John Kennedy Toole
Paperback | Pages: 394 pages Rating: 3.89 | 221438 Users | 14304 Reviews
Define Books To A Confederacy of Dunces
| Original Title: | A Confederacy of Dunces |
| ISBN: | 0802130208 (ISBN13: 9780802130204) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Ignatius Jacques Reilly, Myrna Minkoff, Irene Reilly, Santa Battaglia, Angelo Mancuso, Lana Lee, Burma Jones |
| Setting: | New Orleans, Louisiana(United States) |
| Literary Awards: | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1981), PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (1981) |
Explanation Conducive To Books A Confederacy of Dunces
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here "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, A Confederacy of Dunces. 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. 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 A Confederacy of Dunces 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.Mention Epithetical Books A Confederacy of Dunces
| Title | : | A Confederacy of Dunces |
| Author | : | John Kennedy Toole |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 394 pages |
| Published | : | January 1994 by Grove Press (first published May 1st 1980) |
| Categories | : | Christian. Religion. Theology. Christianity. Nonfiction. Christian Living. Faith |
Rating Epithetical Books A Confederacy of Dunces
Ratings: 3.89 From 221438 Users | 14304 ReviewsJudgment Epithetical Books A Confederacy of Dunces
I think I have a new favorite book. Certainly a book I will read again and one I didnt want to put down my first go around. The story of Ignatius and his crusade against the world, making the long term lives of those he touched better off once they survived his initial destruction, was one non-stop laugh for me.What made this book work so well was the lack of perfection. Though Ignatius was a total prick he was in a world of people just as bad (just better at hiding it) and though they allYou could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him. John Kennedy Toole had committed suicide over a decade before this book had eventually been published, and thereafter won a posthumous Pulitzer. This book is one of the rare ones that made me laugh at every turn of a page. The dark comedy and the constant ridicule of American consumerism make it equally thought-provoking and hilarious. There were so many times I
How much do I love A Confederacy of Dunces? This much. 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
Authors who commit suicide find their Lovelybones-eye view from the afterlife brings them no comfort:David Foster Wallace : Oh my God - look at that dreadful biography of me... and it's selling too... it's like they're murdering me all over again ... oh if I could only commit suicide all over again - but up here, you can't!John Kennedy Toole : Oh shut up you preening self-regarding self-annotating depressing pedant, what about ME?? My God, if I'd only persevered for another year or so, I'd have
What a colossal waste of my life. Nothing happens. Literally. That's what's wrong with this book. It's a freshman-level fiction workshop gone horribly awry. And it won what?
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
I thought the book was ok. One of my old boyfriends recommended it to me, and while I was reading it I told him what an asshole I thought Ignatius J. Reilly was, and that I was sick of hearing about his valve. He got pissed off at me and told me that I didn't get it. He said Ignatius was a misunderstood genius stuck in a shitty town with no one who understood him. To be honest, my eyes kind of glazed over and I don't remember the rest of his rant, but I finished the book anyway. I think the most
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