The book is amazing and in some ways unique. I caught myself that the usual fun of matching the hero with analogues in mythology and the previous literary tradition does not work here. With some stretch, it could be correlated with a Polyphemus: terrifyingly large, poses a danger to others, acts with the grace of an elephant in a china shop. But the narrow-minded cyclops is not good with words, and Ignatius will kill anyone with this weapon. Do you know the effect of smart speaking, when competent speech disarms the most assertive opponent for a while? There is something in him from Shakespeare's Falstaff and Malvolio, something from the Rabelaisian Gargantua without the cheerful love of life of the latter. But on the whole Ignatius is quite a thing in himself. Actually, as it should be asperger's. Here, at least, I clarified it for myself.

Later, the cinema will exploit the type, combing it according to Hollywood standards to the image of a Crazy Professor, in fact it will be a strong game for a fall. Bringing to a common denominator always implies some degree of simplification. But without that, the mass consumer will not accept. Actually, in its original form, it will not accept the prepared one either. Every phenomenon of Ignatius was accompanied by discomfort for me, from moderate to burning. Not the background state that contributes to the enjoyment of the book. You do not want to relate yourself to the hero in any of the proposed situations, you do not know how to perceive his point of view on any of the issues, but you feel acute shame for his behavior. And you just can't perceive what is happening as a comedy.

Безутешная Философия
- Если б одна из твоих дочерей была бейсболистом, а другая лошадью, ты б ради них из кожи вон лез.
– Если б одна была бейсболистом, а другая лошадью, нам же было бы лучше, поверь мне. Они могли бы приносить доход.
Он года не дожил до возраста Христа. Блестящий рассказчик, оригинальный писатель, удивительный умница покончил с собой в тридцать два. А Пулитцера "Сговор о столопов" получил посмертно, двенадцать лет спустя, через год после публикации, которой неимоверными усилиями добилась мать писателя. Было три причины читать; не до конца утоленное "Неоновой Библией" любопытство к Джону Кеннеди Тулу (по правде, The Neon Bible только разожгла интерес). Перевод Максима Немцова, по определению знак качества. "Утешение Философией" о труде Боэция говорилось, как об играющем в романе значительную роль. А я, так совпало, с давним трепетом к этому трактату. Но, по порядку.

Книга удивительная и в некотором роде уникальная. Поймала себя на том, что привычная забава подбора герою аналогов в мифологии и предшествующей литературной традиции здесь не работает. С некоторой натяжкой его можно было бы соотнести с Полифемом: ужасающе крупный, представляет опасность для окружающих, действует с изяществом слона в посудной лавке. Но недалекий циклоп нехорош в обращении со словами, а Игнациус кого угодно забьет этим оружием. Знаете эффект умного говорения, когда грамотная речь на некоторое время обезоруживает самого напористого оппонента? Что-то в нем от шекспировских Фальстафа и Мальволио, что то от раблезианского Гаргантюа без жизнерадостного жизнелюбия последнего. Но в целом Игнациус в достаточной мере вещь в себе. Собственно, как и положено аспергеру. Вот, по крайней мере, для себя прояснила.

Позже кинематограф поэксплуатирует типаж, причесав по голливудским стандартам до образа Чокнутого Профессора, в сути это будет сильной игрой на понижение. Приведение к общему знаменателю всегда подразумевает некоторую степень опрощения. Но без того массовый потребитель не примет. Собственно, в изначальном виде не примет и подготовленный. Всякое явление Игнациуса сопровождалось у меня дискомфортом, от умеренного до жгучего. Не то фоновое состояние, какое способствует получению от книги удовольствия. Не хочешь соотносить себя с героем ни в одной из предлагаемых ситуаций, не умеешь воспринять его точки зрения ни по одному из вопросов, однако испытываешь острый стыд за его ��оведение. И воспринимать происходящее как комедию просто не можешь.

Фарс, скорее так. Карнавальность, которая могла бы оправдать происходящее, напрочь отсутствует. Понимаете, о чем я? Эффект: "да гори оно огнем, само как-нибудь разрулится", который позволяет беззаботно хохотать над самыми нелепыми комедийными ситуациями. Здесь слишком явственны беды и несчастья, в которые само присутствие героя вовлекает окружающих. Неустойчивое жизненное равновесие всех, вступивших с ним в контакт, рушится карточным домиком от со прикосновения с Игнациусом, а кто из нас может похвастать абсолютной незыблемостью своей жизненной позиции? То есть, инстинкт подсказывает, что от такого триггера лучше бы держаться подальше.

Не адепт биографического метода интерпретации, но думаю, зарождавшаяся душевная болезнь Тула сыграла здесь недобрую роль. Если бы книга была опубликована, а автор продолжил выпускать чудовищ своего подсознания на бумагу, все для него могло сложиться иначе. Но вышло как вышло, потому имеем гротескную, неуклюжую, больше грустную, чем смешную, комедию положений.

О переводе. Максим Немцов блистательный переводчик непростой литературы. У каждого своя специализация. он по интеллектуальной прозе. Здесь, сколько понимаю, задача осложнялась значительным количеством просторечий, жаргонизмов, диалектизмов, которыми изобилует речь персонажей. И я не знаю, насколько нью-орлеанский местечковый говор соотносится с одесским, но как по мне - наделить кое-кого из героев бабелевсими интонациями было самое оно. Тут дело еще в том, что они все разные и говорят по разному, и вот эти речевые особенности персонажей хорошо слышны в книге, они может быть ее единственный радостно карнавальный признак.

О Боэции. Как ни печально, но "Утешение Философией" здесь на служебной и довольно неприглядной роли. Ну или герой склонен понимать его в диаметрально противоположном моему смысле, беззастенчиво спекулируя понятиями и выворачивая наизнанку смысл. В общем, тут у нас никак не срослось, все-таки воинствующая деструктивность сильно не мое. И грустно-пророческим оксюмороном звучит реплика Игнациуса о матери, учитывая, чьими трудами мир узнал писателя. Но как-то так...
Мои заметки и наброски. Они не должны попасть в руки матери. Она может заработать на них целое состояние. Ирония такого исхода была бы слишком велика.

Podría decir muchas cosas, pero fue TREMENDAMENTE ABURRIDA su lectura.

The story of Toole, and the novel by which he apparently vented the demons that lurked within his existentially unhale self, is a sad one, and that foreknowledge endows A Confederacy of Dunces with a patina of melancholy before the first page is turned; a lacquer directly at odds with the immensely high expectations and consequent eagerness I brought into its reading due to the superlatives I had discovered ere I opted to take the plunge: most prevalent, its status as being rife with hilarity and having posthumously earned Toole the Pulitzer. So it may be that my own mental state wasn't configured for the proper appreciation of this sour brew of absurd, misanthropic humor, but I pretty much disliked it from the outset. An author who hates through his creations needs the darkly comic graces of a Céline, or convictions of a Bernhard, or striations of a Houellebecq; whereas Toole, in my opinion, managed to drain these daffy people of any ballasts sufficient to counter the (self-)loathing passed down from author through pen and pushing them all to irritating extremes. It just sounded all of the wrong notes for me. Indeed, I pitched it and moved on to greener (and funnier) pastures before the halfway mark, a deed which, at that time in my life—and so long ago that I can barely recall any specifics of what took place—was simply unheard of. But that, alas, is how it transpired. You would think that a splenetic outing with a crew of misfits and morons possessed the potential for delivering a pot of gold, but this southern-flavored Confederacy turned out for me to be naught but an ugly crock of who-gives-a-shit?

I am tempted to take it up again one of these days, that I could determine whether an abundance of books and years under my belt may have inclined me to chortle and marvel at what previously had induced mostly pursed lips and impatient grunts—but then there are all of these one and two star reviews, by people whose opinions I respect and value, lending weighty support to my more potent determination that life is simply too short, and there are far too many books, to give up the time required for that particular Toolean experiment. Yet, on the other hand, there exists a greater number of GR friends or familiars who exuberantly loved this book, thought it was fantastic, forged connexions with one, some, or all of the characters and situations, Toole's ironic jiggling of life's antennae and slippery dispensations of a hob-nailed boot—and then I'm left puzzled inside at my own inability to appreciate what just simply worked for so many others. It's a conundrum, is what it is—and one that, knowing myself as I do, will likely be resolved in favor of apathy—for this book still needles me at times when I detect its lonely, dusty presence up upon a distant corner shelf, and gets me to pondering Was I wrong?...

Ok, I was almost able to push myself to the 50% point and I just can’t go any further. I have too many other books to read to spend any more time on this one. I’m sorry…I know, it’s apparently a classic, but for the life of me, aside from the tragic circumstances around its publication, I can’t for the life of me see why.

Ignatius Reilly is an asshole, by design I know, but even the humour he supposedly spouts is little more than chuckle-inducing for me. I don’t even believe that Ignatius is much of a medievalist…aside from a misguided love for Boethius he really doesn’t seem to know very much about the Middle Ages except in a very superficial way (his writings which we are given glimpses of are the most puerile crap imaginable). Add to that the fact that all of the other characters are completely uninteresting to me and I cannot gather sufficient reason to continue with this. His mother and Patrolman Mancuso are feckless pushovers and all of the other ‘colourful’ characters just don’t do it for me. They might work as characters in a sitcom, but that’s about all I can credit them for. Maybe I just can’t appreciate the unique Nawlins’ style, I don’t know. (Is it just me or is no one in the book able to “say” anything, everyone appears to “scream” instead…a nit, but one that annoyed me every time I noticed it.)

I’ll just have to mark this one as abandoned. Maybe some other day I will be able to take this for what it was meant to be. That day is not today.

How much fun was this? ...And fans of the novel will be thinking with a smile, "well, duh". But stupidly for years I'd associated it with someone rather lugubrious who liked it, (incongruously lugubrious, I'd say after reading the book) despite its being a favourite of some present-day friends, whose senses of humour I actually can see in it. The cover I knew best didn't help: those 90s Penguin Twentieth Century Classics could look very cool with their B&W photos, but what they don't in the slightest suggest is rollicking picaresque farce (likewise the dour Pynchon covers from the same range), or the sort of ripping read of which someone who isn't usually a fast reader might consume 250 pages, three-quarters of the novel, in a day.

And whilst no-one could want Ignatius J. Reilly as a flatmate, on-page descriptions of him aren't a quarter so detailed and disgusting as negative reviews gave the impression they might be. Yeah, dude stinks but it's not like it's a scratch-and-sniff book... And it's way more complex and less puerile than a Farrelly Bros. movie. (Also started thinking who could even play Reilly if this were filmed. John Candy would have been perfect, Goodman's too old now, and not sure Will Ferrell has the range.) And it's more complex than other accounts of similar individuals, whom, in recent years I've heard about mostly on forums or problem pages: the slob adult son who won't leave home or get a job and spends all his time in his room on mysterious unfruitful projects [has he got Asperger's, wonder the responses] or the slob male partner who doesn't seem to understand the concept of housework [did his mum do everything for him, and did he move straight from her house to yours without ever living on his own?]... here there are many more facets of all characters' experience, and slob's own especially.

Confederacy did, especially in the first quarter or so, feel like a book that hadn't been edited, something...flabby about it, and something non-specifically weird, the echo of vicarious embarrassment, which made me understand why it had been rejected: the instinct that although I might rather enjoy it, thousands wouldn't. Would I have thought that if unprompted by its history, however?

Before reading, I had no idea of the extent to which this is a novel about the 60s: no pop music, no, but social liberation movements are everywhere: student revolutionaries, black civil rights, working-class women's growing awareness of their unsatisfactory lot, increased assertiveness of gay communities (loved Dorian Greene and his friends, transcended Birds of a bloody Feather's hijack of his name and bits of old-fashioned disapproving language in the narrative), all of which - along with the slow demise of traditional-style smaller businesses and increasingly archaic obscentity law - drive secondary characters and their clashes with the absurd Ignatius.

Likewise, it seems like no-one ever mentions his idiosyncratic obsession with medieval life and society: how he thinks it would be better for everything to work as it did then - except, actually, not everything; his lack of self-awareness means he never observes that his own gluttony, sloth and frequent wanking wouldn't exactly have been in favour with medieval Christianity. Nor does he realise that his fragile and specific needs (something very high-functioning-autistic about them - fabric sensitivities are even mentioned as a trait of another character to whom Ignatius compares himself - though very much not about his duplicitous tendencies) would have made it impossible for him to cope as a peasant or journeyman even if the working hours weren't always as arduous as commonly thought. (And if he'd have seen himself as a learned monk instead, how come he doesn't try to follow a trivium and quadrivium-like course of study?... Is that a symptom of Ignatius' cherry picking, or of the author's relatively superficial historical knowledge? There's so much more could have been done with his medievalism, fr instance, demanding dozens of saints' days off work. Though it's easy to say nowadays, to think in detail about the idea of living historically, now re-enactors are a far better-known, better-developed phenomenon.) Ignatius' dissatisfaction with society and systems of work, and inability to live up to his own ideals are simply an exaggeration of the way many people feel, even if they do, thank goodness, have more awareness of self and others than he does.

It had been a while since I'd found any of those curious coincidences of detail between books I'd read around the same time, but here at last were some more: foods en daube here and To the Lighthouse, and office admin girls named Gloria (The Hour of the Star).

But yeah, this was so not a book to be afraid of, and despite its being in Classic imprints it shouldn't be imagined weighty in any respect other than its protagonist's bulk; simply a very readable - though yes, rarely pretty - romp of a comic novel. Real enough that many of the characters never stop worrying about money; more than silly enough to be escapist.

"Cuando en el mundo aparece un verdadero genio, puede identificársele por este signo: todos los necios se conjuran contra él." - Johnathan Swift

¡Cuánto hacía que no me reía tanto leyendo un libro! Ha sido para mi realmente divertido e hilarante leer “La conjura de los necios”. Y qué verdadera pena es saber que John Kennedy Toole se suicidó a los 31 años, luego de fracasar en el intento, debido a que varios editores que le rechazaron la publicación de este libro.
Su madre llevó adelante el proyecto hasta que un editor llamado Walker Percy, luego de leerse casi de un tirón el libro sencillamente porque no podía parar de leerla porque como dijo, “la novela era demasiado buena”, decidió publicarla inmediatamente. El éxito fue rotundo.
John Kennedy Toole ganaría un Pulitzer póstumo y un reconocimiento a la mejor novela extranjera en Francia y lo tiene más que merecido.
Si este autor, que a sus 16 años había publicado su primer novela de características totalmente opuestas, me refiero a “La biblia de neón”, no se suicidaba, probablemente se hubiera convertido en uno de los más grandes escritores norteamericanos del siglo XX. Su calidad literaria es sencillamente brillante.
“La conjura de los necios” es un libro ideado y ejecutado por el autor de una manera prácticamente impecable. Cada uno de los catorce capítulos encajan como las piezas de un reloj para cerrarse en un final perfecto.
El desarrollo de la trama argumental y narrativa se podría ubicar dentro de la novela polifónica de la misma manera que la creó Fiódor Dostoievski. Cada personaje tiene entidad propia para aportar su punto de vista e ideas para aportar al conjunto de la historia.
Realmente el personaje que John Kennedy Toole creó con Ignatius J. Reilly es uno de los más queribles (aunque el lector sienta lo contrario cuando lee el libro) e inolvidables de la literatura.
Es irreverente, irresponsable, insoportable, pedante, contestatario y delirante. Su visión del mundo y sus ideas lo definen como un Quijote perverso cuyos ideales son absolutamente impracticables y esto sucede tanto durante su estadía en la fábrica Levy Pants como cuando intenta armar un partido político de facciones revolucionarias impracticables junto a sujetos de dudosa reputación.
Ni que hablar de lo que sucede a partir que se transforma en vendedor ambulante de bocadillos de salchichas para “Vendedores Paraíso”.
Ignatius es un gordinflón impresentable, sucio, de hábitos más bien desagradables y que se la pasa acostado en una cama pringosa, escribiendo ensayos literarios y filosóficos destinados a cambiar la concepción y visión del mundo según su errado parecer.
Se viste estrafalariamente con un ropón largo y sucio y anda todo el día con una gorra de cazador verde, algo que me recordó a otro personaje muy singular y de ideales muy especiales: me refiero al muchacho con la gorra de cazador roja, conocido como Holden Caufield, de la novela “El guardián entre el centeno”.
Ha pasado los treinta años y aún sigue viviendo con su pobre y sufriente madre, quien se apoya en la bebida para soportar semejante carga. La pobre Irene Reilly entrará en la vorágine decadente de su hijo y esto la arrastrará hasta el final.
Es un personaje tan particular que acorrala al lector a quererlo u odiarlo en el instante.
Pero Kennedy Toole no se queda solo con ellos dos sino que pone en escena un desfile de personajes extravagantes, raros y extraños, algunos de naturaleza inexplicables que se equiparan al enorme Ignatius.
Entre otros, conoceremos al patrullero Mancuso, agobiado por su sargento a disfrazarse de las maneras más disparatadas para atrapar sospechosos, el negro Burma Jones, quien trabaja para Lana Lee en su burdel “Noche de Alegría”, donde trabaja la bailarina exótica llamada Darlene, pero más conocida como “Harlet O’Hara”.
Algo para destacar de este genial autor con respecto a Jones que jamás cae en racismo o en la discriminación sino todo lo contrario, entiende la problemática que sufría la gente de color (tengamos en cuenta que este libro fue escrito en la década del ’60) y hasta defiende la postura de gente que fue muy maltratada en los Estados Unidos en esa época.
Otros personajes realmente geniales son Gus Levy, el empresario y dueño de Levy Pants, su esposa, la señora Levy, prototipo de la mujer de clase alta, pero a la vez vulgar de la clase media norteamericana y la señorita Trixie, una señora en completo estado senil que trabaja desde hace siglos en su empresa y a la que nunca quieren jubilar.
También encontramos al señor González, que es el jefe administrativo de la empresa y a Santa Battaglia, la tía del patrullero Mancuso a quien el autor estereotipa como la clásica mujer burguesa norteamericana, de esas que se aplican toneladas de spray en la cabeza, se embadurnan la cara con miles de capas de maquillaje y viste horriblemente, junto con otros personajes más como Claude Robichaux, el pretendiente de Irene Reilly.
Y cómo olvidarnos de Myrna Mynkoff, la novia de Ignatius, una chica con tendencias revolucionarias asociadas a lo sexual y lo disparatado que quiere cambiar el orden establecido en el sistema universitario.
Otro punto realmente a destacar es que el autor hace una descripción realmente detallada de la ciudad de Nueva Orleans, que es el lugar donde transcurre toda la historia.
En fin, esta novela es una obra maestra. No puedo clasificarla de otra manera. Todo está planeado y ejecutado al detalle.
Es divertida, la historia es original y única, los personajes son memorables y su autor un maestro de la narrativa cuya temprana muerte, como comentaba previamente es para lamentar, puesto que su potencial literario era enorme.
Los invito a leer “La conjura de los necios”, ya que pocas veces se toparán con un libro tan único y genial como este.
Si no lo hacen, ustedes se lo pierden.
Después no me digan que no les avisé…

Ignatius J. Reilly. Oh my sweet motherfuck. I think I have a new favourite character in literature.

I don't know why I was so reluctant to pick this up. It was on my TBR for far too long, god I've been missing out on so much by not reading this novel. This is a brilliant book. Ugh god I loved it so much that I'm actually finding it hard to write anything coherent because all I can think of is superlatives and hyperbole. Eh, superlatives and hyperboles never hurt anyone. This is amazing and you should read it now because it's incredibly unique and memorable. You'll want to get everything that Ignatius says tattooed onto your face. Seriously. This novel is gold. The watermark for comic literature. One of the best books I've read this year.

Llevo un buen rato sentada ante mi cuaderno Gran Jefe, con un lápiz de Numismática Venus en una mano y una Dr. Nut en la otra, pensando qué decir sobre esta grandísima novela. Se me ocurren miles de adjetivos para definirla: imprevisible, corrosiva, ingeniosa, divertidísima, delirante, magistral. Pero como dice en el fantástico prólogo Walker Percy, “el mayor logro de Toole es el propio Ignatius Reilly, intelectual, ideólogo, gorrón, holgazán, glotón, que debería repugnar al lector por sus gargantuescos banquetes, su retumbante desprecio y su guerra individual contra todo el mundo: Freud, los homosexuales, los heterosexuales, los protestantes y todas las abominaciones de los tiempos modernos.” Respecto a esto iré al grano, lo mejor es dejar las cosas claras desde el principio: yo soy una de esas pancartistas pro-Ignatius de las que algunos hablan. Lo fui al terminar mi primera lectura, lo soy, quizás más, ahora al terminar la segunda. Como figura mítica, incluso histórica, como un Boecio que nos incite a replantearnos nuestra existencia, tiene aquí una firme defensora. Dicho esto, se me cierra de golpe la válvula pilórica al imaginar lo que algunos estarán pensando de mí en estos momentos.

...sólo me relaciono con mis iguales, y como no tengo iguales, no me relaciono con nadie. Efectivamente, Ignatius Reilly no se relacionaría conmigo. Tampoco yo con él, no me malinterpreten, en modo alguno pienso que seamos almas gemelas, su pensamiento reaccionario me pone los pelos de punta, pero su carácter irrespetuoso, su irreverencia, me pone la piel de gallina de una forma bastante placentera. Y esta ambivalencia, complicada en lo cotidiano, es quizás una de las cosas más maravillosas y mágicas de la ficción. Aquí todo elemento subversivo que venga a poner sobre la mesa el absurdo de nuestra sociedad y sus dinámicas tendrá probablemente toda mi simpatía, aunque este elemento sea tan demencial como la sociedad a la que critica.

Ignatius es un treintañero del todo inadaptado al que, sin comerlo ni beberlo, un buen día la diosa Fortuna lo aplasta con su rueda y, tras un pequeño accidente, se ve enfrentado al destino malévolo que esta diabólica sociedad, carente de toda geometría, nos tiene reservado a todos: la perversión de tener que IR A TRABAJAR.

Oh, ¿qué broma pesada estaba gastándole ahora Fortuna? ¿Detención, accidente, trabajo? ¿Dónde acabaría aquel ciclo aterrador?

A partir de aquí, asistimos a una caricatura divertidísima e implacable del orden laboral y social en el que estamos inmersos, en la que no es Ignatius quien sale peor parado. Ignatius se verá obligado a vivir en una contradicción insoportable. Nuestro Asediado Chico Trabajador tendrá que ingeniárselas para actuar, dentro de lo que cabe, conforme a sus propias convicciones y creencias, en un sistema que no le pone fácil a nadie mantenerse fiel a su causa... sea cual sea. El introducirme activamente en el sistema que critico será en sí mismo una interesante ironía.

Desde el momento en que se le pedía a uno que entrase en este siglo brutal, podía suceder cualquier cosa.

Y vaya si suceden cosas. Lean y juzguen con firmeza, pero también con humanidad. Desde aquí hago un llamamiento a la compasión y la comprensión hacia un pobre muchacho que podría ser cualquiera de nosotros. Un muchacho, es verdad, con cierta resistencia psicológica al trabajo, egoísta, grotesco... pero un muchacho, al fin y al cabo, que sólo soñaba con dedicar su vida a escribir una extensa denuncia contra nuestro siglo, al que Fortuna, sombra caprichosa, empujó al horror.

Les han lavado el cerebro a todos ustedes. Supongo que le gustaría convertirse en un triunfador, un hombre de éxito, o algo igual de ruin.

ETA: I recently came across a physical copy of this at my favorite used-book store. The eagerness with which I grabbed said copy--and the disappointment I felt in its previous owner for the lack of annotation I found in its pages--suggests that I liked this book far more than I hated its main character. Also, I am gleefully drunk at this particular moment so please forgive me for any logical or grammatical inconsistencies currently present in this preface. I might get around to fixing them once sobriety returns to me.


I've come to realize that, for me, a mere "liked it" is usually the most apologetic rating. A three-star rating is my literary equivalent of "It's not you, it's me," an embarrassed concession that I'm the real problem here. It's usually an unspoken understanding that I can recognize why a work is so universally lauded but that it just didn't tickle me the way it ought to have. Sometimes it's simply a matter of taste, sometimes it's just bad timing, sometimes it's me having a visceral reaction to a work of fiction that shouldn't get under my skin so deeply. My three stars do not do this book justice, I realize that: They do, however, reflect just how torturous it was for me to watch Ignatius Reilly not get the thorough comeuppance or righteous bitch-slap that both hands of Fortuna owed such a thundering manchild.

So I always thought this was written by a contemporary of Jonathan Swift's. Why? Maybe it's because of the title. Maybe it's because Toole is the first person since Swift who could make satire purr like a satisfied lap cat. Maybe it's because this is a novel packed with odious vermin of the highest order. Whatever the cause for my wildly mistaken notion, I don't remember what set me straight, nor do I recall why gaining such corrective insight propelled me on a frantic mission to both own and read this book as soon as humanly possible: All I am certain of is that the urge to get my hands on "Confederacy of Dunces" was impossible to put off 'til later, which is my preferred approach to doing almost anything. But every paper-and-ink copy I found had a cover that I absolutely hated (and now that I know the character, I'm annoyed that Ignatius looks more like a happy-go-lucky buffoon on many of the cover images when he is, in fact, a detestable, pretentious little wanker who masks his inability to relate to other people with an abrasive, overeducated front). The solution? Downloading this on my trusty but much-neglected Kindle.

It's not that I don't love my Kindle (because I do, to an almost psychotic extent). Nor does my bookworm snobbery extend to the assumption that digital books are automatically inferior to their traditional predecessors. It's just that, after my e-reader became less of a reading device and more of an avenue for proving my Scrabble dominance over that dick AI even though I almost always wind up with more vowels than I think the game really includes, I simply grew accustomed to not using Ruggles the Kindle for his intended nose-in-a-book purpose (no, I haven't given all of my gadgets Pynchonian monikers; yes, I do see the irony in naming my e-reader after an author who was famously reluctant for his works to be digitalized).

But this isn't about my Kindle: This is more about the shiny new iPhone I acquired recently, the very device that signaled another blow to my pseudo-Luddite ways by thrusting me into the joyous world of being owned by a smartphone (.... I'm actually not sure if that was sarcasm, either). Because the first thing I did after shelling out money on yet another Apple product, aside from blowing more than half of my monthly data allotment on downloading selections from my iTunes library before even leaving the Verizon store, was put the Kindle app on my as-of-yet unnamed phone.

Seeing as I am, however reluctantly, part of the generation that feels unsettlingly naked without one's phone, my phone goes almost everywhere with me -- and now, so does my Kindle's vast treasury of reading material. Suddenly, the hatred I felt (and still feel) for one Ignatius Jacques Reilly grew in all directions, as if it, too, were glutting itself on Paradise Hot Dogs. I hated Ignatius at work. I hated him at home. I hated him in the bathroom. I hated him in bed, on the couch, in other people's cars, while waiting at everything from the grocery store to the dentist's office to the gas station, I hated him in a variety of locations to rival Dr. Seuss's rhyming lists. My burning dislike of the book's main character slipped its tentacles of ire around nearly every facet of my life to the point where I was transferring my irritation to probably undeserving but still irksome strangers.

Reader, I hated him.

And it felt bloody freeing, even if I'll never get the closure of punching Ignatius right in his stupid, Vaselined mustache. I'm the kind of person who feels uncomfortable when characters in books or movies are staunchly positioned under a storm cloud of shitty luck and proceed to have misfortune rained upon them to an allegedly humorous effect: Being in a position to shamelessly enjoy every irate former employer's final tongue lashing, to celebrate everyone who peeved Ignatius the way he annoyed the hell out of me (Dorian Greene, I think I might actually love you), to snicker at every unflattering description of a character who I loathed made me feel less awful about finally reveling in the seemingly downward trajectory of a character whose downfall I wished I could have on my otherwise itchy conscience. It was such a nice change to embrace the inevitable onslaught of woe that came rushing at a story's main character for once.

But Ignatius even ruined that for me, as his titanic girth is buoyed by an ego that just won't quit. What willful refusal to accept responsibility! What blissful ignorance of one's own flaws! What enthusiastic defiance of reality! The mental gymnastics required in tirelessly painting oneself as the eternal victim would have impressed me if the character executing such skillful lack of accepting blame for his lot in life weren't such an overgrown brat.

Though it's not like many of the other characters had a whole lot more going for them other than reluctant sympathy and the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The duplicitous shrew Lana Lee probably should have been the most detestable member of the cast: While Ignatius is simply too emotionally immature to exist in harmony with the real world, Lana is straight-up starved of all redeeming qualities. As hard as I tried to sympathize with Irene, Ignatius's poor, long-suffering mother, she was clearly all talk and no action well before the book began, as Ignatius exhibits a lifetime of experience manhandling her into emotional submission -- let this book be a cautionary tale for the long-term damage of passive parenting! As for Mrs. Levy? She must have inflicted me with some kind of temporary Tourette's syndrome because I was helpless to squelch the string of profanities that wrenched themselves from my mouth every time she opened hers.

On the other hand, there were some redeeming dramatis personae to be found amidst Toole's merry band of walking character flaws. If Dorian's brief appearance was a breath of fresh air, Jones's presence was the life raft I clung to in a maelstrom of assholery. I might have actually cheered at the end when Officer Mancuso got the kudos he deserved after four-hundred-some pages of being shat on. I was pretty keen on Mr. Levy until Ignatius dug his teabag-scented claws into him. And, okay, fine: There were actually a lot of folks who I liked simply because they didn't annoy me, like Darlene and Mr. Clyde. Actually, Darlene's cockatoo might have been one of the most likable characters in the book by virtue of his role in kicking off the climax.

And then there's Myrna, who just might be the most effective foil ever. We hate in others what we hate most about ourselves, and Ignatius love-hates her because they're too much alike in all the wrong ways. Their letters are strokes of narrative brilliance, offering a richly suggested history between the two: I got such a kick out of how Myrna is the only character who gets even a kernel of truth from Ignatius and she assumes that he's exaggerating with every stroke of his pen. I probably would have liked her less had she been more of an active force here, so I'll be happy with how stingy Toole was with her scenes.

This should, by all rights, be at least a four-star novel. It's Toole's fault that he was too adept at creating characters that embody so much of what disgusts me in real people.

How much do I love A Confederacy of Dunces? This much.

n  n

I've read the novel at least ten times and this edition (which a friend rightfully noted displays an uglyass cover) became my glove compartment book through a few years of waiting-in-the-carpool-lane-after-school stretches. I re-read the novel late this past May and it still holds up. Genius structure, brilliant dialogue, dark as hell, and funny over and over. Mr. Toole,I don't know what demons haunted you, but when you exhaled this novel you mainlined literary exuberance. Thank you. A Confederacy of Dunces keeps my faith in books in ways that few other novels can.

This was a story in which none of the characters have anything particularly good or noble about them, but no one is particularly evil, either. Toole introduces, as the anti-hero in his first book, a chap by name of Ignatius. Most of us know at least one chap who has some of Ignatius' personal traits and habits: a bloated gasbag with an eating disorder, poor personal hygiene, an inability to hold a job and no desire to move out of his parents' house. He has attended college for 10 years and has accomplished nothing with that education, aside from bankrupting his mother who supported him throughout. If Ignatius were around today, he would probably join ANTIFA. The plot, or what little there is of one, is centered on Ignatius and his bungling and scheming.

I know the book is a work of humour, but for me in order to be entertaining the story and characters have to be believable. I'm not one given to flights of fancy, so the extreme and unlikely stupidity of the principal characters in this book are....cartoonish. It's like a cartoon with no artwork. In fact, Ignatius put me in mind of Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons, complete with obfuscating vocabulary and enormous appetite. I came to look at the book as if it should be entitled "Wimpy Meets the Three Stooges". There must be some people still around who are old enough to get what I'm talking about here.

Another aspect that disturbed me somewhat is the fact that situations in the book strained all laws of probability. I've never been to New Orleans, but I'm sure that it's big enough that you don't always happen upon the same people day after day. It's a convenient plot device Toole uses to facilitate his story but it gets tedious after a bit.

On the plus side, Toole is a great writer who created some interesting characters here, and has dreamed up some brilliant dialogue for them. As a work of humour, it made me smile but couldn't move me to chuckle or guffaw. A pity this is his only work.

John Kennedy Toole escreveu dois romances e foram ambos recusados pelas editoras. Convencido de que nunca seria um escritor publicado, suicidou-se aos 32 anos. A mãe, persistente, conseguiu que Uma Conspiração de Estúpidos fosse publicado, cerca de 11 anos após a morte do filho. A obra obteve o Prémio Pulitzer, em 1981, a título póstumo.
Esta é a única parte triste deste livro. Ou talvez não...

Ignatius tem 30 anos e vive com a mãe. Pretende não fazer nada além de estar fechado no quarto a escrever, mas um acidente inesperado obriga-o a ir para o mercado de trabalho.

Não sei (ou não quero) dizer mais nada para justificar as cinco estrelas que este romance merece.

n  "Somos Todos Ignatius (por muito que isso nos custe)"n
— Nuno Markl