Rating: 
Summary: Could be the "great American novel"
Review: I first stumbled across this fabulous work on a sale table at the bookstore where I worked. With a 50 cent pricetag and a dustjacket adorned by a rotund, hat wearing, misfit, I figured, what the hell. Having filled out the proper form to deduct the ducat from my pay, I proceeded to fall in love with a city (New Orleans), a mother (Irene), a policeman (Frank) and a whole host of characters that lept from the pages into my life. But most of all, I fell in love with Ignatius. From the opening salvo on Canal St to the final...well you read the book to find out...you are immediately drawn into a world that is simultaneously happy and sad, light and pathetic, soothing, yet disturbing. This is a book that, at first, holds you, then hugs you, then tightens its grip until it will not let go. If you want to journey on a voyage of wide ranging, deep emotions. If you want to know others for who they really are. If you want to know yourself for who you really are. And, if you want to have about a thousand laughs along the way. Read Confederacy of Dunces. Nothing else comes close
Rating: 
Summary: read this... especially if you've been to NO
Review: This was a book I had to read. Last summer, I travelled to New Orleans on business. I was wandering through the market in the French Quarter when I came across a tiny book stall. Drawn to Confederacy, I picked it up. An old man came up to me and said "You have to read that book. Then, come back and tell me what you thought of it." I told him I was leaving the next day and that it wasn't likely but he said "Just come back and talk to me about it. I'll still be here." I was intrigued and I needed a souvenier for my boyfriend, so I bought the book. Well, I brought it home and my boyfriend nearly died. Apparently, he read the book a few years earlier, loved it so much that he bought it for ten of his friends for Christmas. He had always tried to find a nice hardcover version but was never successful. What are the chances? The book itself is unique and a great read. What an adventure! What an unusual character! New Orleans comes alive, which is great for a reader who misses the place. Now, there's no question: I'll go back to that spot and hopefully that man will still be there.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm confused.
Review: This book is either loved or hated. Five stars or one, and not much in between. I understand where the haters are coming from . . . being one myself. What I don't understand is what makes this book so incredibly funny in the eyes of so many people. It is slow, bland, and evenly irritating throughout. I've never read a book where I wished so much that the main character would get hit by a truck. The endless streams of wordy nonsense from this bum's mouth is madening. I hate this book, and it IS NOT FUNNY in the least, EVER. Who are these five star people anyway?
Rating:
Summary: Very different, yet interesting and funny.
Review: When I had this book first recommended to me by one of my English teachers, I never really thought anything of it. But once I read the book, I thought it was interesting and even made me laugh out loud a few times, which very seldomly happens when I read a book and it is supposedly "funny." I also thought that it was very different from other books and story lines I had read, which is also another plus. The reason I only gave four stars is, well, because the character Ignatius is sometimes annoying by his theories or the things that he thinks and says and he grosses me out at times with the amount of food he eats. This may sound weird, but I find that sometimes a bad thing in a book. Other than that, this is a wonderful book!! I recommend it, as well....
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Summary: Now I acuse everyone of beig a "communiss"
Review: Reading this on the subway, I laughed so hard I started bawling. Never before have I been the one people on the NYC subways rolled their eyes at. Since I have read this masterpiece, I talk about molutov cocktails all the time and I tell everybody they deserve to be "lashed until they drop". It's sick how funny this book is.
Rating:
Summary: yuck
Review: I was disgusted by the main character. I was dissappointed by the book. It was not "outrageously funny" and all the other praise. It was a let down, and stupid.
Rating:
Summary: Simply very funny
Review: All I can say is that I was reading this book late one evening on my apartment balcony and I had to come back inside, because I was laughing so hard I started disturbing the neighbors. I'm not one to laugh out loud, but with this book, I just couldn't help it.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I was notified of the existence of this work by a friend a greatly admire. Our tastes are usually in sync. He had recently borrowed a book from the library and was singing its praises to me before he had even finished. Upon completing the novel he lent it to me. Trusting I would read and return said book in the time allotted preventing him from the wrath of the librarians. Needless to say, I loved it. It is most important here to note that rarely does someone recommend anything to me I enjoy as much as them. Nor have I ever recommended anything to anyone else who loved it as much as me. Great book!
Rating:
Summary: The abridged versions sucks!!!
Review: Even though the book was a masterpiece and the unabridged audio version might be great, Arte Johnson ruins the shorter abridged version on audio from the very beginning! His horibble attempt to capture the New Orleans accent is criminal and his voice is annoying at best. I recommend that you purchase this audio book to seek revenge upon on you most hated enemies! If you are the fan of the original book as I am. DO NOT BOTHER WITH THIS ABOMINATION!!! IT LACKS THE THEOLOGY AND GEOMETRY that John Kennedy Toole included in the book!
Rating:
Summary: Ignatius may not be likeable...but often, so is not life...
Review: I read this book "off the shelf" several years ago, never having heard of John Kennedy Toole...simply picked it up as I liked the title...and was definitely intrigued by the posthumous Pulitzer. I have read some of the positive, as well as negative reviews of this most unusual, unnerving, and most unfortunately truthful novel. It saddens me to think that those who found Ignatius to be a repulsive and impossible character can't see that Ignatius was/is the author and not some fictional character, but a young man, willing to lay his pain out on each page for the world to witness. Saddest of all perhaps, that there are those who were fortunate enough to have been given this rare and uncensored look into the life of such a very, very, lonely man to have not learned from the magnitude of his gift to us all...a rare chance to experience the pain of a stranger,without obligation and having had this, not to have read the last page with at the very least a readiness to accept others, for whatever, or whoever they might be. I have read perhaps 3,000 novels in my life and am proud to say that I can feel this man's pain in all of his oddities and idiosyncrasies...for he is no different than all of us...he lived, perhaps not in a way that most of us will ever admit to...but in a way that we can all admittedly or not, understand. I recommend this book to anyone who can accept that we are all different, yet all the same...to be different is not always the accepted thing, but is most always better than being just like everyone else. Read this book with an open mind, heart, and room in your soul for forgiveness... for Ignatius is certainly not a very likeable character, but in the end (as in the beginning) he is human no more or less than you or I however, unlike you or I, he chose to bear his soul and asks for no forgiveness just acceptance and verification that yes, he did live.
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