Ignatius J. Reilly. Yes, that’s him on the cover. Now - where to begin?
I think most people will either like or hate, fairly or unfairly, A Confederacy of Dunces simply based on how they feel about Ignatius. Disregard the brilliant flow of dialogue, the insanity of characters more realistic and fleshed-out than the neighbors on my block, the roller-coaster twists and turns of plot. Forget all that, though we should say more about that later. Ignatius, rightly so, is at the epicenter of this novel, and your gut reaction to him will taint your position for better or worse.
The problem is, simply, that he is not a likeable character. He does not do what you want him to do. He does not say what you think he should say. You’ll want him to change his ways, say this or do that, whatever, and raise his station in life. Make life work for him. Make it easier for him and his mother and the ragtag band of personalities that surround them. But like a stubborn preadolescent, he stoutly refuses logic and compassion, whatever it is that cries within each of us to simply strive to do the right thing.
You will never enter the mind of a character like Ignatius Reilly again, ever. Part genius, part toddler, a thirty-year-old professional student, absurdly self-parodying, weak-willed yet flushed with pride, witty yet petty, a clown secretly wishing to be a savior. I didn’t like him, per se, but I wanted to see what happened to him. Does he evolve and change? Does he affect the others he comes into contact with like some asteroid on a collision course with earth? The best answer, if you don’t wish to read the book, is, honestly, yes and no.
The story reaches out and seizes you by the lapels from the very first paragraphs, tossing you into the back of an old Plymouth, spiriting you away on a dizzying tour of the Old French Quarter. Victims and con men (and women), the innocent and the guilty, the strange and the stranger, are just a sampling of the universe of oddballs that our protagonist is forced to deal with, much to his distaste and displeasure. A Gordian knot of a bizarre topological plot spills out of the pages, slowly yet forcefully, drawing you in and along like a unwilling passenger in a boat in a Tunnel-of-Love-from-Hell amusement ride. Take a deep breath, stretch, and don’t read unless you’ve waited thirty minutes until after eating.
It’s that type of book.
Can I describe the plot? Well, yes, of course, but can I do it doing it justice? Probably not. But I’ll try, and I’ll be as brief as possible to avoid embarrassing myself. We meet Ignatius J. Reilly and his mother within the first couple hundred words, and are hooked. Ostensibly, Ignatius the perpetual graduate student is forced to get out and find a job to pay off the debt his widower mother incurs. And that starts off an odyssey of Homeric proportions – if Homer had a lifelong love of New Orleans and the keenest ear for capturing the most hilarious dialogue ever spoken. Oh, and a simple word of advice: don’t think you can guess how it’ll all end up, because you won’t. I was beyond a hundred-n-eighty degrees off-base, and I can’t decide whether I’m disappointed or glad.
As I’ve written before, this is the second funniest book I have ever read. It is also, in a sense, one of the most tragic. There is a backstory to the novel that in itself is it’s own tale worth telling: the author, John Kennedy Toole, wrote it in the early sixties while toiling in the army and at a string of Reillian jobs, and considered it his comic masterpiece. Initial publisher enthusiasm eventually soured, and Toole took a turn south into drink and depression, eventually killing himself, forty years ago to the day tomorrow. His mother, somewhat domineering but believing full-force in her son’s talents, pushed the book on whoever would read it over the next couple of years. Eventually it was published, in 1980, and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. It’s bounced around Hollywood ever since, with names such as John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley, and, as of 2005, Will Ferrell, attached to the project. But keeping much to its character, and perhaps its main character, it deftly and stubbornly refuses to be shaped into a product for the masses.
Ignatius would be proud.
I think most people will either like or hate, fairly or unfairly, A Confederacy of Dunces simply based on how they feel about Ignatius. Disregard the brilliant flow of dialogue, the insanity of characters more realistic and fleshed-out than the neighbors on my block, the roller-coaster twists and turns of plot. Forget all that, though we should say more about that later. Ignatius, rightly so, is at the epicenter of this novel, and your gut reaction to him will taint your position for better or worse.
The problem is, simply, that he is not a likeable character. He does not do what you want him to do. He does not say what you think he should say. You’ll want him to change his ways, say this or do that, whatever, and raise his station in life. Make life work for him. Make it easier for him and his mother and the ragtag band of personalities that surround them. But like a stubborn preadolescent, he stoutly refuses logic and compassion, whatever it is that cries within each of us to simply strive to do the right thing.
You will never enter the mind of a character like Ignatius Reilly again, ever. Part genius, part toddler, a thirty-year-old professional student, absurdly self-parodying, weak-willed yet flushed with pride, witty yet petty, a clown secretly wishing to be a savior. I didn’t like him, per se, but I wanted to see what happened to him. Does he evolve and change? Does he affect the others he comes into contact with like some asteroid on a collision course with earth? The best answer, if you don’t wish to read the book, is, honestly, yes and no.
The story reaches out and seizes you by the lapels from the very first paragraphs, tossing you into the back of an old Plymouth, spiriting you away on a dizzying tour of the Old French Quarter. Victims and con men (and women), the innocent and the guilty, the strange and the stranger, are just a sampling of the universe of oddballs that our protagonist is forced to deal with, much to his distaste and displeasure. A Gordian knot of a bizarre topological plot spills out of the pages, slowly yet forcefully, drawing you in and along like a unwilling passenger in a boat in a Tunnel-of-Love-from-Hell amusement ride. Take a deep breath, stretch, and don’t read unless you’ve waited thirty minutes until after eating.
It’s that type of book.
Can I describe the plot? Well, yes, of course, but can I do it doing it justice? Probably not. But I’ll try, and I’ll be as brief as possible to avoid embarrassing myself. We meet Ignatius J. Reilly and his mother within the first couple hundred words, and are hooked. Ostensibly, Ignatius the perpetual graduate student is forced to get out and find a job to pay off the debt his widower mother incurs. And that starts off an odyssey of Homeric proportions – if Homer had a lifelong love of New Orleans and the keenest ear for capturing the most hilarious dialogue ever spoken. Oh, and a simple word of advice: don’t think you can guess how it’ll all end up, because you won’t. I was beyond a hundred-n-eighty degrees off-base, and I can’t decide whether I’m disappointed or glad.
As I’ve written before, this is the second funniest book I have ever read. It is also, in a sense, one of the most tragic. There is a backstory to the novel that in itself is it’s own tale worth telling: the author, John Kennedy Toole, wrote it in the early sixties while toiling in the army and at a string of Reillian jobs, and considered it his comic masterpiece. Initial publisher enthusiasm eventually soured, and Toole took a turn south into drink and depression, eventually killing himself, forty years ago to the day tomorrow. His mother, somewhat domineering but believing full-force in her son’s talents, pushed the book on whoever would read it over the next couple of years. Eventually it was published, in 1980, and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. It’s bounced around Hollywood ever since, with names such as John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley, and, as of 2005, Will Ferrell, attached to the project. But keeping much to its character, and perhaps its main character, it deftly and stubbornly refuses to be shaped into a product for the masses.
Ignatius would be proud.
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