Nov 15, 2013 10:34 AM
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“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”
‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ (ACOD) is 1980’s picaresque novel by American writer John Kennedy Toole (JKT). It’s a classic comedy work which is immensely humorous, but there are ironic tragedies associated with it. Its author JKT died in 1969 by committing suicide and it was JKT’s mother, who had huge faith in his writing, got it published with the help of Walker Percy (Details of how Walker gets to know this book from JKT’s mother and his reactions to it forms the FORWARD of the book).
Whenever an attempt was made to make it into a movie, something or the other happened, that hindered the progress, in one instance the actor who was supposed to play the protagonist, Ignatius, died in an accident.
In 1980, it got published and soon became a cult classic and in 1981 it won for JKT a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Afterwards, even today, its considered as one of the major work comedy - Tragicomedy to be precise – and it finds its name many a list of the greatest books of all times. So, question is – what makes ACOD such a great and acknowledged book? And the answer is… well, let’s get to it as we go through the review.
ACOD is about the misadventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a fat and flatulence of a man with elephantine frame and a peculiar comic look with his bushy black mustaches, red shirt and green hunting cap and those blue and yellow eyes. Thing is he doesn’t want to work. He is well educated and clever too, he want to lie around in his room, write stuff, which he feels hold great value in world, he watches movies and annoy people, and is very good at putting all the blames on others, whenever something goes wrong. But the truth my friend is, as Ignatius mother would say – Whatever went wrong, Ignatius done it, and it’s true – directly or indirectly. He hates working and has his ideology that working is for lower class of human beings, and should be avoided as far as possible.
But circumstances, my friend, circumstances and his mother, Mrs. Reilly, forces him to hunt for jobs, much to his loathe. First he works at ‘Levy Pants’ and makes sure it debacles in near future before getting fired. Then he joins ‘Paradise Vendor’ as Hot-Dog vendor but soon gets thrown out from there as well. But lot of things happen with people associated with these two ventures, mostly for the worst. How Ignatius makes big mess of circumstances that leads to his fall and then, how he finally succeeds in getting over it and escape from it all, forms the plot of ACOD.
It’s hard to summarize the plot of ACOD, never was my intention; it’s a big book with labyrinth of sub-plots of different set of characters – crossing each other’s life every now and then. But all these sub-plots of Dunces- like ancillaries to the big company – merge into one towards the end to shape the destiny (or Fortuna as Ignatius would call it) of Ignatius.
Greatest strength of ACOD is its characters each with its own unique style and way of entertaining. There are no heroic or likable characters here that one would love or follow. They are all mean and selfish, idiot and kook to the limits, but they are all enjoyable – be it Mrs. Reilly, Ignatius mother and her friend Santa, Mr. and Mrs. Levy and Mrs. Trixie, Night of Joy with its Lana Lee and Jones, they all come to hate Ignatius and conspire against him. They all contribute in their own way to make the protagonist stand out as one the notable characters of all time, yes I am talking about Ignatius J Reilly.
Character of Ignatius J Reilly, is the soul of this book. He is intellectual, idealist, goof-off, glutton to limits, always have one problem or other with the world, good escapist, and he is lazy to unforgivable limits. It’s no love-able character, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless. As you read you’ll feel repelled by his gargantuan bloats, his deafening contempt, and his disturbing bowels, and his war against everybody. You are surely not going to love anything about Ignatius, but you are going to enjoy it like anything. Its so much fun and so much amusing talks; whenever Ignatius is involved in the dialogues, I promise, a smile will be never your face.
With it’s close to 400 pages long life, ACOD definitely takes some time to get adjusted to as a reader comes across typical words, which seems unique selected for each of the characters, so is with the accents provided. As you sail around, and get familiar with it all, it’s fun-ride for sure. It’s the conversations between different characters that forms the real juice of this book esp. those between – Ignatius and his mother; Mr. Levy (Careless Husband) and Mrs. Levy(nagging wife); Night of Joy’s Owner Lana Lee and her black sweeper Burma Jones. If only, JKT has shortened the descriptive part a bit and reduced the length to some 300+ pages, it would have been much better.
One or two glitches are in term of slowness in the middle section, and unnecessary lengthy letters that Ignatius writes to Myrna, his girlfriend, which kind of serve their purpose in the end. I might have left this book mid-way, twice, but for Ignatius I stuck, and it paid-off, OOooeee, it paid off really well. Also, Communist agenda might be a big laughing thing in those days, but now it bores a bit.
So coming back to the question of – what makes ACOD such a great and acknowledged book? Firstly – Great comic timing of JKT’s writing, one can only imagine his sense of humor through the dialogues of Ignatius; Secondly – a bunch of weird and hateful, but enjoyable characters; thirdly a plot that joins these two facets and bring out the best of them. I highly recommend this work from a writer who could have given us many such laugh-riots, if only he had lived to see the success of his masterpiece.
Here are some dialogues from the book, mostly by Ignatius, just to let you know what this is all about:
Mrs. Reilly: You don’t have to worry about, Mr. Levy, son. I’m gonna fix you up. Just remember your poor momma’s got your welfare at heart.
Ignatius: That’s what I’m afraid of.
Ignatius: You can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces
Ignatius: I suspect that I am the result of particularly weak conception on the part of my father. His sperm was probably emitted in a rather offhand manner.
Ignatius: It's not your fate to be well treated. You're an overt masochist. Nice treatment will confuse and destroy you
Ignatius: I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.
Ignatius: Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today's employer is seeking.
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PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAAEGA.....
