Rating: 
Summary: I laughed so hard I fell out of bed!
Review: Truly, the single funniest book I have ever read...a close second to "Auntie Mame" in the sweepstakes for funniest American novel of the 20th Century. Years after reading this book, when I finally got to New Orleans, I already KNEW that wonderful, wacky city. I knew it in my soul, thanks to John Kennedy Toole. It scares me when people do not find this book funny...what has life done to them? Chilling. The sheer brilliance of this book makes me invoke that much over-used word: Masterpiece! Pure and simple genius. You'll laugh, you'll cry. You'll learn about life!
Rating: 
Summary: NOOOOOOO! SPARE US!!!!!!
Review: I didn't like this book and I finished it out of determination. Personally, I found the plot slow and ripetitive, the characters more similar to jonsonian humours than real persons. The atmosphere of the whole book reminded me of a famous Italian comic strip "Alan Ford e il Gruppo TNT" (Alan Ford and the TNT Groups). Italian readers know what I'm talking about and will see this is no compliment. I grant the author a deep knowledge of medieval culture, though, and a good hand at mastering his own mother tongue. I wonder whether, had he lived, he would have written something really good.
Rating:
Summary: Eccentric characters, enjoyable read
Review: An excellent book, if a bit odd. The adventures of Ignatius and his crazy outlook on the world kept me laughing, due mostly to the sheer absurdity of the world he inhabits. The characters in this book are all memorable--eccentric in so many ways, but brought to life by the gifted late author. Though Ignatius' views and habits are a bit revolting at times, he's still a very fascinating (and amusing) character, whether or not you love him. Don't take the book too seriously. Just enjoy it for what it is.
Rating: 
Summary: So funny I didn't think about valve once
Review: This is the one the professor uses to see if we still know how to read. If you were coerced to read it like I was than thank your teacher/librarian/parole officer and read it again... if only for the sodomising superpowers. It's funny.It's also very well written. At first look my one inch thick paperback edition was a little intimidating, not to mention the prices at the college bookstore, but every adventure is a story in itself and I had a whole month to read the book and write a paper so who's counting. This hero's coming of age would have been just another funny trip through the American social landscape if Toole hadn't come through time and time again revealing some shred of justice behind each of Ignatius' blunders. Ignatius' divine rampage is the rare satire that merits this society. Despite a cast of colorful characters playing everything from God to slob, Toole's comedy does not leave the national conscience as clean as his hero's perverted bedsheets, hung to dry on his mother's clothesline one last time. It is a funny but poignant tale of yet another American innocent, impressed with the conscience of a nation, and forced to keep ahead of its current of opinion. I like my teacher and I like the book. I'm no scholar on american literature but I've also read books I didn't like and on a scale of one-to-five, Larry Flynt being the lowest and Ken Kesey one of the best, I'll give this book 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible, terrible
Review: While I suppose this book is realistic, it is completely unreadable due to its main character, Ignatius Reilly. Most of the reviews I've read call him a hero and a misfit at odds with the modern world. That isn't true. He's a jerk. The character is a horrible person who I could hardly stand reading about. I have no idea what the author was thinking when he created him. In the story, things always go right for Ignatius even though the reader desperately wants him to suffer. Why would anyone want to read about such a loathsome character? Ignatius is treated as the hero because he's the main character, but he is no hero, to be sure. Why did this win a Pulitzer? I think it was mainly due hype over the complex story of the book's publication. The author killed himself ten years after writing the book and his mother spent the next few years after that trying to get it published. If only she hadn't tried so hard.
Rating:
Summary: I know him, he's a character
Review: Having lived in New Orleans for nearly all of my life, I instantly had a connection with the book. I feel that those who do not 'get' the humor of the book are probably not familiar with the city of New Orleans... New Orleans is a city which honors and respects "characters." I do not mean character in the literary sense, but as an explanation of an eccentric personality. Every character in the book is such a "character". It is true that most of them are what society would classify as its lowest eschelon. There are no truly honorable characters in the book, with the exception of Burma Jones. (out of space) READ IT
Rating:
Summary: I'm curious. . .
Review: I would like to know what percentage of the people who gave this book a 5 also said that "There's Something About Mary" was the funniest movie they've ever seen. Both of these creations exist on a subcultural, subhuman level.
Rating:
Summary: Ummmm.....BEEFY!
Review: Loved this book. I love it so much I itch. Sure the humor is a little broad. Then again, so was Shakespeare. They still named a line of fishing poles after him.
Rating:
Summary: Yuk, this is funny?
Review: I found this book unfunny, uniteresting and unbearable. One of only two books that I couldn't force myself to finish reading. Save your time and money...avoid this book.
Rating:
Summary: Finished reading it for the 6th time- it just gets better!
Review: This book is all 10 on the list of my top ten favorites. There is nothing I can really add to all the adulation it has received - but I do think that the personal attacks on the people who 'don't get it' are uncalled for. This book, besides being very funny, touches the reader very deeply psychologically in a manner that I relate to but that others might find completely foriegn. My real reason for adding my voice is to let readers know that I have recently read another book whose protaganist is very reminicient of Ignatius. The book, Nevermore by Harold Schechter, is a mystery pairing Edgar Allan Poe and Davy Crockett who pool their very different talents to solve a mystery. As implausible as this seems, somehow it works. Poe (the teller of the tale) is a skinny, bibulous Ignatius and some of his conversations with his aunt could have come straight from Comfederacy. Poe could match vocabulary with Ignatius word for word and even possibly come out on top. It is a real challange to see how often you are forced to reach for the dictionary of the obscure. Davy Crockett is quoted as using my very favorite obscure word: absquatulate, which means, as far as I can remember, to leave hurriedly in order to avoid apprehension - literally to go off and squat elsewhere. Not only does the author use the word, which I have never seen ANYWHERE, he has Davy misprounce it as 'absquottleated.' Oh, I think I'm in love. In short, if you love Confederacy I think you will enjoy this book also.
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