A Confederacy of Dunces

Rating:
Summary: Top Five
Review: This is one of my Top Five books of all time. I first read this book in High School and have been giving it as gifts and harrassing people to read it ever since. It is such a fresh story, so different from anything I've ever read. It is entertaining, and tells several different stories which all tie in together at the end like some sort of miracle. It is one of those books that each time you read it there is something new you missed. It is hilarious, but also sad, because the book is haunted with the memory of John Kennedy O'Toole, who took his life while still very young.

Rating:
Summary: A great and enjoyable book
Review: I'd heard this book described as social satire told from the perspective of an educated man reduced to selling hot dogs on the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter. I knew the author committed suicide and I was expecting bitter commentary on the absurdity and corruption of the world that later drove him to it. I was very pleasantly surprised. CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES is NOT a suicide note. It's actually rather gentle at times. Despite undertones of desperation and tragedy, it presents a world in which even misfits have their role because the chaos surrounding them is necessary to disrupt complacency and pretense.

It's more a New Orleans novel than a French Quarter novel. The quixotic hero, Ignatius Reilly, lives uptown with his mother in a middle class neighborhood. His pathetic pre-hot dog employer, Levy Pants, is in industrial Bywater. Both those environments receive comic examination along with the French Quarter. There is a delightful complex of subplots involving a well-intentioned policeman, a neglected business, a pirate costume and Ignatius' enthusiasm for founding outlandish political movements. Almost every character introduced gets a larger role. Ignatius' shortcomings are as serious as those of the people complicating his life and suspense arises from concern that he will be ruined when the various subplots' inevitably collide. However, there are also surprise saviors here.

The gay party in the French Quarter is the weakest part, constructed from once daring stereotypes that now seem dated and narrow-minded. This slows the novel's last half somewhat but not enough to wreck Toole's narrative.

Don't let phrases like "literary masterpiece" put you off. (It is that- there's some G. B. Shaw, Jonathan Swift and especially Oscar Wilde behind this, I think.) It's a great book because it's the work of a master storyteller. This tale can capture anyone.

Rating:
Summary: If you enjoy the wacky people on Seinfeld...read this!
Review: He's obnoxious...he's opinionated...he's dysfunctional...yet under it all he is brilliant. Who is he? He's Ignatius J. Reilly, the absurd modern day philosopher who's mission is to crusade for moorish dignity and to teach the human race his worldview.

One evening in New Orleans, Ignatius and his dim-witted mother go to the Night of Joy Bar for a few drinks. On the way home, with Ignatius riding in the back seat of their 1946 Plymouth and a tipsy Mrs. Reilly behind the wheel, they crash into a building leaving it damaged and the owner furious. Mrs. Reilly is liable for payments yet has no money. The solution? She demands that her over-weight unemployed 30 year old son Ignatius, who has never held down a job get one. Reluctantly, Ignatius hits the streets of New Orleans in search of employment. When he gets his first job working in the office of Levy Pants Factory he describes himeself in his journal as a pacifist working boy.

When chaos strikes around every corner, you know Ignatius is there. First he gathers all the factory workers at Levy Pants to stage a protest against poor working conditions. Things get out of hand, a short-lived riot ensues and Ignatius's big plan backfires. He gets fired from his job and is then forced to make a living as a hot dog vendor. His mother becomes very distraught that her beloved son must stoop to, "selling weenies." One mishap after another happens as the new weenie man comes into contact with the vivid characters that rome the french quarter of the city.

I admit, I was a bit skeptical when I first picked up this book. It took a few chapters before I really got absorbed but then...WHOA! The wild storyline took off like an F-14 Tomcat cruising down the runway for a takeoff. What really makes this novel so original and comical is its colorful array of characters. There is Miss Trixie, the senile secretary for Levy Pants who refers to Ignatius as Gloria. There's Mrs. Levy, whom believes she is the next Sigmund Freud because she took a correspondence course in psychology. Also there is policeman Mansuco, a rookie cop who is assigned to work undercover in the streets of the city wearing outrageous costumes. Let's not forget Myrna Minkoff, Ignatius's female friend from college who now resides in New York City and corresponds regularly with him. Myrna is a sex-crazed hippy who is given to anti-government protests and whose ultimate goal is to see Ignatius lose his virginity. The list of lively people that cross Ignatius's path is too ample to state. Ignatius even befriends a homosexual man and unknowingly finds himself at a gay party that he thinks has been organized as a new political movement to spread his philosophical cause. All in all, this bustling novel is definitely worth a read. Fasten your seat belt and get ready to be taken on a frenzied journey!

Rating:
Summary: By far, my all time favorite
Review: It's so sad to lose such a great author without knowing what could have been. I have talked with people who have read this book and (myself included) cannot get Ignasis J. Reily out of our heads! I find myself walking down the streets of Manhattan scowling at "offensive" people who remind me of the abundant man. This is definitely one of those books you'll never get sick of and laugh (or even cringe) when you think of our pal Reily.

Rating:
Summary: A hero for the ages!
Review: I have read this book three times now and let me tell you, everytime I read it I laugh harder than the time before! John Kennedy Toole has created a sarcastic, witty, misunderstood, often hilarious character that almost everyone can relate with on some level, with Ignatius J. Reilly. The hilarity starts in the very first chapter and doesn't stop. Had Mr. Toole not died tragically early in his career he may very well have been one of the most influential authors of our time. This book will have you laughing until you cry, then crying for more when your done!

Rating:
Summary: A Comic Masterpiece
Review: This book is quite simply a comic masterpiece, a novel brimming with original characters, absurd situations, and at its heart a blustery, vulnerable mama's boy named Ignatius J. Reilly. He is one of the most startlingly original characters in modern fiction, and his efforts at hitting the job market after his mother smashes their car will leave you in stitches.

A word on the history of the novel is worth mentioning here. The author, John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide in 1969, and his mother found the hand-written manuscript in her son's papers. She brought them to a publisher, who dreaded having to read even a portion of the work and to notify Toole's mother that it stunk. Instead, he was blown away by Toole's draft, and the rest is history. The novel earned him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize, and it is universally hailed by critics.

Trying to summarize the plot is impossible - the book cannot really be categorized. Ignatius is an over-educated oaf who stays home filling his writing tablets full of his offbeat musings on ancient history, which he plans to organize and publish some day but which presently reside all over his bedroom floor. Rome wasn't built in a day he reminds himself. He cites in footnotes, as authority for some of his offbeat opinions, papers he had previously written and hand-delivered to the local university library for inclusion into their archives. He watches dreadful tv shows and movies, howling at the screen with a mixture of delight and loathing at the teenybopper drivel, and in the privacy of his room his self-gratification is performed while imagining visions of the old family dog. And wait til you see him out in public, getting a series of odd jobs, including a filing clerk at Levy Pants (with very innovative filing techniques to avoid crowded file space) as well as a costumed hot dog vendor wandering around the French Quarter in a pirate costume. All the while he begins work on his latest opus, The Journal of the Working Boy.

There is a latent sadness to the plot, for while you are laughing out loud at Ignatius, his bowling-addicted mother, and the motley crew of skillfully drawn supporting characters, you sense that he will never really belong anywhere, and that he realizes his outcast status with his innate intelligence. Perhaps the author felt the same way in 1969, leading to his own suicide.

However, at least Toole did leave us A Confederacy of Dunces, a novel which reveals more with each rereading. Keep it on your shelf, and every now and then pick up the book to any page and marvel at the absurdity of Ignatius's grandiose ramblings, read exerpts of his bizarre historical writings, and revisit his comic efforts to organize a worker's revolt at Levy Pants. The list goes on and on. There is no work of litereature like it I know, and my only regret in reading Toole is the sorrow felt in knowing the tremendous body of work that was lost when he ended his life.

Rating:
Summary: A MODERN MASTERPIECE, A PROTO-SLACKER
Review: The story of this book is almost as intriguing as the book's story...read Percy's intro. for all the details.... This is a comic work of the highest order, recalling Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, Voltaire, Checke Greene and other masters of the funny bone. Set in the bohemian and working-class quarters of New Orleans, the novel features Ignatius J. O'Reilly, a grotesque and loveable anti-hero (if such a label is possible). Toole is a brilliant writer, able to draw pathos and humor from the same page. Plot, setting and characterization are all impeccable. If you like stories about obese, stiltedly chivalrous, gluttonous, slothful, idealistic, oft-cruel, vulgar, multisyllabic weenie-vendors, this is undoubtedly your novel of choice.

Rating:
Summary: A Lesson for All Artists Everywhere
Review: John Kennedy Toole wrote this one great book and sent it around to publishers and agents, but nobody wanted to publish it or even much liked it, so he committed suicide. After he was dead, it won the Pulitzer Prize. (If the internet had been around, he could have just posted it online, and we all could have enjoyed it--emailed to tell him--then maybe he'd still be writing timeless literature.) The farcical structure of this outrageous novel and its wonderful characters will be a source of joy forever. Lesson: Don't kill yourself too soon. Also: Trust yourself. And: Read "A Confederacy of Dunces!"

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: I have read and reread this book 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years, and it is always hilarious. Reilly is a Forrest Gump type of character, the craziest things happen to him without him really ever trying. The situations and characters are very creative and refreshing. A must read. Warning, you will either love or hate this book.

Rating:
Summary: How to Tick Off the True Believers
Review: Everything about this novel is sophomoric, but the humor is particularly so. That it has emerged as a "cult classic" is no surprise, given the overall sensibility of the reading public these days. In the early 80's I worked in a book store on Canal street in New Orleans for three years. The locals that I talked to who knew this guy were all amazed that the book was garnerning such accolades. John Kennedy Toole was every bit the mama's-boy schlep portrayed by the protagonist in this work. His mother was an exceptionally mean-spirited, foul-mouthed drunk. There are indeed some colorful characters in the French Quarter and at times Toole captures some of their idiosyncratic behavior adequately. But to call this misshapen collection of semi-humorous vignettes a comic masterpiece is a cruel publishing hoax. This is an example of how a nondescript work can become so inflated by the great American hype-machine as to finally emerge as some sort of accepted masterwork, never to be equalled, unparalleled. I'm surprised Toole wasn't posthumously awarded the Nobel as well. Apparently there are a great number of readers still buying into the hype, judging by the reviews. I'm obviously not interested in moving up the sacred review ladder, just letting people know how I feel about this inferior piece of literature. Judging by the negative responses, I have accomplished what I have set out to do, garner as many votes against as I could possibly muster. Sometimes, a person just has to do what a person has to do. In this case it is to call attention to the fact that this novel is written by a dunce for like-minded dunces, or stooges, or simpletons or whatever monniker you want to attach to the febrid enthusiasts who believe this is some sort of example of true literature. My only question is, what were you smoking, when you came to the belief that this dreck could possibly pass as writing? We have already attained "Planet of the Apes" status, apparently.