A Confederacy of Dunces

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A Confederacy of Dunces

1bookworm12
dec 28, 2007, 10:55 am

I read A Confederacy of Dunces this year. I had so many people tell me I'd love it. I didn't. I could hardly get through it. There were some funny parts, but overall I wasn't impressed.
Since then I've had people tell me it's their favorite book. I must have missed something. Maybe my expectations were too high.
Can anyone tell what it is about this book that is suppose to be so amazing.

2nancyewhite
dec 28, 2007, 11:20 am

Ummm, me too, please. Thought I'd love it and just didn't. At all.

3atimco
dec 28, 2007, 12:09 pm

I started it and lost interest.

4TeacherDad
dec 28, 2007, 12:24 pm

Wow -- I almost hate to confess it in this company, but I loved it! It has been a while since I last re-read it, so I won't quote specific passages, but I believe it's hilarious, in an absurd, pathetic sort of way...

5Talbin
dec 28, 2007, 12:25 pm

I read it, but all I remember is that I didn't like it very well.

6Nickelini
dec 28, 2007, 3:55 pm

I liked it a lot, but I can't remember enough to explain why. Sorry :-(

The main character definitely made the book--I found him so incredibly bizarre, although he was pretty despicable. My book club read this and most people didn't like it much. Mostly they couldn't get past the nastiness of Ignatius to see the humour. I look at it kind of like Monty Python . . . some people find it hilarious, other people--people who (otherwise) have a good sense of humour--don't see it and just think it's dumb. I think the Confederacy of Dunces is just one of those books that is disliked as much as it's liked.

7citygirl
dec 28, 2007, 4:15 pm

It is so absurd that it is hilarious, to me. Each character is one of kind, yet someone you can completely imagine in New Orleans, as is the mix of them all together.

Until I came across this thread I didn't realize that (maybe a lot of) people disliked the book. I too find it hard to come up with distinct reasons why the book is so lovable to me, besides New Orleans, but that's a personal thing. I just thought that Ignatius and his mother together were a hoot, and so was every one else. I don't what more to say. :-S

8bookworm12
dec 28, 2007, 4:16 pm

Well I adore Monty Python, but this book left me cold. At least I know I'm not alone.

9enevada
dec 28, 2007, 4:38 pm

Well, I love ridicule as much as the next guy, but ridicule of a character like Ignatius just seems mean-spirited. I have always felt like this was a suicide note that I really shouldn’t be reading – too personal, and yes, the guy really is a loser, no redemption through art this time.

I liked Walker Percy’s introduction and especially the story of Toole’s mother pushing his wares, but Ignatius? So sad, so pathetic. Often, I play the game when I see an especially decrepit looking person – a hard-ass, down and outer or a lecher on the bus – and I look at the face and try to reverse the image, to rewind it till I can see the face as a young child, when I know it was loved by a mother, at the very least. Reading Confederacy is like playing this game, only I haven’t the heart to keep rewinding. Instead, I just put the book down.

10Jargoneer
Redigerat: dec 28, 2007, 6:44 pm

Ignatius is a monster; he's supposed to be a monster. Rather than being someone to be redeemed (he can't be redeemed through art anyway as the character believes that there is no such thing as modern art), he is our guide through the carnival. The novel is essentially a carnival in the truest sense, a celebration of the grotesque.

It's interesting that while everyone picks up on how repulsive Ignatius is no-one seems to have noticed that Ignatius is also the only person who has plans, no matter how misguided or egotistical they are, to help others; most of the other characters in the novel only care about their own material needs. He may want to re-make the world in his image but at least he wants to change it, to better it.

The reason he always fails is said best by his mother near the end of the novel, "You have learned everything except how to be a human being." Ignatius is not just a physical grotesque, he is an emotional grotesque as well - he is us stripped of the veneer of civilisation, a reveller at the carnival.

edited for typos

11citygirl
dec 28, 2007, 7:04 pm

I think I can see what you're saying, enevada. The author's subsequent suicide lends a pathos to the book that wouldn't have been there otherwise. It makes you look at Ignatius differently. You cannot avert your eyes from his pain.

12enevada
dec 28, 2007, 7:11 pm

#10 Very nicely put, and I do think that my inability to finish this book is my own failing, and not that of Toole, that is I can not get over my own revulsion, which reveals a rather despicable aspect of self. For an author to bring you to this point speaks to something - a talent, raw truth - there is something there, certainly.

I'll try again, at Lent, that might help.

13Jargoneer
dec 28, 2007, 7:28 pm

>9 enevada: & >11 citygirl: - I think you are both misreading the novel, you are putting the real into it when it is not there.

14citygirl
Redigerat: dec 28, 2007, 7:31 pm

Possibly, but it's hard not to know what you know. It does not take away from my enjoyment of the book for itself, but how can you separate the author from his work when it so clearly contains autobiographical elements?

15Nickelini
dec 29, 2007, 1:16 am

#12: I'll try again, at Lent, that might help.

---------

Oh, enevada, now THAT's funny! Thanks for the laugh.

16SanctiSpiritus
jan 27, 2008, 5:41 pm

I read this book years ago. It was the first book, and one of a few that made me laugh out loud while reading. One of the greatest books in the last 50 years.

17kwbts124
Redigerat: mar 10, 2008, 10:28 am

Although this book was a looong read for me, I love it in retrospect. I will never look at a hot dog vender quite the same.

18Geordielass
mar 10, 2008, 10:30 am

It left me cold too...and disappointed, because I had heard so much about it and expected to love it. Those that thought it hilarious look at me with astonishment when I say I didn't find it more than mildly funny, once in a while. I feel I must have missed something too, but can't bring myself to pick it up again to find out!

19barney67
mar 10, 2008, 10:52 am

It's a love story. Two losers find each other. Depends on if you like that kind of thing. You have to like absurd comedy.

It is also a harsh dismissal of the Old South and its values, hence "a confederacy of dunces." Also hard on Catholicism or at least what you might call medievalism.

It is one of the very few novels that made me laugh.

Re: Toole. Who knows why writers commit suicide? Their lives are all different, and their motives, and so on.

20Scratch
Redigerat: mar 10, 2008, 3:48 pm

Absurd comedy is right, particularly all that stuff about Ignatius abusing his sock. (I giggled even as I typed that.)

Oh, and if memory serves, Toole actually killed himself b/c he was despondent about never getting his opus Ignatius published. His momma succeeded after his death. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong--I don't want to spread disinformation and I don't have time to research it right now.)

Also, the cast of characters in the book is spot on for New Orleans crackpots. (Well, pre-Katrina New Orleans, I guess.) Perhaps it helps to have lived or visited there.

21karenmarie
maj 27, 2008, 4:43 pm

I read Confederacy a long time ago and remember closing the book and saying 'blech'. It just never jelled for me. Too weird.

We were supposed to read it for bookclub last year and I didn't even bother to open it or go to the meeting. Not worth my time.

22GeorgiaDawn
okt 12, 2008, 1:20 pm

I tried to read the book a couple of times and just couldn't read it. Then I decided to try the audio version and I loved it! The narrator was amazing! The voice he gave Ignatius was nothing short of genius.

23Sandydog1
okt 18, 2008, 12:30 pm

I'm reading the audio version now and am enjoying it, but I'm only a bout a third through.

24SanctiSpiritus
okt 23, 2008, 11:19 am

"I'm reading the audio version"

LOL.

25Sandydog1
okt 25, 2008, 5:52 pm

I just finished hearing Barrett Whitener read A Confederacy of Dunces (Blackstone Audiobooks Inc.) and I thought it was great! I didn't laugh out loud too much, but I did crack a smile the whole time through. 'Not sure if it was the same version as GeorgiaDawn, but it was a fun "read".

Some readers apparently find the zany humor to be tedious or repetitive. I certainly didn't. I loved every crazy N'Awlins character. Hey! Especially Jones. Wow!

26loriephillips
nov 6, 2008, 11:32 am

I've tried a couple of times to read this book. I just couldn't get through it. It's not my kind of humor at all.

27GeorgiaDawn
nov 6, 2008, 7:22 pm

Sandydog - I agree that Jones was great!

28LolaWalser
nov 6, 2008, 7:37 pm

There's a strange problem many talented people encounter in New Orleans: they become overwhelmed and sometimes paralysed by "it all". I've never met so many writers suffering from writers' block as there. So many bad writers. And so many non-writers who took to describing their encounters, sincerely feeling that the reality was injecting them with superb fiction--just get it down on paper. You can stick a pin in ANYBODY down there, and a full fledged epic will tumble out, with incredible characters, monsters, most ridiculous plots--and it will all be "true" too.

Toole's book seems to me like another one that's eaten up by these fantastic characters, and no one seems able to provide them with a plot their size. Ignatius is, and everything is Ignatius, and nothing happens in the book except Ignatius.

I didn't think the book was terribly funny either. Unless you're the kind who'd laugh at two-headed calves in jars. New Orleans may be a fun place to simple souls, but it's not funny.

29Sandydog1
nov 23, 2008, 3:06 pm

And haven't we all run into an Ignacious or two? I think there's a few of these loveable characters in LT! Just check out the "literary snobs" Group.

30FicusFan
nov 23, 2008, 4:12 pm


I also read the book and detested it. I didn't find it funny, or any fantastic characters.

I agree with the comment about it being mean-spirited. It is basically attempting to make fun of a mentally and emotionally handicapped person, who is also uneducated, poor and lacking in resources.

It appears to play on the worst instincts of young school children, when they ostracize and then harass those who are odd and/or loners. Its bullying.



31beadsthat
nov 23, 2008, 9:15 pm

This book was passed around a wide group of friends and got rave reviews until it hit my hands. There were some moments but knowing the author's story before reading it kind of set the tone. It's been years and just picking up a newer copy recently has prompted me to give it a second chance...wish me luck!

32Jim53
nov 24, 2008, 10:57 am

Humorous books seem to be ones that some people love and others hate. Humor, more than various types of serious plots, is a hit-or-miss affair. I'm not surprised to see strong feelings in both directions on this book.

That said, it's one of my all-time favorites. I suspect my classical education prepared me to appreciate some aspects of it, such as the use of Boethius for a prop in a porn picture, which I found hilarious. The great thing for me is how everything fits together: Ignatius is a slob extraordinaire, looking down on the world in which he cannot function, and having one misadventure after another. Others are making their ways through the world according to their lights, succeeding or failing on their own terms.

The secondary characters are wonderfully drawn: with nary a wasted stroke, Toole gives us clear pictures of so many individuals: Ignatius's tipsy mother, Patrolman Mancuso and his aunt, Gus Levy, Dorian Greene, Lana Lee, Darlene, Burma Jones (my favorite), Myrna, Miss Trixie... a cast worthy of Dickens. And each makes a contribution to the story; none are just window-dressing. The many little stories are tied up neatly together as we proceed to the conclusion.

Toole is making some serious points about weighty matters. Should one, like Ignatius, subscribe to Boethius's fatalistic world-view, or should one emulate his mother's attempts at optimism? Ignatius's efforts to liberate the factory workers go hilariously wrong, but in fact factory workers in the south were treated horribly. Ignatius is neither the font of wisdom that he thinks he is, nor the totally pathetic loser that it would be easy to call him. He is learning without real-world application, and his exposure to reality shows us how useless unapplied theory can be. On the other hand, some study of deep questions is required, since without it we have no anchor for how we deal with the world.

In the end, I suspect one's eaction to the book is primarily a matter of reacting to Ignatius; having studied Erasmus as well as Boethus, I was ready to enjoy him, and enjoy him I did.

33Nickelini
nov 24, 2008, 11:02 am

Great comments, Jim53. It's been a while since I read it, but I think I agree with everything you said. You just said it first, and much more eloquently.

34Jim53
nov 25, 2008, 8:56 am

aw, gosh {blush}

35TomFitch
mar 22, 2021, 4:21 pm

To the extent the mere title of a book can raise expectations, I expected a lot from this novel, but ended up disappointed. I somehow seemed to have lost the plot of the story along the way and after that, the novel became rather confusing.

36cindydavid4
apr 6, 2021, 6:19 am

>35 TomFitch: Ive tried - three different times -encouraged by some of my fav online and RL reading buds. But I just couldn't get passed something. I think knowing about the author made it esp poignant and wanted to read it to be a witness to his pain. But it was not to be. I feel guilty for not liking it. It does help me remember being astonded that the most loved books on my shelves were such duds to others. Just a reminder that we are all individuals who come to books from different experiences as well as our nature. And that is a good thing. The best book group discussions (online or in RL) were for books that had the same affect on people, love it or hate it. For me I feel I tried my best, but life is too short and I move on.