His misadventures at Levy Pants are particularlyįunny, as he sends abusive letters to clients and tries leading a revoltīy the firm's largely black workforce, marching beneath a banner, actually His experiences as the basis for a memoir titled : The Journal of a Workingīoy, or, Up from Sloth. Hilarious damage to various employers, coworkers and customers, while using The misanthrope, turned loose on the work a day world, proceeds to do Reilly backs into another car and in order to pay for the So traumatic that it has kept him from working ever since. Greyhound Scenicruiser for a job interview, a trip which was apparently Listeners with the story of his ill-fated trip to Baton Rouge aboard a Reilly tipples, Ignatius regales her and various dumbfounded

In search of liquid comfort, which they find at the Night of Joy bar. Mancuso, an arrest which soon goes awry and sends Ignatius and his mother The story opens with Ignatius being arrested by the hapless Patrolman To his stacks of Big Chief writing tablets. Who spends all of his considerable free time eating, attending movies,Īnd locked in his disgusting room committing his various demented thoughts Who is an undeniably original comic creation, is a hugely fat bundle ofīody functions, paranoia and obsessions, topped with a green hunting cap, He torments, and of his one man war against modernity. Orleans, an eccentric medievalist, living at home with his mother, whom The novel tells the story of thirty year old Ignatius J. Went on to become a surprise best seller and won a posthumous, by 12 years, Get the book published, by the Louisiana State University Press, and it Such a supposition makes for an even better story. To get the book published may have been a contributing factor at least, Toole had committed suicide in 1969, and his frustration at his inability Great surprise, found the huge manuscript, which was presented to him onīadly smeared carbon paper, compulsively readable. He consented to read her dead son's 'great' novel. Not familiar with the circumstances surrounding the book, Toole's mother, Of Dunces, to be an instance where this happened. I believe John Kennedy Toole's very funny, but badly flawed, Confederacy The background elements will effect how we judge the novel itself.

There's always a danger, when the story of a book's publication or anĪuthor's biography is really compelling, that our natural fascination with Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting Know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in When a true genius appears in the world, you may

A confederacy of dunces book review