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Summary: Ignatius J. Reilly, the original "slacker"
Review: Ignatius Reilly was the original slacker back when this novel was written in the early sixties- before there was a name for it. It isn't that he just avoids work for it's own sake, it is just that he just doesn't have the time or patience for what the modern commercial world considers to be work. He has better things to do with his time. You see, Ignatius is a thoroughly medieval man. His is primarily an internal life grounded and centerered in "theology and geometry." According to these consistent standards, Ignatius' life, behavior, and appearance are perfectly rational and understandable. Unfortunately, Ignatius lives in mid-twentieth century America, a time and place of mind-numbing conformity, intolerance, and efficiency. He is doomed to perpetual misunderstanding and conflict.
That is the tragedy to this most excellent of commedies- being an intelligent misfit in a world of mind-numbing conformity. The author choose to leave it rather than conform, while Ignatius found the inner strength to fight and/or disreguard it. Neither let it possess and change them into modern mass-produced robots in the consumer society.....
I wish that I could give it 500 stars.
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Summary: hot dog anyone?
Review: John Kennedy Toole presents an eloquent, vibrant look into the life of a consummate educated slacker. The protagonist moves through the pages with nonchalance and the reader vicariously thrills to a life that says, "I am not putting up with hassles."We get a real sense of the experientially rich city that is New Orleans, but with the amazingly diverse set of characters, it is fun to read in a city like New York. It is definitely a tragedy to see yet another example of an artist with a real grasp of living lose his life so young. Toole's legacy - this dynamic comedy opus - will remain.
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Summary: Geometrically and Theologically Stupendous
Review: 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!!
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Summary: Comic Adventures in The Big Sleazy
Review: This may be the funniest novel ever written. I cannot understand how people do not see the humor in this great book. The characters are marvelously absurd; the setting in New Orleans is perfect; and the writing is superb -- every word seems to be in the right place. It is such a tragedy to realize that the author did not live to see the success of this comic masterpiece.
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Summary: THE ANTI-HERO PAR EXCELLENCE
Review: Initially, one is tempted to regard the protagonist Ignatius as a vile, offensive slob, but as you continue, you come to admire him for his gall, his meanness, his bloated self-confidence and his overwhelming self-righteousness. The plaisir du texte is of course, enhanced by the wonderful interweaving web of plot and subplots, and by the colourful array of characters. This is one of those rare novels that becomes so addictive that you compulsively read on between the fits of hysterical laughter. Not one word is unnecessary, not once sentence is superfluous. It is in fact, absolutely brilliant and for someone like myself who has no intention of reading Rabelais or Cervantes, it is sufficient. I recommend it also as a very effective cure for depression.
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Summary: It's easy to see how this book won a Pulitzer!
Review: There were 519 other reviews posted before I wrote this one here, and in those you will find all you need to know about the author, the lead character Ignatius, and the setting in 1960s New Orleans. Having just finished reading it, I'll try instead to discuss the reasons why I found this book one of the most enjoyable I've ever read (and I read a lot!). First, it's funny, very very funny. The writing has a sharp sarcastic wit to it, and the author weaves his take on the human condition expertly through the plot scenes, and makes great use of his characters' dialog and actions. Secondly, all of the characters are very well-developed, and it's quite easy to see them, to hear them, and to get a good feel for what their inner motivations are---no small feat since there are several characters sharing the stage with Ignatius throughout the book. Also, the plotline is actually several storylines moving forward simultaneously towards a single converging point at the book's climax. Each of the lesser characters' futures has a stake in the future of Ignatius (the lead) as the book careens to its finish line. The bringing together of all these separate agendas was masterfully done. I disagree with the previous reviewer's opinion that the ending wasn't up to snuff. I was happy to see that the book ended the way I wanted it to, given my 400+ page investment up to that point. A rich delightful book.
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Summary: a confederacy of yawns
Review: Why on earth does anyone think this book is funny? B-O-R-I-N-G!
Rating:
Summary: The title says it all.
Review: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Highly recommended. He's egotistical, erudite, ejaculatory (literally), and explosive. He's "emptily verbose" (Merriam-Webster's definition number 3 for "gassy"). He's also that-gassy, a man with a flux. He's Ignatius J. Reilly, a monster of a man with a master's degree, a faulty pyloric valve, a love for Boethius and The Consolation of Philosophy, a hatred for modern life, a passion against anything to do with sex (at least sex involving a second person), and a distinctly lower-class New Orleans lifestyle. He's also a man about whom his own pet phrase could apply: "Do I believe what I am seeing?" Set in the New Orleans of the 1960s, A Confederacy of Dunces begins with an incident with an overzealously inept policeman that leads Ignatius, one of the most unforgettable characters of American fiction, into a world with which he is unfamiliar and ill-equipped-work. As a result, he encounters a cornucopia of characters-from the cynical female owner of the laughably named "Night of Joy" to the wizened owner of the equally ill-named "Paradise Hotdogs"-who are as unforgettable as Our Hero. The most memorable is undoubtedly the generically named Jones, who, behind his dark glasses and his cloud of cigarette smoke, manages to see the world, its people, and the ironies of situation all too clearly. There are also Ignatius's wine-loving mother, his irascible neighbor, and "Myrna Minx"-the closest Ignatius has ever had to a girlfriend. Ignatius, taken away from his magnum opus (written on a series of Big Chief tablets strewn everywhere in his room in his mother's house) and the modern movies he so likes to deride, touts the value of The Consolation of Philosophy and bemoans the work of Fortuna while attempting to leave nothing to chance. To feed his laziness and lack of desire to work, he works hard at being sly, devious, and manipulative. He carefully plans and plots his efforts from the perspective of a man who has little perception of human nature; the results are hilariously unexpected-the whims of Fortuna. In the end, Ignatius's life, such as it is, will never be the same thanks to his forced interaction with the outside world. A Confederacy of Dunces will make you laugh out loud and, at the same time, you will probably detect an undertone of sadness, even hopelessness. As Walker Percy notes in his introduction, perhaps this is due to the knowledge that author Toole committed suicide. But perhaps it is equally due to the absurdity of modern life that the adventures of the larger-than-life Ignatius reveal at every turn. Diane L. Schirf
2 June 2002.
Rating: 
Summary: Strange book
Review: Funny in parts. Weird in parts. Sometimes I asked myself why I was reading this; other times I felt compelled to read more. Can't see that it could be called "great literature" but at the same time I found myself thinking about the characters when I wasn't reading. Strange.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: The first time I picked this book up, I was mesmerized by Ignatius J. Reilley. I've seen some people come close to matching this guy's personality, but I have to say that he's a an original. From his appearance, you'd think that this guy would be a target for humiliation and ridicule, but it's exactly the oppossite. Ignatius is an elephant of a man who actually believes that his gargantuan size makes him superior to others. There's just an example. He looks down on literally EVERYONE who crosses his path and would have no trouble, I'm sure, picking an arguement with a telephone pole. For such a pathetic and dispicable human being to have so much self-confidence and show so much arrogance almost seems unreal, but it's all done very convincingly and he actually has a reason for every scene that he creates. Our story starts off in downtown New Orleans, with our hero waiting impatiently for his mother outside of a shopping mall. When he is mistaken for a pervert by Patrolman Mancuso, the chaos starts. His observations of the passersby, before the cop shows up, are actually what got me hooked. When Mancuso starts his interrogating, things only get funnier. An old man stops to help Ignatius, and in turn for his troubles, gets himself arrested after Ignatius turns the situation around on him. Remember, this poor old guy was just trying to help. That's just another example of our hero's kindness. While the novel branches off into many different subplots and side characters, it always comes back to Ignatius and you can be sure that all of the characters and situations will collide sooner or later. The side-characters, themselves, are something to marvel at. We get Dorian Greene, an almost stereo-typed gay guy, Miss Trixie, a senile old lady who is desperate to retire, George, Lana Lee, Jones, too many to list. I'm in my second reading right now and I know that this book is only going to get better as I get older. I'd reccommend this book to anyone who appreciates good writing and good humor. Find a copy and see what all the hype's about.
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