John Kennedy Toole
author profile
born
December 17, 1937
died
March 26, 1969
gender
male
place of birth
New Orleans, LA, The United States
genre
Literature & Fiction
influences
Charles Dickens
about this author
John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, best known for his novel A Confederacy of Dunces.
Toole's novels remained unpublished during his lifetime. Some years after his death by suicide, Toole's mother brought the manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces to the attention of the novelist Walker Percy, who ushered the book into print. In 1981 Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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avg rating: 3.90
| 28,593 ratings
| 4,033 reviews
| 2 distinct works
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A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole avg rating 3.90 — 24,793 ratings — published 1980 55 editions |
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The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole avg rating 3.55 — 944 ratings — published 1989 12 editions |
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"I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
"'It smells terrible in here.'
'Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.'"
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
'Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.'"
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
"I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.
~Ignatius J. Reilly"
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
~Ignatius J. Reilly"
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
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