John Kennedy Toole, who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces, wrote The Neon Bi...
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Sep 23, 2007
Núria
rated it: 
Se ve que John Kennedy Toole escribió 'La Biblia de neón' cuando tenía 16 años y que luego la rechazó porque el estilo le parecía demasiado juvenil. Pero a mí me ha encantado, precisamente por esa mirada infantil e ingenua que tiene. Como todo está narrado precisamente desde el punto de vista de un niño que luego se convertirá en adolescente, que encima siempre ha recibido una educación muy rudimentaria y que siempre ha vivido aislado, el estilo simple, directo, repetitivo y algo limitado funcio
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Aug 29, 2011
The neon bible by john Kennedy toole
I would like to comment on the composition o f the book written in the opposite
Of the colour metaphors that are used in the scripts of movies & TV series
It mentioned the book …TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD...
I love the crispness of the characters the clarity of the grammar I could recall my fav parts of the book ( the neon bible) but, then that would be reciteting and not reviewing ..My other favotite was A TREE G More...
I would like to comment on the composition o f the book written in the opposite
Of the colour metaphors that are used in the scripts of movies & TV series
It mentioned the book …TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD...
I love the crispness of the characters the clarity of the grammar I could recall my fav parts of the book ( the neon bible) but, then that would be reciteting and not reviewing ..My other favotite was A TREE G More...
Jun 21, 2011
Pat
rated it: 
This was honestly hard for me to read at times. I abandoned it the first time I tried to read it, about 6 years ago. It just oozes sadness and it can get to be a bit unbearable at times, but after I got into the heart of the book this second time I started reading it, I also found it to be really compelling and it really drew me into this world. The young boy telling the story uses perfectly believable language to describe his world in clear detail. I've found that books with a young narrator ca
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Jan 20, 2011
bobbygw
rated it:
Toole committed suicide at the age of 32, leaving behind two unpublished novels and an impressively determined mother who succeeded – after much badgering – in gaining the novelist Walker Percy’s interest and support in the manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces. As we know, this was then published to instant and great acclaim and has been continuously in print ever since, and translated into numerous languages.
While The Neon Bible was in fact written before A Confederacy of Dunces, it More...
While The Neon Bible was in fact written before A Confederacy of Dunces, it More...
Jul 04, 2010
VJ
rated it: 
I looked for this book after seeing the movie with Gena Rowlands portraying Aunt Mae. The movie seemed somehow disorganized or disjointed, but the story was interesting enough for me to follow up with the book.
It is the author's story that most intrigued me. Toole wrote Neon Bible when he was 15 or 16 years old. He was a suicide at 31.
The Neon Bible tells, very straighforwardly and without mawkishness, the story of a boy growing to young adulthood in a small southern tow More...
It is the author's story that most intrigued me. Toole wrote Neon Bible when he was 15 or 16 years old. He was a suicide at 31.
The Neon Bible tells, very straighforwardly and without mawkishness, the story of a boy growing to young adulthood in a small southern tow More...
Dec 17, 2010
Ovidiu
rated it:
I found the book very easy to read and each page seemed to promise something new and appealing. I intended to specify that it's easy to read because I was thinking of all the vampire novels people are reading because they want something easy, that flows and all that, and of this article about the issue: http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/...
This is a novel that you can finish reading pretty quickly. Yet, I suspect that people that go for Dan Brown and co. do it not for the unsoph More...
This is a novel that you can finish reading pretty quickly. Yet, I suspect that people that go for Dan Brown and co. do it not for the unsoph More...
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Oct 31, 2009
Chad
rated it:
"The Neon Bible" is a remarkable work in many respects, most notably because it is the early work of an author still in the embryonic stages of becoming a writer, and while it bears almost no tonal or stylistic resemblence to the work that would make Toole famous, it is still a quite solid read.
Whereas "A Confederacy of Dunces" seemed almost hyper-obnoxious with its lead character, Ignatius Reilly, as its figurehead, "The Neon Bible" is a marathon of cal More...
Whereas "A Confederacy of Dunces" seemed almost hyper-obnoxious with its lead character, Ignatius Reilly, as its figurehead, "The Neon Bible" is a marathon of cal More...
May 03, 2010
Linsey
rated it:
I've tried writing this review a few times because I can't quite find the words to capture my thoughts on it. I'll try again today...
It's a story about a boy who is trying to grow up but has no one to depend on, no one to lead him, and no one to trust while he makes this journey.
It really goes beyond your typical "coming of age" story. It elicits an emotional response from the reader but in no way is it written in an emotional way. It's almost stoic in the More...
It's a story about a boy who is trying to grow up but has no one to depend on, no one to lead him, and no one to trust while he makes this journey.
It really goes beyond your typical "coming of age" story. It elicits an emotional response from the reader but in no way is it written in an emotional way. It's almost stoic in the More...
Dec 02, 2011
Morgan
rated it:
its been a few years, and i picked it up for two reasons, i had just finished confederacy of dunces, and i'd inexpicably been on some sort of southern gothic trend, the damned things kept falling in my lap; they still are. what bothers me about all roads leading south, is i am a stone cold yankee, i live and breathe the north. but yessun, i keep loving the stories of the south 1960 and below. at the time i was desperate for more j.k.t. and neon bible was my only, very short, option.
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Aug 02, 2010
Mike
rated it:
Following the posthumous publication of A Confederacy of Dunces, which won Toole the Pulitzer Prize, the author's mother sought to also publish The Neon Bible, written by the author as a teenager. Due to some legal disputes, the book languished for more than a decade before it was finally set to print. If nothing else, this book solidified my respect for John Kennedy Toole. The power of observation illustrated here concerning religion, family and life in a small town are nearly unbelievable when
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Jun 06, 2011
Noah
rated it:
"The Confederacy of Dunces" was the book that made me love books, so I knew that my opinion of this book would be cursed by high expectations. I must have waited just the right amount of time because I was very moved by "The Neon Bible." It couldn't be more different than "Dunces." Written when Toole was just 16, "The Neon Bible" follows the adolescence of a boy in a small town in the South during the Depression and World War II. This is a simple story abo
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Mar 10, 2010
Gracie
rated it:
Try comparing this book to John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize winning "Confederacy of Dunces," and you will find yourself asking, "are you sure the same guy wrote these books?" It is startlingly different -- stark, grim, dusty, simple, self-conscious, and low on dialogue. Basically, everything his other novel isn't. But this book was written by an adolescent Toole for a novella contest, and the fact that he was a high school student when he wrote it makes its simple beauty
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May 08, 2011
Ron
rated it:
John Kennedy Toole, wrote this when he was only fifteen - a great book for a fifteen year old kid. I felt obligated to read this after reading 'Confederacy of Dunces'. The John Toole story is a sad one. He stuck the manuscript for Confederacy in his desk when finished - then killed himself. Ten years later his mother found it, and turned it over to a publisher. It won the Pulitzer that very first year. The poor guy will never know what he had accomplished. Sad really. What if it was the answer t
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Jul 22, 2011
Kathleen
rated it: 
I am a huge fan of A Confederacy of Dunces so I was excited to give this book a try. This book was written by Toole when he was only 16 years old which is quite impressive. However, I can't say that I really enjoyed the book. It was an ok read which at times was hard for me to get through. The ending seemed to come out of nowhere and did not seem to fit with the rest of the book. The style is nothing like Dunces which wasn't a problem for me but if that is what you are looking for you won't
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Oct 09, 2009
Barry
rated it:
I'm finishing this in a few minutes, I can't really see there being some twist or reveal which will escalate it in my mind, it's good if not great in that Confederacy of Dunces way, altho heavier on the perdiod-piece Southern-ness, maybe too heavy for my taste (I'll never understand why that's such an overrated sub-genre) - I do love all the inference of what's going on outside this narrator's naivete/worldview/understanding, that's pretty timeless and universal, but all the -ism-ness and Ghosts
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Jan 26, 2009
Michael
rated it:
This was a strange read: on the one hand, a story that does not move until the very end, on the other, glimpses of fine writing and intense feeling. In the end, the glimpses were too few and far between, so I can't say I enjoyed (much) this book; the difference between the writing of the sixteen year-old John Kennedy Toole and the mature and wonderful A Confederacy of Dunces (a five-star) was just too big.
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Aug 19, 2011
Aaron
rated it:
John Kennedy Toole, most notable for his authorship of A Confederacy of Dunces, died far too young and tragically. It also is unfortunate that there are only two novels posthumously published by this talented writer. I read A Confederacy of Dunces earlier in the year and my mind was completely blown. It it is one of the best works of fiction I've read in my entire life. The Neon Bible was published nine years later, though it was written at a considerably earlier time in Toole's life: AT THE AGE
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Jan 29, 2012
abo
rated it:
Difficile accostarsi a "La Bibbia la neon", esordio di Toole datato 1953, senza pensare al successivo e travolgente "Una banda di idioti" (voto 5 su 5).
L’ingombrante figura di Ignatius O’Reilly e il carnascialesco carrozzone che gli fa da contorno sono una pietra di paragone decisamente pesante per David, protagonista di cui ne "La Bibbia al neon" si segue con trasporto la vita dai 3 anni all’adolescenza.
Siamo in una cittadina della provincia americana, More...
L’ingombrante figura di Ignatius O’Reilly e il carnascialesco carrozzone che gli fa da contorno sono una pietra di paragone decisamente pesante per David, protagonista di cui ne "La Bibbia al neon" si segue con trasporto la vita dai 3 anni all’adolescenza.
Siamo in una cittadina della provincia americana, More...
Jun 15, 2010
Ashley
rated it:
This is one of the most surprising books I have ever read. Though I was already aware of Toole's genius, because of Confederacy of Dunces, I went into it wondering just how great it could be. He wrote this story when he was 16, and I thought the only reason it was published was because of his Mother's struggle to get it published. They say you aren't fully appreciated until your gone. In the introduction of this book, a family friend of Toole's mother discusses how the two found the story shorty
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Jan 23, 2010
Oscar
rated it:
Da pena pensar dónde podría haber llegado John Kennedy Toole de no haberse suicidado a tan temprana edad. Sin lugar a dudas era un genio. 'La Biblia de neón' fue la primera novela que escribió, siendo apenas un adolescente, y sólo puedo decir que es una obra con fuerza, con imágenes indelebles que permanecen a fuego en la memoria tras varias horas después de su lectura.
Toole nos cuenta la historia de David y de su familia en un pueblo sureño de Estados Unidos, cuya población, o la ma More...
Toole nos cuenta la historia de David y de su familia en un pueblo sureño de Estados Unidos, cuya población, o la ma More...
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Jun 18, 2009
Chris
rated it:
This is one of those books that starts with a slow boil and conitnues that way for some time. It isn't until the end that you realize that the water has spilled out of the pot. Written fairly simply, the story is written from the point of view of the young narrator. So his observations may be simple, but there's no question when Toole is hinting at grander themes or things that are inappropriate or foreign to an adolescent. Surprisingly, there are even obvious hints to homosexuality in this
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Aug 18, 2008
Vanessa
rated it:
when i found this book at the store, i couldnt believe my eyes! i don't actually know when this one was published, but i feel like i've been waiting a long time.
the author committed suicide and was known to have only written one book in his lifetime (for which he won a posthumus pulizer prize). but his mother soon found a short novel he wrote when he was 16 for a competition. insert lots of legal issues and family disputes here.
i guess his mother lost cause now the book i More...
the author committed suicide and was known to have only written one book in his lifetime (for which he won a posthumus pulizer prize). but his mother soon found a short novel he wrote when he was 16 for a competition. insert lots of legal issues and family disputes here.
i guess his mother lost cause now the book i More...
Jun 23, 2008
Guy
rated it:
“(…) I knew the way the people in town thought about things. They always had some time left over from their life to bother about other people and what they did. They thought they had to get together to help other people out, like the time they got together about the woman who let a colored man borrow her car and told her the best place for her was up north with all the other nigger lovers, and the time they got the veterans with overseas wives out. If you were different from anybody in town, you
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Apr 24, 2008
Gregory
rated it:
“Thinking people feel sorry for you is something I guess you should appreciate, but I didn’t and never have."
First of all, for anyone to have written a novel like this at age sixteen is nothing short of amazing. Granted, some of the description does not entirely ring true, but for a teenager to possess such acuity when it comes to people and society is remarkable. John Kennedy Toole was such a gifted observer of humanity’s foibles despite his young age that “The Neon Bible” More...
First of all, for anyone to have written a novel like this at age sixteen is nothing short of amazing. Granted, some of the description does not entirely ring true, but for a teenager to possess such acuity when it comes to people and society is remarkable. John Kennedy Toole was such a gifted observer of humanity’s foibles despite his young age that “The Neon Bible” More...
Jan 25, 2008
Raül
rated it:
La historia de La biblia de neón (la historia de cómo llegó a ver la luz, no la historia que contiene) es algo rocambolesca y muy significativa a la hora de ponderar sus carencias: tras el suicidio de John Kennedy Toole, su madre luchó contra viento y marea para que la novela de su hijo, La hoguera de las vanidades, se publicara y recibiera los honores que merece. Años después, repitió el proceso con La biblia de neón, una novela escrita durante la juventud del autor y que él mismo parecía consi
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Sep 26, 2007
James
rated it:
This is the first of two novels written by the late John Kennedy Toole. Despite many conflicting reviews of this novel, after rereading, I think it is truly an incredible book. Written for a writing contest when Toole was only 15 or 16, it tells the tale of a young boy living in poverty with his family in New Orleans and the utterly overwhelming anxiety that is engulfing the landscape due to the wars that tear the country apart at the seams, and the twisted bible boys who are trying to keep th
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Oct 28, 2011
Lorenzo
rated it:
According to the official version, John Kennedy Toole wrote this novel when he was 15 years old.
Then he decided to bury the original manuscript of "The Neon Bible" in a drawer considering it too juvenile and immature to have any chance to be published.
Twenty years later, Toole's mother opened that drawer.
The novelist had just obtained success with "A Confederacy of Dunces", thanks to the determination of a small editor who published that n More...
Then he decided to bury the original manuscript of "The Neon Bible" in a drawer considering it too juvenile and immature to have any chance to be published.
Twenty years later, Toole's mother opened that drawer.
The novelist had just obtained success with "A Confederacy of Dunces", thanks to the determination of a small editor who published that n More...
Jan 24, 2012
Gwynne Monahan
rated it:
He wrote it as a teenager, and after repeat rejections, it got stuffed in a drawer. "The Confederacy of Dunces" was published to critical acclaim, however. I think it's a lesser work but if not for it, then "The Neon Bible" may never have seen the light of day.
It's a fantastically written coming of age story that anyone who has an inkling to write short fiction must read it. Character development, language, story line, all the elements that make for good writing, an More...
It's a fantastically written coming of age story that anyone who has an inkling to write short fiction must read it. Character development, language, story line, all the elements that make for good writing, an More...
Aug 08, 2011
Dave
rated it:
The story of John Kennedy Toole is both impressive and tragic. Neon Bible was written when he was just sixteen years old and wasn't released until 1989, twenty years after Toole committed suicide. He's more famously known for winning a Pulitzer posthumously in 1981 for A Confederacy of Dunces. Neon Bible shows the talent and intellect that flowed through John Kennedy Toole as a young teen that eventually blossomed into a member of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He was 31 when he died.
Jul 30, 2011
Loved it, until the last few pages, but I won't spoil anything.
What was so amazing about this book for me, was the simple, honest observations of the author. There was a beautiful nativity that didn't seems at all contrived.
The prose was direct, economic, but not lacking in anything.
The story itself, was a like a dirge to the futility and fragility of trying to live in an indifferent world. It also perfectly captured a time and vibe in America.
What was so amazing about this book for me, was the simple, honest observations of the author. There was a beautiful nativity that didn't seems at all contrived.
The prose was direct, economic, but not lacking in anything.
The story itself, was a like a dirge to the futility and fragility of trying to live in an indifferent world. It also perfectly captured a time and vibe in America.
