A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
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Book Reviews of A Confederacy of Dunces
Book Review: HIstory repeats itself, BUY NOW!
Summary: 5 Stars
Synopsis
A monument of sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. In magnificent revolt against the twentieth century, Ignatius propels his monstrous bulk among the flesh posts of the fallen city, documenting life on his Big Chief tablets as he goes, until his maroon-haired mother decrees that Ignatius must work.
First lines
A Confederacy of Dunces is a novel written by John Kennedy Toole, but not published during his lifetime. Through the efforts of the writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother, the book was published in 1980; it quickly became a cult classic and won a Pulitzer Prize a year later.
The title is a reference to a saying by the classic master of satire, Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting)
The story is set in New Orleans, Louisiana at the start of the 1960s. The central character is Ignatius J. Reilly, an intelligent but slothful man still living with his mother in Uptown New Orleans who, because of family circumstances, must set out to get a job for the first time in his life at age thirty. In his quest for employment he has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters.
Major characters
Ignatius J. Reilly
Ignatius is something of a modern Don Quixote - eccentric and creative, sometimes perhaps to the point of being delusional. He tries to find jobs requiring little or no work which will allow him at the same time to further his plans to somehow achieve greatness.
He disdains modern civilization, especially pop culture, but gets a perverse delight in immersing himself in order to mock its vapidity and express his outrage with its lack of philosophy and geometry. He prefers the enlightened philosophy of the Middle Ages, especially that of Boethius.
Myrna Minkoff
Myrna "The Minx" is a beatnik Jew from New York City whom Ignatius met while she was in college in New Orleans. Their political, social, religious, and personal orientations could hardly be more different, but Myrna and Ignatius have a fascination with each other. For most of the novel she is seen only in the regular correspondence which the two keep up since her return to New York. Officially, they both deplore everything the other stands for. Though probably neither of them would admit it, their correspondence indicates that, though separated by half a continent, many of their actions are done with hopes to impress the other.
Irene Reilly
Mrs. Reilly is Ignatius's long-widowed mother. She still thinks of Ignatius as an adolescent, encouraging him to think of himself that way. She is fond of drinking cheap wine and is generally tipsy.
FOr once these critics were spot on!
Published reviews
A masterwork of comedy ... A dozen characters bounce off each other, physically and verbally, through a plot of such disarming inventiveness that it seems to generate itself effortlessly ... A pungent work of slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities ... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.
The New York Times
Witty, exuberant and addictive, a mocking eulogy of life in New Orleans by a modern Rabelais.
The Times
If a book's price is measured against the laughs it provokes, A Confederacy of Dunces is the bargain of the year.
Time
The hero of John Kennedy Toole's incomparable comic classic is one Ignatius J. Reilly, "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredible true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures." --
Henry Kisor in the Chicago Sun-Times
An astonishingly good novel, radiant with intelligence and artful high comedy.
Newsweek
A brilliant and evocative novel.
San Francisco Chronicle
A gem-one of the funniest books ever written.
New Republic
Book Review: A big, brilliant, breathless comic masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Let's get one thing straight: A Confederacy of Dunces is funny. Mind-bendingly, gut-wrenchingly, heart-palpatatingly hilarious. You know those moments that are so funny, they make you wonder how anyone could have thought them up? This book has about three per page. The comedy comes from everywhere; the plot itself is a twisting, quixotic odessey, while Toole's narration is gleefully sardonic. The dialogue is as realistic as the kind of conversation you overhear taking place between two people who think that nobody can hear them, and as instantly memorable as a good line from Shakespeare (yes, I just compared John Kennedy Toole to William Shakespeare). Every character has his or her own unique voice, a distinctive sound that makes them instantly recognizable and weirdly likeable.
And speaking of characters! The people who populate this novel are incredible, a dizzyingly varied assortmrnt of heroes and villains, of high-minded thugs and heroic lowlifes. The star of the show is Ignatius J. Reilly, a bumbling bozo of an anti-anti-hero whose antics redefine the phrase "over the top." Reilly defies description, but suffice to say he's a thirty-year-old medievalist who is driven by a bottomless appetite, a gigantic ego, and an all-consuming hatered of anything and everything that happened after the year 1450. He's also a lazy hypochondriac who spends his days writing paragraph after scalding paragraph in denouncement the modern world, watching children's television shows (which he believes are a sign of civilization's decline into absolute decadence), dodging his mother's attempts to make him get a job, and trying to infuriate his old college girlfirend (who is herself an absolute piece of work). His quest for "taste and decency" (as he puts it) leads him on a series of increasingly unbelievable misadventures in and around his beloved home town of New Oreleans. As he's hurled from one bizarre situation to the next, Ignatius unwittingly spreads chaos to every corner of the city.
But don't think of this as a disjointed series of bizarre events. The plot is held together thanks to Toole's own wonderfully twisted writerly skill and sense of narrative logic; the events that befall Ignatius stem from the actions of some of the greatest supporting characters ever concieved. Indeed, Toole has assembled one of the greatest casts of all time, providing Reilly with a motely crew of friends and foes, flinging our hero headlong into a wonderful world of McCarthyist grandfathers, apathetic clothing moguls, down-on-their luck undercover policemen, conniving nightclub owners, shady teenaged entrepeneurs, kitsch-obsessed homosexuals, ambitious strippers, loudmouthed spinsters, senile octognerians, flip-flopping socialites, nervous bartenders, unapologetically ignorant university professors, heroically incompotent filing clerks, long-suffering neighbors, resentful floorsweepers, an endless series of unfortunate taxi drivers, and the like. Most of these characters could have easily won the lead role in just about any other novel, and it's somewhat amazing that Toole managed to find space for each and every one of them without letting any individual's outrageousness overwhelm the proceedings.
But this is more than just a funny novel- there is genuine tragedy in the story of Ignatius Reilly, and in the stories of those around him. Even in its most gut-busting moments, A Confederacy of Dunces shows just how pathetic human existance can become, and how low society (rich and poor alike) can sink. In this sense, Toole's novel is also a brilliant satire, a warped and strangely illuminating farce of modern life. It's one of those rare moments when humor and heart go hand in hand, and manage to say something truly poignant about the way we live. It's a masterpiece.
Book Review: Outrageous and amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read about this book for years. I've probably stood in a bookstore and read the forward (by Walker Percy) half a dozen times. Finally, a copy came my way in a used bookstore, and it was cheap enough that I felt I shouldn't resist. Turns out I was right, and I could have spent a lot more money without wasting it.
Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character of this outrageous masterpiece, is something unique to me in literature. I'm struck how in his own way he's similar to Holden Caufield, the protagonist of "The Catcher in the Rye". Both are completely alienated from society around them, both completely misunderstand their surroundings and the world they live in, and both have a rather perverse view of life and what they want out of it. Reilly, though, is older, has a college degree (you wonder how he got it) and a more formed, if twisted, view of life. He won't ride in the front passenger seat of a car (because it's a "deathtrap"), is terrified of Greyhound Scenicruisers (once spent a trip to Baton Rouge in one, sick out of his mind), and is a history major who against all the evidence believes that the advent of the Reformation and the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment afterwords, were the beginning of the downfall of World society. He actually wants to start a Divine Right political party, so that someone can be crowned hereditary and unlimited ruler of America. He habitually drinks Dr. Nut, an amaretto-flavored soft drink available in New Orleans (where all this takes place) in the sixties. He blunders through life, bellowing strange pronouncements in a weirdly dignified, pompous voice that is somehow charming and bewildering at the same time. He's definitely an original.
The book's plot consists of him careening through the city of New Orleans, having been expelled from home by his mother, who insists he get a job. What makes the novel interesting is that while no one else Ignatius encounters is really up to his level of weirdness, no one is completely normal, either. Everyone has some sort of misconception or screw-up in their make-up, and Ignatius seems to bring out their weirdness, emphasizing it. When he gets a job in the office of a factory, we meet several people in the office who he works with. So one character never realizes Ignatius is male, and refers to him by the name of a former female coworker. Another thinks a woman working for her would "go to pieces" if she retired, so (against the woman's wishes) she keeps making her go to work, with comical consequences. Ignatius' mother has troubles of her own, a boyfriend who's a bit of a problem because he sees communists everywhere, a friend with a son who's a policeman, and who tried to arrest the commie-hunter, and so forth. At one point you watch a stripper with a weird act involving a bird, but her act goes horribly wrong in a comical fashion. At another point Ignatius is trying to form a political party exclusively of gays, believing that since they're so habitually neat they'll outlaw warfare. When the lesbians show up and break up the party things get really funny.
I have to confess I'm confused why he had trouble getting this thing published. Interestingly, I read somewhere on the net that Robert Gottlieb was involved in working with Toole on the book at one point, and encouraged him, but didn't think it was publishable in its current state. Gottlieb's a good editor, though I suspect he must have been pretty young at the time. Even so, it must be jarring to him now to realize that this book is as good as it is--it won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for fiction--even though he apparently thought it needed more work.
Regardless, I would recommend this book highly, especially to anyone with a sense of humor.
Book Review: A Type of Falstaff
Summary: 5 Stars
I will dispense with any plot summary and focus primarily on the heart of the book- Ignatius Reilly, a character not without precedent but one without peer.
Ignatius's medieval fixations are a valuable clue to understanding this novel. Despite being written in prose, and set in 20th century America, this novel is best read as a Shakespearean comedy. Indeed, many reviewers have already described Ignatius as Falstaffian, and that comparison is not without value. However, that is only a starting point. I feel delving into Ignatius's personality in more depth, rather than settling for a blanket comparison, is the best way to understand the protagonist of the novel.
A Confederacy of Dunces is not a happy novel. It is often extremely funny, but there is defintely a melancholy feeling underlying the whole text. This is uncharacteristic of modern comedy, where even in moments of tension the tone is still light. Classical comedies, in contrast, need only a positive ending, and can be dark in tone- I say Shakespearean because I admit that those are the only classical comedies I have read.
Why is the novel so sad? That is difficult to define. While Ignatius faces many problems, he is never in real danger of anything more than loss of money or dignity (both of which he has little to lose anyway). The pathos lies in Ignatius himself. Ignatius (and herein lies his uniqueness) is a compedium of the many unpleasant personality traits intelligent people are in danger of developing. Need proof?
We can start with the fact that he is overly proud of his education. He displays the smug love of his own knowledge that has led to his feeling superior to the uneducated masses around him. As other people haven't paid him the respect he feels he deserves, he feels like a misunderstood genius. I'm sure we've all encountered someone with an ego so large they attribute all their problems to other people's inability to understand them. This is only a partial list, but Toole does a better job showing then I ever could telling (and show, don't tell, is one of the building blocks of good writing).
While we may be annoyed when we meet people like this in real life, Ignatius is portrayed sympathetically. He clearly had great potential, and throughout the book Toole constantly reminds us that Ignatius has his Master's, is an educated man, yet has come to (latest plot development). We mourn Ignatius's wasted potential, at the same time we pity him. He wishes for a life with no challenges, which means he would never grow as a person (pun about his weight gain most definitely intended).
Here, at last, we come to the beauty of Toole's characterization. Despite his squandered potential, sad life, and miserable circumstances, these struggles are the only way Ignatius can grow as a person. Indeed, Ignatius does mature throughout the novel, but only slightly. He is too set in his ways, too far gone, to become a new man. It is to Toole's credit that he realizes this. Not only does he draw an absurd man with a true writer's talent, he accomplishes the much more difficult task of making him change over time without losing that realism.
Looking beyond the character of Ignatius, Toole's whole novel is exactly that- the absurd, the unlikely, the bizarre, drawn realistically, and with compassion. Although the book has slight flaws (and what book doesn't?), Toole has successfully created an unique character, then skillfully portrayed his life. In the simplest analysis, Toole has something new to say, and he says it well. What more reason could one need to read a book?
Book Review: A Masterpiece of Prose and Character Description
Summary: 5 Stars
What a book, what a masterpiece! A comedy, the likes of which I've never read, with characters so unbelievable real I had to occasional take breaks from reading it.
The prose surprised me again and again with such beauty, wit and genius. From the first page, I was held in thrall to Toole's talent: "Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs."
The everyday mundane, sometimes disgusting, bits of the lives of these people combined with Toole's writing is just incredible. It makes for such an unforgettable experience.
Toole has his some of characters talk his local dialect, which in many books, is so confusing, so difficult to read or to decipher. He makes it work. No, not work, he makes it seamless, perfect, brilliant. I'm not reading their words--I can hear them talking. It's beautiful.
The story centers around Ignatius J. Reilly, as does everything if he can make it, an overweight, over-educated, overly demanding man living with his Mamma, holed up in his bedroom, drinking Dr. Nut and scribbling about Medieval history and the problems of today. This has gone on for many years, and would continue for many more except for a family emergency which pushes his Mamma to take the unusual step of standing up to Ignatius and telling him he must get a job. His world is shaken, he is spiraling out of control, Fortuna has spun against him.
And thus, with much GI troubles and vitriolic ranting and railing against peoples in general and particular, Ignatius goes out into the world for the second time since college. The omnipotent reader is privy to both the actual facts and often, Ignatius's more flattering description of events as he writes about it later, with the view of future publication, in a Big Chief tablet in his room.
There were times I didn't laugh, though, but that was when I saw myself in this gargantuan idealistic slob, this over-educated moron trying to impose his world views on all around him. That's when, instead of laughing, I gave an inwardly embarrassed chuckle and moved on quickly.
There's an underlying element of sadness to the novel, to me anyway. Is it knowing this is Toole's only novel and there'll be nothing else to read? Is it knowing that he committed suicide, and feeling that sadness seep into the pages? Or is it simply knowing that Ignatius is destined to bumble every attempt at every thing merely because Fortuna has it out for his overwhelming conceit? I think it's a mix of all three, and this melancholy tempers the outright hilarity, balancing it, making it even more thought-provoking.
Other residents of New Orleans find their paths crossed with Ignatius, usually to their dismay, and always find their lives changed in some way as a result. The vagrant, the man afraid of the "comuniss", the girl wanting to be an exotic dancer, and many more. . . One reads about them again and again and wonders, how will they all come together? Trust Toole, he's a genius--the plot themes and characters come together like orchestral themes resulting in a crescendoing finale of stunning proportions, and then stream off again, a solo here, a duet there, until the final page. I was genuinely worried at some points, as to how the book would end, how Toole would leave Ignatius. Never fear, dear reader, as Ignatius himself might have said. It's a masterpiece through and through.