A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
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Book Summary Information
Author: John Kennedy TooleEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-02-01
ISBN: 0807126063
Number of pages: 338
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Book Reviews of A Confederacy of Dunces
Book Review: Please recognize Ignatius as having a diagnosable illness, not just an "oaf," etc.
Summary: 5 Stars
John Kennedy Toole was a genius, and this book was probably the greatest I've had the pleasure to read, and I've read many. So, I will not repeat the many eloquent praises to him and his work here, though I have greatly enjoyed reading them. I just want to try to bring people's attention to the fact that Ignatius meets the criteria for a diagnosable mental illness, a personality disorder called Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is a very isolating and very sad disorder, the more so because people afflicted with it never get any sympathy from those around them. Indeed, they are cannot ask for it, because they are not themselves aware that they need it; they are too ill even to see this aspect of their lives.
Many people (certainly everyone intelligent enough to have read and appreciated Confederacy and to be reading reviews of it) have heard of Narcissists, of someone being disparagingly referred to as a Narcissist, meaning s/he is self-absorbed, conceited, etc. However, Narcissistic P.D. has been recognized as a set of characteristics so extreme that they cause the person distress and disable them socially and/or professionally. Ignatius was certainly disabled in both ways, and though I began the book angry and disgusted with him as several other reviewers, as I read on I realized that he was not a "bad" person, he was just ill, and then I began to pity him even while being frustrated with his behavior, as we often are with the manifestations of mental illnesses.
I will not try to summarize the criteria here, but you can easily find them and more information about this disorder with an internet search. But let me explain that Ignatius' apparent arrogance and sense of superiority is exactly the opposite; whereas a normal person can handle the sense of mediocrity that we all have to come to terms with in at least some if not all aspects of who we are, a person with NPD, due to some great humiliations by an authority figure in their early childhood, cannot bear to face the pain that that would cause them, because they were made to feel such a tremendous amount of guilt and shame associated with their not being "good enough." So, they cordon off any sense of less than greatness to one part of their mind (subconsciously) and they run like h*ll to the other side, and stay there, forever. Ignatius is not really a jerk, he's just out of balance, and he's imbalanced out of a fear, a terror, really, that he doesn't consciously know he has. So, though we despise people who act like he does, who blame everyone else for their shortcomings or mistakes, who seem to look denigrate others and hold themselves higher than everyone else in every way, to the point of it being comical, they are in fact some of the saddest, loneliest people on earth. And the most hopeless; due to the nature of their insanity, they very rarely get help - they cannot tolerate the terror of the thought that they may be less than perfect, because their father used to beat the crap out of them for making mistakes, etc., etc.
So, though I agree wholeheartedly that Confederacy of Dunces is a brilliantly original work, beautifully and skillfully written, I hate to inform you that Ignatius is unfortunately not as original as you probably thought. He exists. He is a deadbeat dad who gambled away all his money, blames his problems on his ex-wife and everyone else, and thinks himself too smart to go to college or get therapy. He's lots of people in this world that we write off as "jerks," not seeing the pain and terror behind their actions. Toole portrayed Ignatius with incredible humor and a geniune literary talent, but with such a level of insight that I have to wonder if he himself suffered from NPD. It is hard to imagine that someone with NPD could step outside himself enough to write someone with his disorder so well, but equally difficult to fathom that anyone could write Ignatius who had not lived his experience to some degree. We will never know, sadly, very much about this incredibly talented and apparently sad author, but I would hazard to guess that he knew exactly what disorder his protagonist suffered from and would have liked to have the sympathy you felt for Ignatius by the end of the story not end there, but to extend to all those like him in our world.
Summary of A Confederacy of Dunces
A popular Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy follows the adventures of New Orlean's lower denizens of the French Quarter."A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs."
Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.
Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Darlene and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life. --Alix Wilber
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