A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
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Book Reviews of A Confederacy of Dunces
Book Review: Before Hurricane Katrina, Another Destructive Force Bulldozed Through New Orleans
Summary: 5 Stars
When I read the words "hunting cap," I thought of Holden Caulfield, and that is what Ignatius Riley reminds me of. Ignatius is a keen observer of human life, and spares no words in voicing his literate opinion on everything. Everyone's got to listen, because like Holden, Ignatius is so smart he's got to be right about everything. Perhaps Ignatius is really Holden as a 30-year-old?
The star (or shall I say "ignored genius") of the story is Ignatius Riley; thirty years old, obese, gluttonous, messy, lazy, and with ten years of college under his belt (though it's not clear if he ever graduated). Now he's back at his mother's ramshackle house in New Orleans, lounging in his (filthy) room in his (filthy) nightshirt, writing endless raving on paper tablets. When he's not stinking up his room, he's wandering around 1960's New Orleans in his hunting cap, shouting his opinions on everything and making a nuisance of himself. Ignatius is a mad raving lunatic, but quite and amusing one.
What struck me as Ignatius' most marked characteristic is his habit of taking a job and ruining his employer, despite the fact that he's able to do well at work. He persuades his boss to let him come late to work every day, organizes the workers to hold a strike, then messes it all up at the end. He takes a job selling hot dogs, and then nearly ruins the entire business by eating them himself. May I add that by the end of the novel, his weight is ballooning to mega-proportions?
Confederacy of Dunces is a good title for the book. Ignatius is the type of person who's so convinced of his abilities that he regards everyone else as a fool. He's a lot like Holden Caulfield in that he's smart, but not practical. But while Holden had rich parents in Manhattan who subsidized his habits, Ignatius Riley has only his mother, living in poverty in New Orleans, with barely enough money to keep herself going. And did I say she spent her mother's life insurance policy sending her son to college for ten years? Did he do anything to repay her? Of course not! But then again, it's not easy for a genius like Ignatius Riley, especially when the people around him are nothing but a "Confederacy of Dunces."
Book Review: A Timeless Classic with a great deal to say to us today.
Summary: 5 Stars
A Confederacy of Dunces, written by John Kennedy Toole in the mid nineteen sixties, is not only hilarious but comes across as amazingly undated over forty years later--the true mark of a classic. Toole, it seems, had at his disposal an extraordinary insight into the minds of people affected by cultural, spiritual and moral foibles. Everyone and everything is grist for his mill: average working men and women, blacks, Italians, (....), religious and political conservatives, the relations between spouses and observations on the morally retrograde in general made by his mouthpiece Ignatius J. Reilly. Everyone is mocked, pilloried and rounded up in a hilarious romp that takes the obese and psychotically conservative Ignatius J. Reilly from his first real job at Levi Pants to his absurd adventures as a hot dog vendor on the shady streets of New Orleans. Toole's love for New Orleans comes through in his loving depiction of that city, which is surely as iconic and wigged out as San Francisco is in its own unique way.
One of the most hilarious moments (one of many) comes with Reilly's encounter with a (....) party maker and his subsequent polemic and campaign to create armies of (....) men in all the countries of the world who would be too busy chasing and admiring one another to wage war. Then there is Jones who is probably one of the funniest black characters to grace the pages of any book. A movie should be made about Jones alone. The subplot and dialogue between Jones and the (.....) peddling female owner of The Night of Joy bar is beyond hilarious. Toole would probably have been disgusted but not surprised by the way New Orleans conducted itself during the recent floods.
Toole committed suicide in 1969, apparently over his inability to get this comic masterpiece published. His mother, years later, was able to persuade Walker Percy to read the manuscript and the book was published posthumously in 1980 and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize. It is truly sad that such a gifted writer was not recognized earlier and cultivated. Had he lived, John Kennedy Toole's observations on modern society would be invaluable and hilarious.
(......)
Book Review: Like an old friend.
Summary: 5 Stars
Have you ever found a book that you re-read every few years and see in a new light each time? This is one of those books. O'Toole shows an almost Einsteinian genius for seeing the same people, things and events quite differently through the eyes of his different characters. To Jones, Ignatius is "that green-cap, fat mother." To Mrs. Levy, he's "the young idealist." To patrolman Mancuso, he's "a suspicious character." To Lana Lee, he's "a threat to her investment." To the aspiring exotic dancer Darlene, he's "the big crazyman." To his long suffering mother, he's the perfect son (for a while, anyway). To sweet Santa Battaglia, he's "that Ignatius." To himself, of course, he's the last word on "decency and geometry." What O'Toole pulls off, amazingly, is to present each view in a convincing, believable way. (Given the plain craziness of this book, that in itself is an accomplishment.) The comedy, absurdity and sheer lunacy of the scenes, events and dialogue in this book are brilliant: Ignatius' letter to Abelman's Dry Goods ("Mr. I. Abelman, Mongoloid, Esq...If you molest us again, sir...Yours in Anger..."); Jones' running commentary ("Hey!...Whoa!...Oo-wee"); Darlene's careful practice for her big opening night ("There sure was plenty balls at that ball..."); Ignatius' take on the nude photo of Darlene reading Boethius ("Some destitute woman intellectual was doing anything for a dollar."); Santa's compassion and way with words ("Get the hell away from that stove Charmaine and go play on the banquette before I bust you right in the mouth...Lord,them kids is sweet...Charmaine! Get the hell outside and go play on your bike before I come slap your face off.") There is so much here. Despite the obvious comedy, there is a serious side here, too, that's hard to put your finger on. Walker Percy's Foreward says of the book, "It is also sad. One never quite knows where the sadness comes from...." True enough. I'm hardly the first to say you will either love it or hate it. In any event, simply the number of reviews here tells you it's no ordinary work.Book Review: Never Met a Soul That Didn't Love It.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have never met another person who has read the book and not loved it. When I was about ten years old, my mom was in the bookstore and couldn't decide on anything so I showed her this knowing nothing about it but liking the name and the cover. Quickly it spread through my family and finally to every generation. The imagination that went into this book is so unique and funny, and some may say tragic. Yet, though it is widely known that Toole died (suicide) w/out attempting to publish this, I cannot help but believe that this book had to be a grand triumph for Toole, if even a triumph through the acknowledgment of living a ridiculous life in a ridiculous world. (I am not referring to his suicide incidentally) And no insult to Toole, but only the grand finale that so many people come to and after which they resign to higher freedom with less answers. Anyway, there is no need to analyze this. There's really nothing I can say other than that you might find more humor in this book than you thought the world could hold. As long as you've picked up a single work of fiction and enjoyed it, I'd say this is a safe bet. The ultra-literate don't hype this up like other books but can't deny it's brilliance and those just looking for good character development and a good story will be hard pressed to find anything better (maybe ever). I hope you buy C.O.D.'s and convince others to read it. FINAL POINT: if there was ever a book not to be apprehensive about buying, this is it. That is, unless you've got some really serious hangups regarding civil rights. There are hardly any particulars in life that one can count on for joy. Joy is usually unexpected. Yet, almost without deviation, this book brings joy to everyone who reads it. R.I.P. John Kennedy Toole.
I'll recommend another book that is also fun only because the author has passed on and wrote enough books that not too many people take him seriously. The book I'll mention is pretty hilarious. In one chapter (the one that you're expecting to be the most boring) I almost threw up laughing:
Leave It to Psmith
Book Review: Geometrically and Theologically Stupendous
Summary: 5 Stars
We have seen the character of Ignatius J. Reilly before haven't we? Is he Don Quixote wandering the plains of Spain with Sancho Panza tagging along like the Cockatoo that pulls rings from a stripper's suit? Is he Huck Finn navigating the gothic waters of a South filled with disparate quirky characters and a whole host of preconceptions, misconceptions, and derelictions? Ignatius is all of these and more. The real genius of Toole's sprawling tragi-comedy "A Confederacy of Dunces" is the uniqueness of the main character and the cast of dunces at the fringes, the fringes of the tale and the fringes of society.When people talk of this novel, they talk of its humor. I didn't find it rolling on the floor funny, like I have with books like "Catch-22", or parts of some of Don DeLillo's novels. But I did find several scenes so uncommonly placed together with an imaginative patchwork of human freakish delights that it couldn't help but place a tattoo on your brain. That's a little deeper than laughing sometimes. There's the "Night of Joy" bar where Jones rearranges the dust on the floor and the proprietress takes charitable donations for an orphanage (illicit racy picture ring in reality). There are the misguided political rallies that I.J. Reilly heads up at Levy pants and another for a drag queen party that turn out to be not more than Quixote swashbuckling a wooden sword at spinning windmill blades. The beauty is that people take part for the entertainment, for the diversion from boredom, for the fact of being human and reveling in Reilly's misguided idealism for kicks and grins.
To cap off the novel, for the ending there is an escape (not to give it away with details) with a little future hope thrown on top of all the mired downtrodden tragi-comedy we've come to know and love as Reilly journeys along searching for the right words to scrawl across the myriad of Big Chief tablets strewn across his medieval cave of a room. To give the author credit it becomes a suspenseful escape, one that we as readers care about and leaves us with some hopes. What more could you want in a novel? So from Myrna Minx, Miss Trixie, and Paradise Dogs, read on brothers and sisters, WHOA!!