false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255572502m/310612.jpg 310612 55 "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs." Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, <I>A Confederacy of Dunces</I>. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job. <p> Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Darlene and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through <I>A Confederacy of Dunces</I> are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life. <I>--Alix Wilber</I> 968084 book 1980 A Confederacy of Dunces total:27929|5:11315|4:8269|3:4491|2:2123|1:1724| 27929 109122 37345 3941 2 38 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 1997 Thu Sep 20 09:13:39 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 20 16:56:03 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 20 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1995 Mon May 12 16:52:26 -0700 2008 Sat May 17 08:55:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 17 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 17 11:58:43 -0800 2007 Tue Jan 15 12:28:50 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 25 false false Fri Mar 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 30 10:01:23 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 20 15:50:56 -0700 2009
Fortuna evidently was smiling upon my being when I endeavored to undertake the consumption of this philosophical masterpiece. How amusing to stumble upon a comic homage to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, an homage that not only mirrors its source of inspiration in both ...more...]]> 4 9 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 19 02:48:57 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 19 02:48:57 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 15 false false Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Thu Apr 05 11:50:25 -0700 2007 Fri Apr 06 07:58:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 17 false false Sat Dec 29 12:51:23 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 29 13:00:21 -0800 2007
The only thing that might have saved this for me was if the main character Ignatius faced a long, slow, painful death. There was absolut...more...]]> 1 12 false false Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Mon Jul 30 21:07:39 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 30 21:12:31 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 8 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 22 08:20:08 -0700 2007 Thu Nov 15 10:36:25 -0800 2007 more...]]> 1 11 false false Mon Nov 26 08:40:46 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 28 08:38:28 -0800 2007 what?]]> 5 7 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 17 18:58:33 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 01 23:44:36 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 7 false false Mon Jul 30 07:19:34 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 10 14:02:09 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 6 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 19:34:19 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 19:50:04 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 6 false false Sun Feb 10 16:09:49 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 07 11:28:15 -0800 2008 A Confederacy Of Dunces probably didn't deserve a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

There, I said it.

BUT, this does not mean that you shouldn't read it, nor does that mean that it isn't as good as advertised, or that this is because of any deficiency in Toole's w...more...]]> 4 4 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 18:55:45 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 18:55:45 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Aug 09 08:05:48 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 09 08:10:46 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 5 false false Mon May 07 15:10:03 -0700 2007 Wed May 09 11:37:36 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 7 false false Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Thu Jan 31 11:08:55 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 31 11:10:12 -0800 2008 5 4 false false Mon Feb 09 20:26:37 -0800 2009 Wed Apr 15 21:59:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Fri Jun 20 09:52:50 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 20 10:35:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=310612