personal reading-A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole's novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, has a bizarre publication history. The novel was initially rejected by publishers and the author committed suicide via garden hose and car exhaust.
Toole's mother convinced Walker Percy to read the manuscript, and the novelist eventually convinced Louisiana State University Press to publish a small run. The book was obviously appreciated by readers and critics and, a year later, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Robert Gottlieb of Simon and Schuster thought the book was funny, but complained that it wasn't really about anything. That comment probably makes modern Seinfeld fans smile.
I first fell in love with the book because the main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, was such a pompous ass. He addressed a letter to "Mr. I.M Abelman, mongoloid, esq." He told a coworker to "go dangle your withered parts over the toilet." His (oft repeated) favorite retort is that someone will soon "feel the sting of the lash across your pitiful shoulders."
The plot really is Seinfeld-esque. Ignatius almost gets arrested outside a department store, but he escapes by whipping the officer with a lute string. The cast of characters who witnessed that debacle are connected throughout the novel by their unfortunate association with the eccentric Reilly.
Ignatius gets a job at a clothing factory, but loses it after trying to organize a violent labor uprising. He gets a job as a wiener salesman, but he eats most of the product, insults his potential customers, and gets involved in a pornography ring. He tries to rescue a stripper because he mistakenly thinks she is a fan of the medieval philosopher Boethius, but he is attacked by her pet parrot.
New Orleans speech patterns provide a soundtrack for the adventures. Women are particularly musical, especially when they ask each other questions: "you want some of my good potatis salad?" or "honey, you got any nice aspirins?"
A Confederacy of Dunces is funny, and it's a very perceptive piece of social satire, I mean everybody gets skewered: lazy academics, self-absorbed businessmen, naive social activists, incompetent policemen, straight-laced citizens, and eccentric French Quarter denizens. They're all revealed to be "dunces" in one way or another.
Of course, it's ultimately a little sad to be told that everyone in the world is either an idiot, or existentially unhappy.
The most moving part of the book, for me, is linked to its publication history. When Ignatius is escaping from New Orleans, he tells his girlfriend to collect "all of my notes and jottings. We must never let them fall into the hands of my mother. She may make a fortune from them. It would be too ironic."
Indeed.
Toole's mother convinced Walker Percy to read the manuscript, and the novelist eventually convinced Louisiana State University Press to publish a small run. The book was obviously appreciated by readers and critics and, a year later, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Robert Gottlieb of Simon and Schuster thought the book was funny, but complained that it wasn't really about anything. That comment probably makes modern Seinfeld fans smile.
I first fell in love with the book because the main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, was such a pompous ass. He addressed a letter to "Mr. I.M Abelman, mongoloid, esq." He told a coworker to "go dangle your withered parts over the toilet." His (oft repeated) favorite retort is that someone will soon "feel the sting of the lash across your pitiful shoulders."
The plot really is Seinfeld-esque. Ignatius almost gets arrested outside a department store, but he escapes by whipping the officer with a lute string. The cast of characters who witnessed that debacle are connected throughout the novel by their unfortunate association with the eccentric Reilly.
Ignatius gets a job at a clothing factory, but loses it after trying to organize a violent labor uprising. He gets a job as a wiener salesman, but he eats most of the product, insults his potential customers, and gets involved in a pornography ring. He tries to rescue a stripper because he mistakenly thinks she is a fan of the medieval philosopher Boethius, but he is attacked by her pet parrot.
New Orleans speech patterns provide a soundtrack for the adventures. Women are particularly musical, especially when they ask each other questions: "you want some of my good potatis salad?" or "honey, you got any nice aspirins?"
A Confederacy of Dunces is funny, and it's a very perceptive piece of social satire, I mean everybody gets skewered: lazy academics, self-absorbed businessmen, naive social activists, incompetent policemen, straight-laced citizens, and eccentric French Quarter denizens. They're all revealed to be "dunces" in one way or another.
Of course, it's ultimately a little sad to be told that everyone in the world is either an idiot, or existentially unhappy.
The most moving part of the book, for me, is linked to its publication history. When Ignatius is escaping from New Orleans, he tells his girlfriend to collect "all of my notes and jottings. We must never let them fall into the hands of my mother. She may make a fortune from them. It would be too ironic."
Indeed.
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