A Confederacy of Dunces

I started to read this before I was planning to visit New Orleans. I got bored with it and went there without finishing the book, then just recently decided to knock the rest of it out. It picked up and was not a slow read, but I still feel like the book was missing something, from what is often hyped as one of the great, most hilarious books of the century. Learning a bit about the origin story is oddly poignant for a book with many fart, burp, and other physical jokes at the expense of its slob lead character, but alas the story about Gottlieb telling him he should revise the work makes me want to side with Gottlieb. The book may have been better if Toole had been able to revise it. And I'd have been interested in his follow up works that were never created.

The description of the book says “tragic comedy” and that says it all. Not because you feel sad for any of these characters. Kennedy Toole masterfully gives us distance to see what is absurd about them.

Ignatius is both a slob and a snob. A buffoon who behaves so badly to everyone that you're laughing and amazed at the same time at what he tries to get away with. Most of the people reacting to him are not exactly “the straight man” because they are all for the most part onto him, and in some cases perpetuating schemes of their own.

My favorite element is how well all the groups of characters and their storylines converge for a chaotic ending. I love books that can do that and have it be, not exactly believable in the realistic sense, but perfectly fitting for the tone of the book.

An intimate look at a Shaquille O Neal sized human who spends his days working at a pants factory, selling hot dogs and communicating with Myrna, a New York beatnik friend? Not as funny as I was expecting; a sense of comedic repetition can drag the story down, but Toole does have things to say about capitalism, consumerism and race that ultimately make it more than just a laugh-out-loud type book.