and society", a "strange medieval mind in its cloister".
Up from the Sloth
Ignatius' mother embarrasses and coaxes him into getting a job, which is the beginning of his interaction with the wider world.
"It is clearly time for me to step boldly into our society, not in the boring, passive manner of the Myrna Minkoff school of social action, but with great style and zest."
Structurally, on his journey, the novel loosely deals with the three taboos in polite society: sex, religion and politics (though not necessarily in that order).
Ignatius ventures through this subject matter on the way to some sort of climax or revelation at the end of the book.
The Importance of Being Earnest
On the way, Toole has lots of fun with his subject matter and influences.
Ignatius strikes up an alliance with an openly gay character in their political battle:
"I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate facade there may be a soul of sorts."
When his new soul mate hands him his business card, Ignatius ejaculates, "Oh, my God, you can't really be named Dorian Greene."
Dorian responds, "Yes, isn't that wild?"
Together they set off to "Save the World Through Degeneracy".
Ignatius is all the more attracted to this scheme, because he knows what effect it will have on Myrna:
"The scheme is too breathtaking for the literal, liberal minx mind mired in a claustrophobic clutch of cliches."
A Party in the City of Vice
As "Confederacy" works towards its climax, the action escalates.
It starts at a fund-raising party in an apartment, then it goes into the streets of this home of the Mardi Gras, a Carnival-esque city of vice, and then finally to the strip joint, "Night of Joy".
Failing to negotiate his way through the debauchery, Ignatius ends up ejected and dejected in the street, where he is almost run over by the reality of a city bus.
Freudian Schleps
I don't want to make too much of this point, but I wondered whether the three main characters of "Confederacy" line up like this in terms of Freud's trichotomy:
Ignatius: Ego
Mother: Super-Ego
Myrna: Id.
These three aspects of Ignatius' life and personality work their way to some sort of resolution at the end of the book.
Whether Freud was a conscious influence or strategy, it is possible that Freud's trichotomy might just be a nice metaphor for the influences on our worldview.
SPOILER ALERT
Salvation
After all of the fun and games, it's difficult to predict how Toole would end his farce.
But ultimately he was a romantic at heart, and there is a happy ending.
Myrna visits Ignatius with the intention of removing him from the City of Vice and the vice-like grip of his mother.
Her solution is to take him to New York, where she has been living.
You wonder whether this is just swapping one city of vice for another, but to them New York represents a city of light, possibly of like minds, a cosmopolitan alternative to the conservative southern backwater of New Orleans.
The story ends as they head out on the road.
But we know what is in store for Ignatius and Myrna in New York: love and society and, perhaps, just perhaps, lots of sex.
Ignatius ends his journey with the most romantic thing he could say to reconcile with Myrna:
"To think that I fought your wisdom for years".
Toole's students would have had tears in their eyes.
February 24, 2011
Well, I finished and I'm glad I persisted.
You know how dogs sometimes sniff each other for ages before deciding to hump?
I was like that for a few years before I read the book, but more importantly I sniffed around ineffectually for the first 100 pages and could easily have blamed the book for my lack of engagement.
I read the last 300 pages in a couple of sittings.
I had to get on a roll.
But once you commit, the book pulls you, rather than you having to push the book.
In the beginning, I was afraid that it was going to be like a bowl of two kilos of green jelly that was just too rich or disgusting to finish.
Instead, I felt it was just the right amount.
So, some reactions.
Style
I thought "Confederacy" was very much like a zany TV sitcom.
There was minimal description of scene and action.
However, the dialogue was consistently high quality and very, very funny.
You do want to write down some of the lines, so that you can use them on your friends, but secretly you know that you'll never get into a situation where they'd be equally appropriate or funny.
You just have to recommend the book to the right person.
The Author/Protagonist
Initially, I probably made the mistake of confusing JK Toole with his protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly.
However, when I realised that Toole was a slim, neat, tidy English teacher, quite unlike the obese Ignatius, I started to imagine Toole reading extracts from the book in class.
Apparently, he was really popular with his students.
I could just imagine the sense of privilege hearing him reading from "Confederacy".
I can imagine the fits of laughter his students would have had as they heard some of the sentences and expressions emerge from his mouth.
I like to imagine Toole alive and vital.
Ignatius Reilly
Ignatius is a resident of 1960's New Orleans, the fat kid in school who turns out to be a genius, but has no social graces.
I don't recall him reading a book in the novel, but he is obviously well-read.
He has constructed his own medieval world-view by which he judges everything and everybody around him.
He sees himself as "an avenging sword" in a crusade on behalf of taste and decency, theology and geometry and the cultivation of a Rich Inner Life.
He speaks in a wonderful, bookish formality that really confounds and pisses off everybody around him:
"Do you think that I am going to perambulate about in that sinkhole of vice?"
When he combines it with a dose of sarcasm, it's hilarious.
Astounding Arrogance
Ignatius is intellectually arrogant, he judges others harshly, he is removed from reality.
He is literally and metaphorically larger than life:
"The grandeur of my physique, the complexity of my worldview, the decency and taste implicit in my carriage, the grace with which I function in the mire of today's world - all of these at once confuse and astound Clyde."
It's tempting to wonder whether Toole intended him to be an inept, but God-like genius, someone who came to the world in order to lead people to Heaven on Earth.
There isn't an evil bone in his ample body.
But he isn't virtuous as we would normally use the word.
He's motivated by the greater good, only he hasn't factored people into the equation.
When he ventures into reality for some purpose or other, it inevitably results in chaos and disorder, so there's a sense in which he's an agent of chaos.
Ultimately, I think Ignatius isn't the Messiah, he's just a haughty, naughty boy.
Infuences
Much has been written about the influences on the novel.
This is probably something better left to the individual reader, after you've read the book.
Suffice it to say that I probably wasn't conscious of a lot of the influences, other than the obvious references to Boethius' "The Consolations of Philosophy".
In one of his more benevolent moments, Ignatius says of "Consolations":
"The book teaches us to accept that which we cannot change. It describes the plight of a just man in an unjust society."
Ironically, Ignatius sets out to change just about everything in his life, whether consciously or subconsciously.
He is not content with conformity: "They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food."
Whatever the influences, "Confederacy" has an artistic integrity of its own.
The Cloistered Mind
Ignatius starts off sloth-like (nowadays he would play games and drink copious amounts of Coke all day and all of the night):
"I was emulating the poet Milton by spending my youth in seclusion, meditation and study".
His college love interest, Myrna Minkoff, is awake up to the fact that he has closed his "mind to both love and society", a "strange medieval mind in its cloister".
Up from the Sloth
Ignatius' mother embarrasses and coaxes him into getting a job, which is the beginning of his interaction with the wider world.
"It is clearly time for me to step boldly into our society, not in the boring, passive manner of the Myrna Minkoff school of social action, but with great style and zest."
Structurally, on his journey, the novel loosely deals with the three taboos in polite society: sex, religion and politics (though not necessarily in that order).
Ignatius ventures through this subject matter on the way to some sort of climax or revelation at the end of the book.
The Importance of Being Earnest
On the way, Toole has lots of fun with his subject matter and influences.
Ignatius strikes up an alliance with an openly gay character in their political battle:
"I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate facade there may be a soul of sorts."
When his new soul mate hands him his business card, Ignatius ejaculates, "Oh, my God, you can't really be named Dorian Greene."
Dorian responds, "Yes, isn't that wild?"
Together they set off to "Save the World Through Degeneracy".
Ignatius is all the more attracted to this scheme, because he knows what effect it will have on Myrna:
"The scheme is too breathtaking for the literal, liberal minx mind mired in a claustrophobic clutch of cliches."
A Party in the City of Vice
As "Confederacy" works towards its climax, the action escalates.
It starts at a fund-raising party in an apartment, then it goes into the streets of this home of the Mardi Gras, a Carnival-esque city of vice, and then finally to the strip joint, "Night of Joy".
Failing to negotiate his way through the debauchery, Ignatius ends up ejected and dejected in the street, where he is almost run over by the reality of a city bus.
Freudian Schleps
I don't want to make too much of this point, but I wondered whether the three main characters of "Confederacy" line up like this in terms of Freud's trichotomy:
Ignatius: Ego
Mother: Super-Ego
Myrna: Id.
These three aspects of Ignatius' life and personality work their way to some sort of resolution at the end of the book.
Whether Freud was a conscious influence or strategy, it is possible that Freud's trichotomy might just be a nice metaphor for the influences on our worldview.
SPOILER ALERT
Salvation
After all of the fun and games, it's difficult to predict how Toole would end his farce.
But ultimately he was a romantic at heart, and there is a happy ending.
Myrna visits Ignatius with the intention of removing him from the City of Vice and the vice-like grip of his mother.
Her solution is to take him to New York, where she has been living.
You wonder whether this is just swapping one city of vice for another, but to them New York represents a city of light, possibly of like minds, a cosmopolitan alternative to the conservative southern backwater of New Orleans.
The story ends as they head out on the road.
But we know what is in store for Ignatius and Myrna in New York: love and society and, perhaps, just perhaps, lots of sex.
Ignatius ends his journey with the most romantic thing he could say to reconcile with Myrna:
"To think that I fought your wisdom for years".
Toole's students would have had tears in their eyes.
February 24, 2011
April 7, 2017
"Cuando en el mundo aparece un verdadero genio, puede identificársele por este signo: todos los necios se conjuran contra él." - Johnathan Swift
¡Cuánto hacía que no me reía tanto leyendo un libro! Ha sido para mi realmente divertido e hilarante leer “La conjura de los necios”. Y qué verdadera pena es saber que John Kennedy Toole se suicidó a los 31 años, luego de fracasar en el intento, debido a que varios editores que le rechazaron la publicación de este libro.
Su madre llevó adelante el proyecto hasta que un editor llamado Walker Percy, luego de leerse casi de un tirón el libro sencillamente porque no podía parar de leerla porque como dijo, “la novela era demasiado buena”, decidió publicarla inmediatamente. El éxito fue rotundo.
John Kennedy Toole ganaría un Pulitzer póstumo y un reconocimiento a la mejor novela extranjera en Francia y lo tiene más que merecido.
Si este autor, que a sus 16 años había publicado su primer novela de características totalmente opuestas, me refiero a “La biblia de neón”, no se suicidaba, probablemente se hubiera convertido en uno de los más grandes escritores norteamericanos del siglo XX. Su calidad literaria es sencillamente brillante.
“La conjura de los necios” es un libro ideado y ejecutado por el autor de una manera prácticamente impecable. Cada uno de los catorce capítulos encajan como las piezas de un reloj para cerrarse en un final perfecto.
El desarrollo de la trama argumental y narrativa se podría ubicar dentro de la novela polifónica de la misma manera que la creó Fiódor Dostoievski. Cada personaje tiene entidad propia para aportar su punto de vista e ideas para aportar al conjunto de la historia.
Realmente el personaje que John Kennedy Toole creó con Ignatius J. Reilly es uno de los más queribles (aunque el lector sienta lo contrario cuando lee el libro) e inolvidables de la literatura.
Es irreverente, irresponsable, insoportable, pedante, contestatario y delirante. Su visión del mundo y sus ideas lo definen como un Quijote perverso cuyos ideales son absolutamente impracticables y esto sucede tanto durante su estadía en la fábrica Levy Pants como cuando intenta armar un partido político de facciones revolucionarias impracticables junto a sujetos de dudosa reputación.
Ni que hablar de lo que sucede a partir que se transforma en vendedor ambulante de bocadillos de salchichas para “Vendedores Paraíso”.
Ignatius es un gordinflón impresentable, sucio, de hábitos más bien desagradables y que se la pasa acostado en una cama pringosa, escribiendo ensayos literarios y filosóficos destinados a cambiar la concepción y visión del mundo según su errado parecer.
Se viste estrafalariamente con un ropón largo y sucio y anda todo el día con una gorra de cazador verde, algo que me recordó a otro personaje muy singular y de ideales muy especiales: me refiero al muchacho con la gorra de cazador roja, conocido como Holden Caufield, de la novela “El guardián entre el centeno”.
Ha pasado los treinta años y aún sigue viviendo con su pobre y sufriente madre, quien se apoya en la bebida para soportar semejante carga. La pobre Irene Reilly entrará en la vorágine decadente de su hijo y esto la arrastrará hasta el final.
Es un personaje tan particular que acorrala al lector a quererlo u odiarlo en el instante.
Pero Kennedy Toole no se queda solo con ellos dos sino que pone en escena un desfile de personajes extravagantes, raros y extraños, algunos de naturaleza inexplicables que se equiparan al enorme Ignatius.
Entre otros, conoceremos al patrullero Mancuso, agobiado por su sargento a disfrazarse de las maneras más disparatadas para atrapar sospechosos, el negro Burma Jones, quien trabaja para Lana Lee en su burdel “Noche de Alegría”, donde trabaja la bailarina exótica llamada Darlene, pero más conocida como “Harlet O’Hara”.
Algo para destacar de este genial autor con respecto a Jones que jamás cae en racismo o en la discriminación sino todo lo contrario, entiende la problemática que sufría la gente de color (tengamos en cuenta que este libro fue escrito en la década del ’60) y hasta defiende la postura de gente que fue muy maltratada en los Estados Unidos en esa época.
Otros personajes realmente geniales son Gus Levy, el empresario y dueño de Levy Pants, su esposa, la señora Levy, prototipo de la mujer de clase alta, pero a la vez vulgar de la clase media norteamericana y la señorita Trixie, una señora en completo estado senil que trabaja desde hace siglos en su empresa y a la que nunca quieren jubilar.
También encontramos al señor González, que es el jefe administrativo de la empresa y a Santa Battaglia, la tía del patrullero Mancuso a quien el autor estereotipa como la clásica mujer burguesa norteamericana, de esas que se aplican toneladas de spray en la cabeza, se embadurnan la cara con miles de capas de maquillaje y viste horriblemente, junto con otros personajes más como Claude Robichaux, el pretendiente de Irene Reilly.
Y cómo olvidarnos de Myrna Mynkoff, la novia de Ignatius, una chica con tendencias revolucionarias asociadas a lo sexual y lo disparatado que quiere cambiar el orden establecido en el sistema universitario.
Otro punto realmente a destacar es que el autor hace una descripción realmente detallada de la ciudad de Nueva Orleans, que es el lugar donde transcurre toda la historia.
En fin, esta novela es una obra maestra. No puedo clasificarla de otra manera. Todo está planeado y ejecutado al detalle.
Es divertida, la historia es original y única, los personajes son memorables y su autor un maestro de la narrativa cuya temprana muerte, como comentaba previamente es para lamentar, puesto que su potencial literario era enorme.
Los invito a leer “La conjura de los necios”, ya que pocas veces se toparán con un libro tan único y genial como este.
Si no lo hacen, ustedes se lo pierden.
Después no me digan que no les avisé…
¡Cuánto hacía que no me reía tanto leyendo un libro! Ha sido para mi realmente divertido e hilarante leer “La conjura de los necios”. Y qué verdadera pena es saber que John Kennedy Toole se suicidó a los 31 años, luego de fracasar en el intento, debido a que varios editores que le rechazaron la publicación de este libro.
Su madre llevó adelante el proyecto hasta que un editor llamado Walker Percy, luego de leerse casi de un tirón el libro sencillamente porque no podía parar de leerla porque como dijo, “la novela era demasiado buena”, decidió publicarla inmediatamente. El éxito fue rotundo.
John Kennedy Toole ganaría un Pulitzer póstumo y un reconocimiento a la mejor novela extranjera en Francia y lo tiene más que merecido.
Si este autor, que a sus 16 años había publicado su primer novela de características totalmente opuestas, me refiero a “La biblia de neón”, no se suicidaba, probablemente se hubiera convertido en uno de los más grandes escritores norteamericanos del siglo XX. Su calidad literaria es sencillamente brillante.
“La conjura de los necios” es un libro ideado y ejecutado por el autor de una manera prácticamente impecable. Cada uno de los catorce capítulos encajan como las piezas de un reloj para cerrarse en un final perfecto.
El desarrollo de la trama argumental y narrativa se podría ubicar dentro de la novela polifónica de la misma manera que la creó Fiódor Dostoievski. Cada personaje tiene entidad propia para aportar su punto de vista e ideas para aportar al conjunto de la historia.
Realmente el personaje que John Kennedy Toole creó con Ignatius J. Reilly es uno de los más queribles (aunque el lector sienta lo contrario cuando lee el libro) e inolvidables de la literatura.
Es irreverente, irresponsable, insoportable, pedante, contestatario y delirante. Su visión del mundo y sus ideas lo definen como un Quijote perverso cuyos ideales son absolutamente impracticables y esto sucede tanto durante su estadía en la fábrica Levy Pants como cuando intenta armar un partido político de facciones revolucionarias impracticables junto a sujetos de dudosa reputación.
Ni que hablar de lo que sucede a partir que se transforma en vendedor ambulante de bocadillos de salchichas para “Vendedores Paraíso”.
Ignatius es un gordinflón impresentable, sucio, de hábitos más bien desagradables y que se la pasa acostado en una cama pringosa, escribiendo ensayos literarios y filosóficos destinados a cambiar la concepción y visión del mundo según su errado parecer.
Se viste estrafalariamente con un ropón largo y sucio y anda todo el día con una gorra de cazador verde, algo que me recordó a otro personaje muy singular y de ideales muy especiales: me refiero al muchacho con la gorra de cazador roja, conocido como Holden Caufield, de la novela “El guardián entre el centeno”.
Ha pasado los treinta años y aún sigue viviendo con su pobre y sufriente madre, quien se apoya en la bebida para soportar semejante carga. La pobre Irene Reilly entrará en la vorágine decadente de su hijo y esto la arrastrará hasta el final.
Es un personaje tan particular que acorrala al lector a quererlo u odiarlo en el instante.
Pero Kennedy Toole no se queda solo con ellos dos sino que pone en escena un desfile de personajes extravagantes, raros y extraños, algunos de naturaleza inexplicables que se equiparan al enorme Ignatius.
Entre otros, conoceremos al patrullero Mancuso, agobiado por su sargento a disfrazarse de las maneras más disparatadas para atrapar sospechosos, el negro Burma Jones, quien trabaja para Lana Lee en su burdel “Noche de Alegría”, donde trabaja la bailarina exótica llamada Darlene, pero más conocida como “Harlet O’Hara”.
Algo para destacar de este genial autor con respecto a Jones que jamás cae en racismo o en la discriminación sino todo lo contrario, entiende la problemática que sufría la gente de color (tengamos en cuenta que este libro fue escrito en la década del ’60) y hasta defiende la postura de gente que fue muy maltratada en los Estados Unidos en esa época.
Otros personajes realmente geniales son Gus Levy, el empresario y dueño de Levy Pants, su esposa, la señora Levy, prototipo de la mujer de clase alta, pero a la vez vulgar de la clase media norteamericana y la señorita Trixie, una señora en completo estado senil que trabaja desde hace siglos en su empresa y a la que nunca quieren jubilar.
También encontramos al señor González, que es el jefe administrativo de la empresa y a Santa Battaglia, la tía del patrullero Mancuso a quien el autor estereotipa como la clásica mujer burguesa norteamericana, de esas que se aplican toneladas de spray en la cabeza, se embadurnan la cara con miles de capas de maquillaje y viste horriblemente, junto con otros personajes más como Claude Robichaux, el pretendiente de Irene Reilly.
Y cómo olvidarnos de Myrna Mynkoff, la novia de Ignatius, una chica con tendencias revolucionarias asociadas a lo sexual y lo disparatado que quiere cambiar el orden establecido en el sistema universitario.
Otro punto realmente a destacar es que el autor hace una descripción realmente detallada de la ciudad de Nueva Orleans, que es el lugar donde transcurre toda la historia.
En fin, esta novela es una obra maestra. No puedo clasificarla de otra manera. Todo está planeado y ejecutado al detalle.
Es divertida, la historia es original y única, los personajes son memorables y su autor un maestro de la narrativa cuya temprana muerte, como comentaba previamente es para lamentar, puesto que su potencial literario era enorme.
Los invito a leer “La conjura de los necios”, ya que pocas veces se toparán con un libro tan único y genial como este.
Si no lo hacen, ustedes se lo pierden.
Después no me digan que no les avisé…
August 10, 2007
Am I being unduly harsh giving this a mere “It’s OK”? Maybe. To hear some people describe it (even people I usually correlate well with), this book is a laugh-scream riot. Hopes grow even higher when you hear the story about Toole’s mother who, after his suicide, finally gets the thing published, then sits back to watch the prizes pour in. What I viewed as a miss may have been because the bar was so high. It could be, too, that I’m just not predisposed to dysfunctional characters, all bloated with self-importance. The protagonist (or antagonist depending on how you see him) is Ignatius J. Reilly. He’s decidedly offbeat, which is all well and good, but I just didn’t think he was funny. Not all guys with yinged-out hair are brilliant physicists either, much as we might surmise.
That’s just my opinion. Plenty of people disagree. It was a long time ago that I read it, so factor that in as well. Maybe guys like George Costanza have now gotten me used to whiny, self-centered anti-strivers as sources of humor.
I sometimes wonder why certain works are so polarizing. In this case I think lots of people saw a big misanthropic id running roughshod and had to laugh. Others of us were just annoyed. (Do I sound like a terrible curmudgeon right now? I just did a check on my sense of humor and found that it generally goes for sarcasm, irony, and even shtick. Must just have been this brand where I didn’t.)
That’s just my opinion. Plenty of people disagree. It was a long time ago that I read it, so factor that in as well. Maybe guys like George Costanza have now gotten me used to whiny, self-centered anti-strivers as sources of humor.
I sometimes wonder why certain works are so polarizing. In this case I think lots of people saw a big misanthropic id running roughshod and had to laugh. Others of us were just annoyed. (Do I sound like a terrible curmudgeon right now? I just did a check on my sense of humor and found that it generally goes for sarcasm, irony, and even shtick. Must just have been this brand where I didn’t.)
April 25, 2024
A relentless belly full of laughs and modern classic of comedy? Probably so. Still, despite the monstrously obese antihero slob Ignatius Jacques Reilly and all his belching, crazy antics, blathering writing damning contemporary society, hot dog scoffing, and nagging dipsomaniac mother - all of which did indeed produce a few chuckles - the Pulitzer winning novel left me with mixed feelings overall. Because of the tragic back-story of both novel and writer it's a book I so dearly wanted to love, but couldn't. I'm not for one minute singling out A Confederacy of Dunces as the first so-called 'American classic' that didn't get me raving with nothing but high praise, as there has previously been a host of others too. For me, the best thing about the novel is unquestionably the dialogue - that's where the bulk of the laughs come from - of not just the quixotic Reilly, but the likes of his mother and her sassy friend Santa Battaglia, the vagrant Burma Jones who trying to stay one step ahead of the law, and to a degree some of the workers at the Levy Pants factory where Reilly finds employment for a time before being drawn towards the smell of hot dogs in the fast food vending business.
While it was good to be involved in various side stories from the supporting cast, it is also the novel's biggest fault in my opinion. We have one of the great gargantuan 20th century characters in Ignatius Reilly - a memorable creations in modern literature who is inexplicably educated and scholarly, yet hopelessly detached from reality - and he simply doesn't feature enough. Had he taken up the bulk of the narrative then I just might have scored higher. When he isn't there, it's just not the same. Imagine watching the New York Yankees back in the day without Babe Ruth? Or going to see The Beatles at the height of their fame without John or Paul? Also, while it's not strictly a novel aimed at the younger generation, I do feel the most fun is to be had out of reading this at a younger age. Not saying I'm grumpy or anything like that, but I could see my former younger more exuberant self getting more pleasure out of its romanticism and lucidity. Yes, believe it or not, Ignatius is very much the romantic type.
I'm still trying to work out just how on earth he managed to strap a Mickey Mouse watch around those huge wrists!
March 5, 2018
“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
A laugh-out-loud picaresque, a story chock-full of satire and unforgettable humorous detail as we follow the adventures of our larger-than-life rascal-hero, Ignatius J. Reilly, floundering and farting his way through New Orleans in the 1960s.
If you think of a novel-length R. Crumb cartoon you would not be far off. Some of the characters we meet: the manager of hot dog carts that sticks a long fork to the thick neck of Ignatius, the owner of a pants factory who constantly has to do verbal battle with his hypercritical, blackmailing wife, a sadistic police sergeant with a twisted, theatrical sense-of-humor and a thimble-brained stripper with a cockatoo. There is enough color and texture and satire to fill a dozen novels but somehow John Kennedy Toole manages to compress it all into his tightly-knit tale.
What really gives this story depth is the metaphysical dimension via Ignatius's worldview, which includes a careful reading of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius and a keen awareness of Fortuna's wheel.
And we are right with Ignatius watching the wheel of Goddess Fortuna turn as we turn the pages. What an author; what a story; what a experience! Don't miss out. Get a copy of this book and get set for one of best literary rides of your life.
New Orleans author John Kennedy Toole (1937 - 1969)
“So we see that even when Fortuna spins us downward, the wheel sometimes halts for a moment and we find ourselves in a good, small cycle within the larger bad cycle. The universe, of course, is based upon the principle of the circle within the circle. At the moment, I am in an inner circle. Of course, smaller circles within this circle are also possible.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
November 28, 2007
What a colossal waste of my life. Nothing happens. Literally. That's what's wrong with this book. It's a freshman-level fiction workshop gone horribly awry. And it won what?
March 31, 2016
This so-called "farce" and "classic" was more frustrating to me than entertaining. I dislike leaving a book unfinished and the only reason I continued to read it was the hope that my effort would be paid off in the end. Alas, no such reward awaited me. This further cemented my belief that the only reason classics are called so is because some committee agreed and the public thought the committee must be right. I'm afraid my lingering disillusion with this book prevents my ability to form any more specific of an analysis. I cannot even remember the name of the one character I halfway liked in the entire book. 50 million Elvis fans can indeed be wrong.
December 12, 2020
I think I have a new favorite book. Certainly a book I will read again and one I didn’t want to put down my first go around. The story of Ignatius and his crusade against the world, making the long term lives of those he touched better off once they survived his initial destruction, was one non-stop laugh for me.
What made this book work so well was the lack of perfection. Though Ignatius was a total prick he was in a world of people just as bad (just better at hiding it) and though they all loathed him, all their lives were better by the end of the book because of him. (Well most of them)
One of the other aspects of this book I greatly enjoyed was the amount of dialogue. Firstly because dialogue filled text is such a quick read. While I don’t mind some exposition and non-dialogue text, the fact that the most of this book was told through conversations created vivid voices for all the characters. It also forced the book to show rather than tell and really fleshed out all of the characters.
What made this book work so well was the lack of perfection. Though Ignatius was a total prick he was in a world of people just as bad (just better at hiding it) and though they all loathed him, all their lives were better by the end of the book because of him. (Well most of them)
One of the other aspects of this book I greatly enjoyed was the amount of dialogue. Firstly because dialogue filled text is such a quick read. While I don’t mind some exposition and non-dialogue text, the fact that the most of this book was told through conversations created vivid voices for all the characters. It also forced the book to show rather than tell and really fleshed out all of the characters.
July 2, 2017
A Confederacy of Dunces: John Kennedy Toole's Novel of What it Means to Miss New Orleans
A Confederacy of Dunces was chosen as the first group read of On the Southern Literary Trail in March, 2012. Now, a few months after "The Trail's" FIFTH Anniversary, the readers have chosen this novel as one of it's group reads for July, 2017. Come join us!
After twenty-five years, I've closed my original Evergreen copy of A Confederacy of Dunces. I've reached the last page once more. It appears more battered than when I last read it. It's still good. I hated to see it end again.
Hmmmm...hang on. We've got company.
"Oooooweee. That dude down at the Levy Pant Fact-o-ree an' his wife with them funny blue glasses of hers done got me an A-WARD for doin' the Poleeces a favor cleanin' up this bar down on Bourbon called de Night of Joy. WHOA! An' dat Mrs. Levy done took me on as a projeck an send me back to school. Ooooweee! So I don't work for less than no minimal wage no more. I got air condition and a transistor radio an' I read this poem up there at the top o this page an I wrote it down in one of them tablets the big guy in that green hat like so much."
"That sound jus like him. WHOA!"--Burma Jones, former porter and janitor, The Night of Joy Bar, Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
Whatever happened to Burma Jones and all the other memorable character's ofA Confederacy of Dunces is anybody's guess. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969, never seeing his novel in print. The story of the publication of the book is as fascinating as the novel itself.
John Kennedy Toole was born in 1937, the son of John and Thelma Toole. Although a Catholic, he was educated in the public schools, as opposed to the parochial schools. Perhaps that's where Toole began to learn the dialect of New Orleans known as "Yat." He graduated high school at the age of sixteen, graduated with honors from Tulane in 1958, and had a Masters from Columbia in New York in 1959. He was working on his doctoral studies when called up for military service in 1961 and was stationed in Puerto Rico. It was there that he began the novel that would win him the Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1981.
Toole returned from military service to his home city where he taught at St. Mary's Dominican College, Loyola's sister college, finishing his novel there. In 1964, Toole sent his manuscript to Simon and Schuster in New York. Senior Editor Robert Gottlieb worked with Toole through the year, resulting in many revisions. But Gottlieb ultimately told Toole by December the book was about nothing and dropped the project.
Until his death in 1969, Toole spiralled into alcoholism and depression. Towards the end of his life he became paranoid and delusional, believing that others were attempting to steal his book. At the age of 32, Toole committed suicide by sealing himself inside a garage, dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Toole's mother, Thelma submitted her son's novel to six publishing houses. All rejected the novel. She dogged Walker Percy's footsteps, literally pushing the manuscript into his hands, asking him to read her son's novel. Percy reluctantly agreed, but upon completing the read recognized that he had read something great. Through his efforts, the novel was published by LSU Press. The rest is history.
What is it that intrigues people about this book? What is it that makes some people despise it? Those readers familiar with New Orleans readily recognize that the city comes to life in Toole's novel. So do the myriad characters. The city districts, streets and stores are readily recognized. The unique accents of New Orleans multi-cultural population sing from the pages of this book. Those who have not been there cannot recognize the city and cannot believe such people exist. But, oh, they do.
Those readers who cannot abide the book inevitably find Ignatius Reilly the source of frustration. He is no hero. He has no ambition. He is content to be provided for by his mother and whatever Fate or Fortune brings. He is slothful, spoiled, and lazy. He rants at the perversion of modern society, but wants its conveniences.
His afternoons find him before the flickering screen of the television as he screams at...
Each evening he attends the movies, eagerly awaiting his favorite film star's latest feature.
He is banned from attending further screenings at the Old Prytania Theater after screaming the picture is an ABORTION!
But he returns to a downtown theater to catch her next feature and is HORRIFIED that she may end up in bed with her leading man!
Ignatius Reilly is a man at odds with the modern world. He is drawn to it, but repelled by it. As was Miniver Cheevy, he was born too late. And he definitely called it fate, or at least the work of the fickle Goddess Fortuna, of whom Boethius, the last classical writer wrote in Ignatius's favorite book, The Consolation of Philosophy. As Walker Percy wrote in his foreword to the novel, Ignatius is an irascible Don Quixote jousting against the windmills of a world of which he would rather not be a part. He seeks to impose his own medieval philosophies on a city that would have it be Mardi Gras all year long. That's not going to happen in New Orleans.
Ignatius is forced into the outside world to get a job to pay off the costs of an automobile accident his mother had after a bit too much to drink in the Night of Joy bar that will figure prominently in the story. So Ignatius will find himself at work in the Levy Pant Factory in charge of filing, accompanied by Office Manager Gomez who doesn't manage much of anything, and Miss Trixie, long past retirement age, who would much rather be retired. Ignatius, a natural saboteur, soon finds himself unemployed. Next, he finds himself a street vendor of Paradise Hot Dogs, waddling along his appointed route, eating more of his ware than selling them.
Behind all the blare and bluster he exhibits, Ignatius is a bundle of insecurities, having left New Orleans only once in a traumatic trip to Baton Rouge where he might have had a teaching position but for his willful refusal to grade his students' papers. This gets him back home to the safety of his room, where he wiles away his time writing his magnum opus on his philosophy of life.
It is not that Ignatius hasn't had his chance at love, Myrna Minkoff, that "little minx" as he calls her, has attempted to bed him on more than one occasion, while they both attended college in New Orleans. However, Ignatius has firmly protected his virginity, taking matters in hand for necessary relief, but leaving himself celibate.
Myrna has gone back to New York and is constantly engaged in social protests of one form or the other. Her relationship with Ignatius continues by correspondence. She is relentless in her argument that he needs to free himself from his cloistered room, his mother to whom is too closely tied and find true freedom through just one cleansing natural orgasm. And his minx constantly hints that she is freed in this manner time and again through the interesting male individuals who attach themselves to her social causes.
Meanwhile, as Ignatius fails to bring home the bacon to pay off her accident costs, Irene, the doting mother is persuaded by her friend Santa Batagglia and her possible suitor Claude Robichaux that Ignatius has become insane. Irene begins to think that the only way to save Ignatius from himself is to have him committed to a hospital for the mentally ill.
Toole rolls to a tumultuous literary climax. All the characters with whom Ignatius has come into contact come together in a night of comedic chaos that may well determine Ignatius' fate. Will it be involuntary commitment to an asylum, or will it be freedom? Toole combines comedy and tragedy in an unforgettable novel that does make a reader laugh out loud and feel true pity for the man for whom Fortuna's wheel spins an unpredictable course.
Oooooweee! I'm all outta Dr. Nut. I got no Paradise Dogs. Just gonna have to pour me a Dr. Pepper and have me a Nathan's Dog. WHOA! All this writin's enough to turn a man into a vagran'.
FIVE FOR FIVE, Still crazy after all these years.
A Confederacy of Dunces was chosen as the first group read of On the Southern Literary Trail in March, 2012. Now, a few months after "The Trail's" FIFTH Anniversary, the readers have chosen this novel as one of it's group reads for July, 2017. Come join us!
"Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking."--Edward Arlington Robinson
After twenty-five years, I've closed my original Evergreen copy of A Confederacy of Dunces. I've reached the last page once more. It appears more battered than when I last read it. It's still good. I hated to see it end again.
Hmmmm...hang on. We've got company.
"Oooooweee. That dude down at the Levy Pant Fact-o-ree an' his wife with them funny blue glasses of hers done got me an A-WARD for doin' the Poleeces a favor cleanin' up this bar down on Bourbon called de Night of Joy. WHOA! An' dat Mrs. Levy done took me on as a projeck an send me back to school. Ooooweee! So I don't work for less than no minimal wage no more. I got air condition and a transistor radio an' I read this poem up there at the top o this page an I wrote it down in one of them tablets the big guy in that green hat like so much."
"That sound jus like him. WHOA!"--Burma Jones, former porter and janitor, The Night of Joy Bar, Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
Whatever happened to Burma Jones and all the other memorable character's ofA Confederacy of Dunces is anybody's guess. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969, never seeing his novel in print. The story of the publication of the book is as fascinating as the novel itself.
John Kennedy Toole was born in 1937, the son of John and Thelma Toole. Although a Catholic, he was educated in the public schools, as opposed to the parochial schools. Perhaps that's where Toole began to learn the dialect of New Orleans known as "Yat." He graduated high school at the age of sixteen, graduated with honors from Tulane in 1958, and had a Masters from Columbia in New York in 1959. He was working on his doctoral studies when called up for military service in 1961 and was stationed in Puerto Rico. It was there that he began the novel that would win him the Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1981.
Toole returned from military service to his home city where he taught at St. Mary's Dominican College, Loyola's sister college, finishing his novel there. In 1964, Toole sent his manuscript to Simon and Schuster in New York. Senior Editor Robert Gottlieb worked with Toole through the year, resulting in many revisions. But Gottlieb ultimately told Toole by December the book was about nothing and dropped the project.
Until his death in 1969, Toole spiralled into alcoholism and depression. Towards the end of his life he became paranoid and delusional, believing that others were attempting to steal his book. At the age of 32, Toole committed suicide by sealing himself inside a garage, dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Toole's mother, Thelma submitted her son's novel to six publishing houses. All rejected the novel. She dogged Walker Percy's footsteps, literally pushing the manuscript into his hands, asking him to read her son's novel. Percy reluctantly agreed, but upon completing the read recognized that he had read something great. Through his efforts, the novel was published by LSU Press. The rest is history.
What is it that intrigues people about this book? What is it that makes some people despise it? Those readers familiar with New Orleans readily recognize that the city comes to life in Toole's novel. So do the myriad characters. The city districts, streets and stores are readily recognized. The unique accents of New Orleans multi-cultural population sing from the pages of this book. Those who have not been there cannot recognize the city and cannot believe such people exist. But, oh, they do.
Those readers who cannot abide the book inevitably find Ignatius Reilly the source of frustration. He is no hero. He has no ambition. He is content to be provided for by his mother and whatever Fate or Fortune brings. He is slothful, spoiled, and lazy. He rants at the perversion of modern society, but wants its conveniences.
His afternoons find him before the flickering screen of the television as he screams at...
Each evening he attends the movies, eagerly awaiting his favorite film star's latest feature.
He is banned from attending further screenings at the Old Prytania Theater after screaming the picture is an ABORTION!
But he returns to a downtown theater to catch her next feature and is HORRIFIED that she may end up in bed with her leading man!
Ignatius Reilly is a man at odds with the modern world. He is drawn to it, but repelled by it. As was Miniver Cheevy, he was born too late. And he definitely called it fate, or at least the work of the fickle Goddess Fortuna, of whom Boethius, the last classical writer wrote in Ignatius's favorite book, The Consolation of Philosophy. As Walker Percy wrote in his foreword to the novel, Ignatius is an irascible Don Quixote jousting against the windmills of a world of which he would rather not be a part. He seeks to impose his own medieval philosophies on a city that would have it be Mardi Gras all year long. That's not going to happen in New Orleans.
Ignatius is forced into the outside world to get a job to pay off the costs of an automobile accident his mother had after a bit too much to drink in the Night of Joy bar that will figure prominently in the story. So Ignatius will find himself at work in the Levy Pant Factory in charge of filing, accompanied by Office Manager Gomez who doesn't manage much of anything, and Miss Trixie, long past retirement age, who would much rather be retired. Ignatius, a natural saboteur, soon finds himself unemployed. Next, he finds himself a street vendor of Paradise Hot Dogs, waddling along his appointed route, eating more of his ware than selling them.
Behind all the blare and bluster he exhibits, Ignatius is a bundle of insecurities, having left New Orleans only once in a traumatic trip to Baton Rouge where he might have had a teaching position but for his willful refusal to grade his students' papers. This gets him back home to the safety of his room, where he wiles away his time writing his magnum opus on his philosophy of life.
It is not that Ignatius hasn't had his chance at love, Myrna Minkoff, that "little minx" as he calls her, has attempted to bed him on more than one occasion, while they both attended college in New Orleans. However, Ignatius has firmly protected his virginity, taking matters in hand for necessary relief, but leaving himself celibate.
Myrna has gone back to New York and is constantly engaged in social protests of one form or the other. Her relationship with Ignatius continues by correspondence. She is relentless in her argument that he needs to free himself from his cloistered room, his mother to whom is too closely tied and find true freedom through just one cleansing natural orgasm. And his minx constantly hints that she is freed in this manner time and again through the interesting male individuals who attach themselves to her social causes.
Meanwhile, as Ignatius fails to bring home the bacon to pay off her accident costs, Irene, the doting mother is persuaded by her friend Santa Batagglia and her possible suitor Claude Robichaux that Ignatius has become insane. Irene begins to think that the only way to save Ignatius from himself is to have him committed to a hospital for the mentally ill.
Toole rolls to a tumultuous literary climax. All the characters with whom Ignatius has come into contact come together in a night of comedic chaos that may well determine Ignatius' fate. Will it be involuntary commitment to an asylum, or will it be freedom? Toole combines comedy and tragedy in an unforgettable novel that does make a reader laugh out loud and feel true pity for the man for whom Fortuna's wheel spins an unpredictable course.
Oooooweee! I'm all outta Dr. Nut. I got no Paradise Dogs. Just gonna have to pour me a Dr. Pepper and have me a Nathan's Dog. WHOA! All this writin's enough to turn a man into a vagran'.
FIVE FOR FIVE, Still crazy after all these years.
April 22, 2022
تقریبا برای من کتاب خوبی بود. طنز نسبتا خوبی هم داشت ولی چیزی که خیلی برام دردناک بود این بود که نویسنده در سی و دو سالگی بعد از ناامید شدن از چاپ کتابش به زندگی خودش پایان میده. ولی مادرش کسیکه باهاش چالشهای زیادی هم داشته درصدد این برمیاد که حتما کتاب پسرش رو معرفی کنه و به چاپ برسونه که البته موفق هم میشه.
September 29, 2020
Llevo un buen rato sentada ante mi cuaderno Gran Jefe, con un lápiz de Numismática Venus en una mano y una Dr. Nut en la otra, pensando qué decir sobre esta grandísima novela. Se me ocurren miles de adjetivos para definirla: imprevisible, corrosiva, ingeniosa, divertidísima, delirante, magistral. Pero como dice en el fantástico prólogo Walker Percy, “el mayor logro de Toole es el propio Ignatius Reilly, intelectual, ideólogo, gorrón, holgazán, glotón, que debería repugnar al lector por sus gargantuescos banquetes, su retumbante desprecio y su guerra individual contra todo el mundo: Freud, los homosexuales, los heterosexuales, los protestantes y todas las abominaciones de los tiempos modernos.” Respecto a esto iré al grano, lo mejor es dejar las cosas claras desde el principio: yo soy una de esas pancartistas pro-Ignatius de las que algunos hablan. Lo fui al terminar mi primera lectura, lo soy, quizás más, ahora al terminar la segunda. Como figura mítica, incluso histórica, como un Boecio que nos incite a replantearnos nuestra existencia, tiene aquí una firme defensora. Dicho esto, se me cierra de golpe la válvula pilórica al imaginar lo que algunos estarán pensando de mí en estos momentos.
...sólo me relaciono con mis iguales, y como no tengo iguales, no me relaciono con nadie. Efectivamente, Ignatius Reilly no se relacionaría conmigo. Tampoco yo con él, no me malinterpreten, en modo alguno pienso que seamos almas gemelas, su pensamiento reaccionario me pone los pelos de punta, pero su carácter irrespetuoso, su irreverencia, me pone la piel de gallina de una forma bastante placentera. Y esta ambivalencia, complicada en lo cotidiano, es quizás una de las cosas más maravillosas y mágicas de la ficción. Aquí todo elemento subversivo que venga a poner sobre la mesa el absurdo de nuestra sociedad y sus dinámicas tendrá probablemente toda mi simpatía, aunque este elemento sea tan demencial como la sociedad a la que critica.
Ignatius es un treintañero del todo inadaptado al que, sin comerlo ni beberlo, un buen día la diosa Fortuna lo aplasta con su rueda y, tras un pequeño accidente, se ve enfrentado al destino malévolo que esta diabólica sociedad, carente de toda geometría, nos tiene reservado a todos: la perversión de tener que IR A TRABAJAR.
Oh, ¿qué broma pesada estaba gastándole ahora Fortuna? ¿Detención, accidente, trabajo? ¿Dónde acabaría aquel ciclo aterrador?
A partir de aquí, asistimos a una caricatura divertidísima e implacable del orden laboral y social en el que estamos inmersos, en la que no es Ignatius quien sale peor parado. Ignatius se verá obligado a vivir en una contradicción insoportable. Nuestro Asediado Chico Trabajador tendrá que ingeniárselas para actuar, dentro de lo que cabe, conforme a sus propias convicciones y creencias, en un sistema que no le pone fácil a nadie mantenerse fiel a su causa... sea cual sea. El introducirme activamente en el sistema que critico será en sí mismo una interesante ironía.
Desde el momento en que se le pedía a uno que entrase en este siglo brutal, podía suceder cualquier cosa.
Y vaya si suceden cosas. Lean y juzguen con firmeza, pero también con humanidad. Desde aquí hago un llamamiento a la compasión y la comprensión hacia un pobre muchacho que podría ser cualquiera de nosotros. Un muchacho, es verdad, con cierta resistencia psicológica al trabajo, egoísta, grotesco... pero un muchacho, al fin y al cabo, que sólo soñaba con dedicar su vida a escribir una extensa denuncia contra nuestro siglo, al que Fortuna, sombra caprichosa, empujó al horror.
Les han lavado el cerebro a todos ustedes. Supongo que le gustaría convertirse en un triunfador, un hombre de éxito, o algo igual de ruin.
...sólo me relaciono con mis iguales, y como no tengo iguales, no me relaciono con nadie. Efectivamente, Ignatius Reilly no se relacionaría conmigo. Tampoco yo con él, no me malinterpreten, en modo alguno pienso que seamos almas gemelas, su pensamiento reaccionario me pone los pelos de punta, pero su carácter irrespetuoso, su irreverencia, me pone la piel de gallina de una forma bastante placentera. Y esta ambivalencia, complicada en lo cotidiano, es quizás una de las cosas más maravillosas y mágicas de la ficción. Aquí todo elemento subversivo que venga a poner sobre la mesa el absurdo de nuestra sociedad y sus dinámicas tendrá probablemente toda mi simpatía, aunque este elemento sea tan demencial como la sociedad a la que critica.
Ignatius es un treintañero del todo inadaptado al que, sin comerlo ni beberlo, un buen día la diosa Fortuna lo aplasta con su rueda y, tras un pequeño accidente, se ve enfrentado al destino malévolo que esta diabólica sociedad, carente de toda geometría, nos tiene reservado a todos: la perversión de tener que IR A TRABAJAR.
Oh, ¿qué broma pesada estaba gastándole ahora Fortuna? ¿Detención, accidente, trabajo? ¿Dónde acabaría aquel ciclo aterrador?
A partir de aquí, asistimos a una caricatura divertidísima e implacable del orden laboral y social en el que estamos inmersos, en la que no es Ignatius quien sale peor parado. Ignatius se verá obligado a vivir en una contradicción insoportable. Nuestro Asediado Chico Trabajador tendrá que ingeniárselas para actuar, dentro de lo que cabe, conforme a sus propias convicciones y creencias, en un sistema que no le pone fácil a nadie mantenerse fiel a su causa... sea cual sea. El introducirme activamente en el sistema que critico será en sí mismo una interesante ironía.
Desde el momento en que se le pedía a uno que entrase en este siglo brutal, podía suceder cualquier cosa.
Y vaya si suceden cosas. Lean y juzguen con firmeza, pero también con humanidad. Desde aquí hago un llamamiento a la compasión y la comprensión hacia un pobre muchacho que podría ser cualquiera de nosotros. Un muchacho, es verdad, con cierta resistencia psicológica al trabajo, egoísta, grotesco... pero un muchacho, al fin y al cabo, que sólo soñaba con dedicar su vida a escribir una extensa denuncia contra nuestro siglo, al que Fortuna, sombra caprichosa, empujó al horror.
Les han lavado el cerebro a todos ustedes. Supongo que le gustaría convertirse en un triunfador, un hombre de éxito, o algo igual de ruin.
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