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Summary: Erudite, intelligent, side-splitting societal satire
Review: Excellently and very intelligently written. Hysterical and constantly entertaining. I cannot help but be struck by many similarities to what I believe to be the best written T.V. show of all time....If John Kennedy Toole was alive today, I have to wonder if he would be writing for the Simpsons.After having read numerous reviews at this site, I am also aware of what I feel to be an inaccuracy which I would like to point out to potential future readers. Does anyone else notice that while the positive to negative reviews of this book seem to something like 5 or 10 to 1, the percentage of people that found the positive reviews helpful seems in comparison to be dramatically lower...obviously I am not drawing a logically deductive conclusion here, but it seems to me that those few who did not like the book vindictively went through and polluted the good reviews by finding them not helpful. While certainly this is their right, I think it helpful to note this, and suggest that the book is even better than many of these reviews and percentages of reviews found helpful would suggest. It seems like a very basic fact that not everyone will like the same books, but at the same, tearing down the work of others is immensely easier than establishing a creative work of one's own. This is a fantastic book; creative, intelligent, captivating, and certainly well worth the read. Don't let a few vindictive individuals who cannot appreciate the true depth of this novel keep you from reading it.
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Summary: The title of the book is fitting.
Review: Well, as Queen Victoria often said, "We are not amused." I've heard great reviews, and that this book is excellent! That I MUST read it! It was very dull and-using I. J. Reilly's own words- "ho hum". I read the book on my lunch breaks, and took me over a month, a colleague shockingly asked "You're still reading THAT book?". Well, I thought that I would be faithful to the author and finish what I started. Mind you it was an uphill battle the entire way. It kept dragging out, and the vernacular of the characters was at times tiring to read. It ranged from a "menza-styled speaking Ignatius" [not to insult menza members] to "a vagran colo Jones". I kept thinking that the ending would be something really good, but it was a let down. I was hoping until the last paragraph, that the 30 year old Ignatius to his "Mynx" would lose his.... well you read the book.
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT FOR BOOK GROUP
Review: This was a great book for book group. The main character is rich in his seriousness and comic-sadness. Sometimes likable, sometimes not. But always trying to make good. It's creative, bizarre, and sweet. Our conversation turned to questions of mental illness, it's meaning, it's impact on a person and on his/her community and family. (many of us are therapists) And do we really want to medicate it all away, and what of it do we want to medicate away and what of it to keep.
Rating:
Summary: A Confederacy of Dunces
Review: Obese, pedantic and hopelessly eccentric, Ignatius J. Reilly stands like Gargantua over all other characters in modern literature. He leads us on a series of his misfit adventures through the French Quarter of New Orleans. Age 30 and living with his mother, he is an over-educated oaf who sits around the house watching TV with disgust and laboriously filling up 'Big Chief' tablets with his reflections on life. His rantings on the world of work, love, religion and other topics leave no one safe from his fiery invective. His pseudo long-distance relationship with a liberated feminist named Myrna Minkoff reveals his attachment to his mother's apron strings. Stereotypical characterizations of other minor characters give the reader a balanced cornucopia of madness and genius. Comic relief is the order of the day in this brilliant novel. I absolutely loved it!
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Summary: Absolutely Crazy!
Review: This book is a genre of it's own! Every single character is millions of miles away from an "average person". Ignatius J. Reilley, the protagonist, is not an overweight bumbling moron. Rather he is a overweight, bumbling, thirty-year old with a masters degree and a fixation with Medieval philosophy. He is a mogul in his own mind and a persuasive one at that, with a sort of midas touch. Anyone who comes near him somehow gets dragged into this twisted, all-too-believable plot which is his life. John Kennedy Toole deals so frankly with a side of human nature that so many authors seem to neglect. The strength of this book is not only in the plot but how the characters interact with one another and how they all become tied together in a massive web of occurences. I was given this book by my English teacher and I'm glad he shared it with me. This is a must read for everyone who needs a rollicking good laugh now and again.
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Summary: One of the best pieces of literature ever written
Review: I read many years ago the Spanish translation of this book in Argentina, and after finishing it I gave it as a present to my friends, relatives, pofessors, etc. Was a quite diverse group, but they had something in common: they agreed that this book is a work of a genious. It is almost like reading Borges.
However it seems that many of the reviewers try to judge the book as a book of history, sociology, or whatever, which in turns probe that is superlative, since made them forget that they were reading fiction (which for they information, it doesn't need to be sociologically accurate, politically correct, and so on).
If you take time to read many reviews, specially the ones that rated the book quite low, you will see hilarious things like "the portrait of African-American is dated"; the one who wrote that also forgot to say that the portrait of Italians in Romeo and Juliet is dated too, or that the portrait of Greeks is dated in the Illiad, so Shakespeare and Homer were not good! Come on, what do you expect of a book written in the beginning of the 60's? A guy using mobile Internet, and praysing that the new Secretary of State is African-American?
Or you can enjoy one review saying that he/she took more than one month in reading the book, and that the book was really bad...What can you expect of somebody who takes more than one month in reading a book of a little more than 400 pages?? (pages smaller than A5 size, and with a quite big font)
I do understand that people have different tastes in literature too, but when you read a review, you have to keep in mind what are they talking about: in some part they forgot that they were reading a fictional book and started to blaim the caracters for what they do (or don't do), or the author for using his real life as inspiration (what even if is true or not, who knows, it doesn't matter at all; what matters is the story, and that's all).
I still believe that is a really good book, but after reading many reviews I understand why Sydney Sheldon sells so many books!
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Summary: Brilliant Characters, Colorful Humor, Deserved Better Ending
Review: A grand ball of entertainment. It's real flavor comes out if you've been through the Big Easy and the Quarters. I can well imagine how much New Orleans natives would enjoy it. Each character was pathetic enough to catch your attention, and kind of feel sorry for them. The way Toole relates each one to our tragicomic "hero" is the author's forte in this book. Looking at life through Ignatius's "worldview" was quite disturbing and comical. However, it seems like Toole hurried with the ending, as the book ends rather abruptly, and - I don't believe I'm saying this but - too happily.
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Summary: Ignatius Reilly, Navel-Gazing Slob Poet!
Review: The second greatest novel ever written . After Catch-22. Toole topped himself after seven fruitless, frustrating years trying to get this published. His mother however didn't give up so easily. She pressed the book on every publisher, agent, and college prof she could find and finally, 11 years after Toole killed himself, CONFEDERACY won the Pulitzer Prize. Which just goes to show: mothers know best.
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Summary: Laugh Out Loud Satire With Social Message
Review: While the book as a "comedy" is worth the read alone, its satire of race relations, civil rights, and the stereotypical New Orlenian are perfect. The book has a wonderful array of character: the Civil Rights crusader M. Minkoff, Ignatius' discouraged mother Irene, the obese and condescending Ignatius J. Reilly, and many more. As a Louisiana resident, I particularly enjoyed reading about places which I have frequented often; nonetheless, this book is a must read for all.
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Summary: my 2 cents
Review: I have been reading all of the reviews, and I must say...I did not expect there to be so much controversy surrounding this book. It seems that people either love it or hate it; I didn't see the words like and dislike used much. I happened to be one of those who loved it. The characters are colorful and memorable. It seems to me that a person who can read into things would appreciate this book more. I think that much of the humor is merely Toole's commentary on societal faults. If you laugh, you are laughing at our, American society...which is often quite funny. If you haven't read this, you should definitely give it a try. At least then you can choose your side of the war.
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