A Confederacy of Dunces

Rating:
Summary: Ooo-Wee
Review: This book is the most amazing piece of fiction I have ever read. The characters have such depth. You will remember each and everyone of them. I didn't want the story to end! I was saddened to have gotten to the last page. What, not another 400pages of pure entertainment? I will say, I found little funny outside of Igatius' riotious ramblings. Instead, I found it to be a tragic story.

Rating:
Summary: Excelente novela
Review: La trama, los personajes, las escenas...realmente digna de admiración. Divertidisima y al mismo tiempo tremendamente condenatoria a la ya antigua degeneración de la sociedad. Definitivamente 5 estrellas.

Rating:
Summary: Funniest book ever written
Review: Struck up a conversation with a fellow reader at a Half-Price Book Store one day - he asked "Do you want to know what the funniest book I ever read was?" and I answered "A Confederacy of Dunces." His jaw dropped and he asked "How did you know that?" and I answered, "Because it's the funniest book I ever read!" Truly, it is. And you don't have to be from New Orleans to think so (although it doesn't hurt)!

Rating:
Summary: What's This?
Review: That little mysterious box that pops up at the wrong time, while you're typing a note for eternity in your journal--well, "what's this"? That happened to my brain, while reading this book. It was purplexing and inescapable. The book is propelled at a frantic pace, with an almost manic urgency, until it ends, winding down, until one hopes that the author can get some sleep. The rapid movement is good, because there is no plot to further puzzle us.

I missed this book, when the original hoopla occurred--don't know how; I was reading "Earthly Powers" and Dorothy Sayers and Barbara Pym, so that I could better understand my dislike of Episcopalians. Here, however, the question is where is the satire? I was expecting a modern Swift or Voltaire. Instead, I get a work, where the anger is palpable in every word. Toole can't be poking fun at purple prose, because this may the best in the English language. It''s just too good, but here's the other problem. Toole loses aesthetic distance. One is never sure whether it is Toole, being omnipotent or Ignatius, writing well. I did laugh a couple of times at a well placed witticism or a character foible that would appear from nowhere.

Off the top of my head, I think of some other contemporary suicides, Diane Arbus in photography, Jerzy Kosinski, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath . . . All were commensurate craftspersons, like the composer, Salieri(boring!) They share something else in common, an unfathomable hoplessness and a naive kind of nihilism, which in Hemingway, I admired as teenager, as in "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." When Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western Civilization? He replied, "I think it would be a good idea." Civilization may have ended, after we dropped the bomb and really disappear, whenever we do a Hitler, as in Cambodia or Yugoslavia, or Northern Ireland, or Rwanda . . . My own poetry often makes Plath's appear cheerful, but mine is therapy. The problem with these peoples' nihilism is that it will kill you.

Rating:
Summary: a confederacy of dunces
Review: Loving and living in new orleans makes this an eventual must-read. How odd to find a book that can whimsically and realistically portray a city with the multifaceted jewel-depraved soul of america quality that this coffee metropolis is all about, i suggest the book to anyone from the audacious age of 15 to probably folks on porches, it is a feeler of the life vibe and if you've ever had occasion to eat a lucky dog then you'd be thrilled just for that portrayal. i'm thrilled cause my ride has a portrait of a twenty year luck y dog salesman. Hmmm hello marcus if you ever read this stuff.

Rating:
Summary: A MONSTER
Review: A Confederacy of Dunces should be required reading for the Human Race. It is a 20th century masterpiece. Featuring some of the funniest, most perceptive, and original writing in the English Language, the book is unparalleled in plot, humor, and scope.

Rating:
Summary: This is a book that makes you laugh out loud over and over again
Review: This is a book that makes you laugh out loud over and over again, as you eagerly await the next moves of a protagonist who is brilliant, yet pathetic at the same time. The characters remind me of those in a Thomas Wolfe novel, with their faults and foibles right out in the open. Ignatius disgusts, yet compels you to cheer him on at the same time. When you get to the Ladies Auxiliary art show scene -- BE WARNED -- you may not want to read this on a public plane, train etc. because you will be laughing so hard the tears will be running down your face! I was sorry to see this book end, and wish Kennedy had lived to write more. I would have liked to see where Ignatius' travels lead him to next!

Rating:
Summary: One of my all-time favorites
Review: Add my name to the list of five-star reviewers. Ignatius is not disgusting, as some have written, he is real. His brilliant mind trapped in a capitalist world is what makes the story so hilarious, and so sad. A man whose valve slams shut, whose hands break out in white bumps, who is told to shut up when he plays his music, and who tries to help the downtrodden around him despite continually failing, is a good man indeed. I'm not sure I would like Ignatius if I were to meet him -- not sure that I'd pass the scrutiny of his gimlet eyes -- but I'm glad he exists on paper to point out some of the craziness in our world. I like to think that he and Myrna live happily and hilariously ever after in New York, and that Toole has found peace. The dunces may have been in confederacy against the book's initial publication, but the thinkers have formed a confederacy of support around this shining story.

Rating:
Summary: Boring Rubbish
Review: I also was suckered into buying this book based upon some user comments. Hopefully my comments and those of a couple of others here will enable someone else to escape the same fate.

In summary, this book is boring rubbish!

The characterisations are good but that is all this entire book has going for it -- the story is bland and boring. We do not care one iota for any of the characters.

However, with great determination I struggled through the whole book in the vain hope that some element in the story would make the exercise worthwhile. But no, reading this book was a complete waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: ATTENTION NEBRASKA, TEXAS, COLORADO & UTAH...
Review: AND ALL YOU OTHER BACKWOOD HILLBILLIES THAT DIDN'T GET IT. IGNATIUS REILLY IS SUPPOSED TO BE A BIG OBNOXIOUS JERK, THATS THE WHOLE STORY...ALSO PAY ATTENTION TO THE IMPOSSIBLY SERPENTINE RELATIONS BETWEEN EVERY CHARACTER IN THE BOOK. (NOT ONE IS THERE AS WINDOW DRESSING.) PAY ATTENTION TO JONES...JUST PAY ATTENTION, YOU'LL GET IT.