A Confederacy of Dunces

What an outrageous, laugh out loud, cringy, engulfing, enraging, disgusting, and completely engrossing story! Couldn’t put it down!

“It is a scene which combines the worst of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; it is mechanized Negro slavery; it represents progress which the Negro has made from picking cotton to tailoring it … My valve threw in a hearty response.” This is from page 130. Ignatius Reilly writes for his grand designs of social upheaval through a more sophisticated lens than he can otherwise be seen through. In this glimpse can also be seen the satire of John Kennedy Toole, but then again the short shelf life of well-meaning political correctness. On the other side of the book, Levy Pants is owned by a beleaguered and himself well-meaning and hen-pecked husband, Gus Levy. And Jones is illiterate, irreverent, and as stereotyped as New Orleans can be, but because he works for below minimum wage, the alternative being arrested as a “vagran,” he is a hero who exposes a pornography ring. The genius of A Confederacy of Dunces is its limited appeal to only the most literate readers. To the regular summer reader, Ignatius would be too fat to be funny, Jones too lazy, and New Orleans police would not make favorable headlines near the end. The racial sensibilities keep the wheels turning within the plot, introducing new characters and surprising one-liners, forcing strange bedfellows in a book alongside Hispanic strippers, senile retirees, and bitchy bosses, but popular, current sensibility would not allow for so many laughs now. The best reminder of this is that Walker Percy wrote the introduction. This is the Old South, the Easy Rider version that makes distinguishing hippies from rednecks from tourists so fuzzy; this was a message of equal opportunities and meritocracy preached to a segregated congregation. The book is more visual, or means to be, than most novels. The actions are awkward, the colors are bright, and New Orleans is left to the imagination. The characters are grotesque, the scenes compromising, and the coincidences come from extraordinarily varied points. Sometimes this means pay less attention to the dialogue; sometimes it means a character will take on a roll that reads faster. Trixie, for example, moved from an office which but for the signs was hard to see to a home which but for Mrs. Levy’s board was cleaner but most likely still very tacky. Ignatius ran into Dorian and George and maybe a couple of other bit characters, and the most important note to take was that Ignatius was going to respond with anything that could reflect his delusions of grandeur. His physical comedy was not effective, partly because fat is now too epidemic to be funny. His persistence and neo-idealism, however, is as reviewers say: Faustian, Don Quixote-like. Once Toole forced Ignatius to act, the plot became too fast to be visible, but the ladies from the auxiliary came into a scene with the characters I did know, so there is that magic spark caused by interrelated characters. I had my doubts deep into the novel, but on page 346, I realized confidently that this was all going to tie together like a classic Seinfeld scenario.

<em> <a style="font-style: italic;" href=[...]</a> </em>by <a href="[...]</a> is funny, wise, and as close to a perfect novel as you’re likely to find. Protagonist Ignatius C. Reilly is a bloated buffoon, a man-baby who lives with his mother, has a troubled digestive valve that causes him to burp and fart with great frequency, and possesses one of the most “unique” worldviews you’re likely to find. Ignatius is loaf completely at ease with his loafishness: <blockquote><em>“I dust a bit,” Ignatius told the policeman. “In addition, 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.”</em></blockquote> Ignatius is like a giant child when he considers his career options and argues with his mother: <blockquote><em>I suspect that something like a newspaper route would be rather agreeable.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em> “I dare you to come out in that shredded nightgown and get me!” Ignatius answered defiantly and stuck out his massive pink tongue.</em></blockquote> Above all, <em>A Confederacy of Dunces</em> is <em>funny</em>. Laugh out loud is an overused phrase, but <em>COD</em> will make you LOL for realz, yo. The situations are so absurd, the characters so odd, and the dialogue veers between biting satire punctuated by unexpected blasts of pee-your-pants profanity. <blockquote><em>“Go dangle your withered parts over the toilet!” Ignatius screamed savagely. Miss Trixie shuffled away.</em></blockquote> No mater what the problem, Ignatius always finds a way to blame others. <blockquote><em>“Employers sense in me a denial of their values.” He rolled over onto his back. “They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>You must realize the fear and hatred which my </em>weltanschauung<em> instills in people.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>He twisted his face into a mask of suffering. There was no use fighting Fortuna until the cycle was over. “You realize, of course, that this is all your fault.</em><em> </em></blockquote> <blockquote><em> “You’re full of bulls***.” </em> <em>“I? The incident is sociologically valid. The blame rests upon our society.”</em></blockquote> Sometimes <em>COD</em> goes for screwball comedy and slapstick. Taken as a whole, <em>COD</em> is the mother of all farces. When he’s not avoiding work or fighting with his mother, Ignatius plots against Myrna, a radical student he once attended classes with. The romantic ending of <em>COD</em> is anticipated but still manages to be unexpectedly satisfying. <blockquote><em>Dr. Talc idly wondered if they (</em>Iggy and Myrna)<em> had married each other. Each certainly deserved the other.</em></blockquote> Through Myrna’s letters we see she has true insight into Ignatius’ personality: <blockquote><em>This “automobile accident” is a new crutch to help you make excuses for your meaningless, impotent existence.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>A good, explosive orgasm would cleanse your being and bring you out of the shadows.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>Great Oedipus bonds are encircling your brain and destroying you</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>Ignatius, a very bad crack-up is on the way. You must do something. Even volunteer work at a hospital would snap you out of your apathy,</em> <em>The valve closes because it thinks it is living in a dead organism. Open your heart, Ignatius, and you will open your valve. </em></blockquote> <em> </em> Behind his absurdity, Ignatius is sad and lonely, a sorrow that stems from his isolationism: <blockquote><em>We both exist outside the inner realm of American society. Myrna was, you see, terribly engaged in her society; I, on the other hand, older and wiser, was terribly dis-engaged.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>I really have had little to do with them, for I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>I don’t dance. I never dance. I have never danced in my life.</em></blockquote> <em>COD</em> is also a love letter to Toole’s native New Orleans: <blockquote><em>Patrolman Mancuso inhaled the moldy scent of the oaks and thought, in a romantic aside, that St. Charles Avenue must be the loveliest place in the world.</em></blockquote> <blockquote><em>New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive. At least its climate is mild.</em> <em>The balconies of the old buildings hung over my head like dark branches in an allegorical forest of evil.</em></blockquote> I won’t get into the tragic personal history of author John Kenndy Toole. The story behind his career and the publication of <em>COD</em> is itself an impossible tale of heartbreaking genius. But the toxic mother-son relationship at the heart of this novel certainly is rife with autobiographical elements. Ms. Reilly laments Ignatius’ weak work ethic. <blockquote><em> “My heart’s broke.”</em> <em>“Ain’t he writing something?” </em> <em>“Some foolishness nobody never gonna feel like reading.”</em></blockquote> Fortunately, the real-life Thelma Toole felt differently about her son’s work. -30-

What can I say that others haven’t. Extremely entertaining. Incredibly rich characters. One that I will reread several more times.

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize many years ago, and I’ve got to think that had as much to do with the provenance of the book as it did with its quality. It would seem that the author penned this novel at a young age and was unable to get it published. He subsequently committed suicide, whereupon his mother convinced the noted southern author, Walker Percy to take a look at it. Percy was blown away and used his considerable influence to have it published. The story, set in New Orleans, is unusual to say the least. The “hero” of the story is an overeducated, lazy and eccentric lout named Ignatius Reilly. Reilly spends his life wandering through the city, watching movies, doing odd jobs and constantly fretting over his health and well-being. He is clearly mentally imbalanced. Throughout the book, he runs across various other colorful characters, the likes of which have become New Orleans clichés, which develop story threads of their own. Initially, this is a rather amusing book. I did not find it “laugh out loud” funny, as some have professed, but did appreciate the often clever writing. However, after about 100 pages, the schtick began to get old for me. Imagine taking in a Vaudeville act, filled with pratfalls and pies in the face. How long can you watch this before becoming tired of it? Ten, fifteen minutes? Watch it for two hours and you’ll see what I mean. Others have raved about character development. There is no character “development” here, only character presentation. Reilly is a lazy, eccentric slob from page one to the finish. Nobody develops, but instead remains their slotted stereotype throughout the novel. It just gets old.

Ignatius gets away in the end…

“A Confederacy of Dunces,” John Kennedy Toole’s bizarre novel about an outlandish character stumbling around New Orleans provokes much controversy in the publishing world. The author, almost as unsettled as his protagonist, Ignatius Reilly, never lived to see his work become published. It was first printed eleven years after his suicide and won the Pulitzer Prize the year after, in 1981. It has since become almost an icon of both comical and tragic modern literature. Toole’s mother was the book’s flag waver, never stopping her relentless campaign to have it published. She finally convinced novelist Walker Percy, then teaching at Loyola, to read through the immense and ragged manuscript who saw the promise. Earlier attempts by Toole had failed to gain support because, in the words of one famous publisher, “It isn’t really about anything.” Toole told friends that his book had been praised as “wildly funny” and “full of ‘wonderfulness’ and ‘excitements’ and ’glories’ “. Indeed it is and one can only question the wisdom of such rejection. But Toole never overcame his disheartenment, killing himself at age thirty-two. Reilly is an educated slob of a man, living with his mother, and half-heartedly trying to find a job. His dress is outlandish, his immense size is subject to much abuse, and his stomach troubles are very public and magnified by his choice of unhealthy food and drink. He has many adventures among the wildly eccentric characters of early-1960s New Orleans but he may be the most off-center of them all. These escapades form the storyline of the novel. The book is, indeed, comical. But there is an undercurrent of sadness and suffering. One feels guilty laughing at the antics that is almost akin to chortling at mentally or physically handicapped individuals. That, to me, is the curious appeal I find in the book. Toole does a masterful job at presenting this enigma, whether or not that is his intention. The dialect is often mentioned as being true art, and the characterizations are products of a writing virtuoso. An indicator of the book’s struggle with acceptance is its unfortunate travels through the motion picture industry. Repeated efforts at turning it into film, with many stars targeted for Reilly’s character, including John Belushi, John Candy, John Goodman, and Will Ferrell, have failed. Toole only wrote the one book, which is unfortunate for readers. I encourage a careful study of his story, keeping in mind that, while the humor never stops, neither does embarrassment of being amused go away. Schuyler T Wallace Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

A beautiful comedy.. Instant classic!

Großartig geschriebenes Buch. Unterhaltsame humorvolle Story. Gut beschriebene und intelligent-überlegte Charaktere. Fesselnde und witzige Prosa.

Um pouco manchado nas laterais, afinal, é um livro já antigo, mas sem cheiro de velho, sem rasuras, sem rasgados

A la suite d'un héros hors norme on découvert une galerie de portraits savoureux. Le style est brillant donnant voix à chacun des personnage dans une langue dont le vocabulaire la syntaxe et l'orthographe varient pour suivre leurs émotions et nous plonger dans leur psychisme. C'est pathétique hilarant effrayanr en un mot brillant.

l'ho comprato usato ad un ottimo prezzo, sono molto soddisfatto delle condizioni del prodotto, pari al nuovo e del prodotto stesso. una buona edizione di uno dei libri più belli che io abbia mai letto.

Amazing book, a classic. Laugh out loud and cry. Wish we could turn back time and he would have been able to self-publish his book. The world would have had many more literary gems from this genius.