This is a story about Ignatius J. Reilly and his (mis)adventures through New Orleans during the 1960s. He is self-absorbed, pompous, odd, condescending, egocentric, lazy, farts shamelessly in public, deluded, a behemoth with "paws", and who, at 30, still lives with his mother. He is repulsive in every way but is also very articulate and well-educated. The reader follows Ignatius as he stumbles from one ridiculous situation after another -- organizing a workers riot, selling hotdogs, etc. He could very well be the biggest literary buffoon ever conceived and yet, you cannot help but love him. Even the supporting characters are also enjoyable, especially the floor-mopping Jones (Whoa!).

There is a lot to be said about this novel as it is without a doubt a work of comedic genius, but I'll just say this -- PICK UP A COPY AND READ IT. It's hilarious!

PS: John Kennedy Toole commited suicide partially perhaps as a result of failing to get this book published. After his death, his mother provided a copy of the manuscript to the great southern classic writer, Walker Percy (The Moviegoer, The Message in a Bottle). The book was published, became a cult classic, and 11 years later, won a Pulitzer. Great story.

One of the funnier novels you could ever read.

John Kennedy Toole never saw the publication of this rollicking adventure that went on to capture the Pulitzer Prize in 1981, having committed suicide twelve years before.

How it got into print was only due the the relentless efforts of his mother, who took the manuscript to dozens and dozens of publishers over a number of years, before showing it to another writer, Mr. Walker Percy, who finally gave it the attention it deserved.

While you laugh out loud at the many misadventures of the pompous and loquacious 300-pound Ignatius J. Reilly as he rumbles around the city of New Orleans, it's hard to imagine how so much hilarity could have been produced by a mind that was clearly in a such a dark place.
Here's how it begins:

"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."

Ironically, my first exposure to this book also came during a dark time, as I read the entire novel over two days while in the hospital recovering from exploratory surgery to determine if I had throat cancer (didn't!).

The recovery/waiting area was a large room containing approximately thirty beds and we were divided from each other only by curtains. How bizarre my chortles of laughter must have sounded as they mixed with the moans and groans of the other patients!

I read this book upon reading on a magazine that it is the one book that Augusten Burroughs always recommends to people. I have to admit that with all the hype on the back of the book, I was a bit leary. The first few pages of the book did not grab me as much as I thought it would. However, as I continued reading, the character of Ignatius Reilly just unfolded for me like a great Christmas present. I think the people who hated the book/Ignatius missed the point of the whole novel. Ignatius' absurdity is what made him lovable to me. And how can anyone not love the "planned riot in the Levy Pants"?!?!?!
As much as this book is hilarious, I also found it to be tragic, especially in the last few chapters.
Anyway, I think this book deserved the Pulitzer, and I'm greatly saddened that Kennedy Toole is not around to write more books like this.

I feel compelled to re-read this book, purchased exclusively on the basis of it being a prize winner... I'll try again, but there are so many books that are wonderful & pleasurable to read from the introductory paragraph to the end that I just can't motivate myself to pick this up again. I do know some very literate people who feel, as I do, that it was dreadful (i.e. cr*p). But it won a pulitzer...how how? Guess that's why I read Man Booker prize winners....

This has to be one of the lamest books I have ever read! All I have ever heard is people rave about it so I picked it up. I read the reviews on the back cover- I couldn't wait to start reading. When I did start reading all I did was wait...that is wait for something good to happen. This is one of the first books that I have ever read in which I had 50 pages left...and didn't want to finish. I cared little about all of the characters, including the main character who had no redeeming qualities to speak of. I am confused as to how this got published...never mind how it won a Pulitzer!

One of the funnier novels you could ever read.

John Kennedy Toole never saw the publication of this rollicking adventure that went on to capture the Pulitzer Prize in 1981, having committed suicide twelve years before.

How it got into print was only due the the relentless efforts of his mother, who took the manuscript to dozens and dozens of publishers over a number of years, before showing it to another writer, Mr. Walker Percy, who finally gave it the attention it deserved.

While you laugh out loud at the many misadventures of the pompous and loquacious 300-pound Ignatius J. Reilly as he rumbles around the city of New Orleans, it's hard to imagine how so much hilarity could have been produced by a mind that was clearly in a such a dark place.
Here's how it begins:

"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."

Ironically, my first exposure to this book also came during a dark time, as I read the entire novel over two days while in the hospital recovering from exploratory surgery to determine if I had throat cancer (didn't!).

The recovery/waiting area was a large room containing approximately thirty beds and we were divided from each other only by curtains. How bizarre my chortles of laughter must have sounded as they mixed with the moans and groans of the other patients!

It sounds like this book is way too obscur and dark for some readers, who should maybe stick to Oprah's book club. Admittedly it can take some time to get into, but not all books have a Davincicodesque plot and storyline. Some books are actual literature and Confederacy of Dunces falls into that category. It is definitely character driven, and although it is comedic it is also tragic. The reader is not meant to identify with Ignatius J. Reilly. He is meant to repulse us. However, he also embodies the pretention we ALL have in our own lives (yes, including myself ! - as well as other critics...) Each of us is proud and a little pretentious with regards to different aspects in our lives, and this is a point the author brings our beautifully.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, but I think people should remember that just because you don't like a character, it doesn't mean the book is bad (I can understand though how it makes us feel like it is...)

Having read this book for a bookclub, I can only gasp with rage that I have lost valuable time in my life reading this...hoping it will get better. The main character was disgusting, a boor, and not interesting in the least. I have met one person in life like him and quickly ran the other way. This book needs to be retired to the trashbin - or put on display as a book never to be repeated!

I'm sorry, but this book did not do it for me at all. While I understood all of the humour, I didn't find it the least bit amusing. The protagonist is annoying, pathetic and ridiculous, the story dull, and the jokes repetitive (How often can someone refer to their valve and still have it be funny?) The characters and plot may be original, but they are neither engaging nor believable.

This book will take you on a wild and unpredictable ride. Every time I recommend it to a friend they read the back cover, look at the oddball picture on the front and give me a puzzled look. But I insist they give it a try. Soon they are telling me they can't put it down and before I know it they've leant it out to somebody else and bought themselves a copy.

Ignatius J. Riley will get under your skin. He is repulsive and adorable at the same time. He has to be the vilest character that fiction ever produced. When reading the things that Ignatius does and thinks you will find yourself simultaneously laughing and shrieking with horror.

Ignatius is brilliant, a student of philosophy and higher learning. Yet, somewhere along the way something in Ignatius has gone terribly wrong. His worldview suggests insanity at times and plain and simple truth at others.

Ignatius manages to get mixed up in altercations with the law, wild parties, peasant revolts and upheaval wherever he goes. There is a cloud of oppression following him and even though he is the picture of disgusting morals and slovenliness, you find yourself champion his cause. Even the man whose company Ignatius single handedly put in pearl, Gus Levy, said of Ignatius, "Sometimes you have to see a person in his real environment to understand him." He felt sorry for the 'kook' who tried to destroy him.

Ignatius's poor mother becomes a villain, along with his nemesis and oddly romantic love-interest, Mirna Minx, who sends him desperate dispatches as crazy and thought provoking as his own.

This story will transfix you. You will want to see this slovenly beast succeed, against all odds. In the end you will want to know Ignatius and champion his cause, which will make you question your own sanity, as he is no less repulsive as the story draws to a close. You will laugh your way through this roller coaster ride and feel a certain discomforting feeling that this poor man's life may in fact mirror that of the author, John Kennedy Toole, who committed suicide before seeing the book's publication and later rise to Pulitzer Prize winning fame.

You've never met anyone quite like Ignatius J. Reilly, and you should consider yourself lucky. Reilly is the proverbial bull in the china shop of this novel, a lumbering intellectual dynamo who affects everyone he meets in mid-60s New Orleans. This is one of the unique creations of 20th century literature.

In "A Confederacy of Dunces" John Kennedy Toole creates an outrageous character in Ignatius J. Reilly. Everything about Ignatius is the opposite to most behaviors and represents the antithesis of all popular value systems. Through Ignatius, Toole criticizes capitalism in the Levy Pants factory that Ignatius works, the institute of law and the morally bankrupt people who live in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Certainly a Mardi Gras in print, the reader is treated to the hilarious perspective and outrageous comments of a modern day knave in Ignatius J. Reilly.

Strange characters and an even stranger antihero are at the heart of this wonderfully absurd novel. Ignatius J. Reilly is a larger than life, over educated, flagrantly lazy, appallingly useless and totally wonderful misfit who drifts from misadventure to misadventure in New Orleans.
The dialogue alone makes the novel worth more than its price. The cast of characters is chaotic, unforgettable and the most original I have ever encountered.
I had to constantly fight the temptation to corner family and friends and make them read the funny parts!
John Kennedy Toole committed suicide before this novel was published. Knowing that this man will never produce another novel makes the reader savour this one all the more.

The story told is original, evocative and imaginative. Mr Toole gives us Ignatius Reilly, who superbly engrosses the reader with his views of philosophy, and the "complete corruption of the 20th century". At the ripe age of 30, I. R. realizes he must enter the workforce. A funny, brilliant work, and the ending is ingenious and as it should be. Enjoy!

An epic comedy of enormous scale that will have even the most jaded reader laughing out loud. Filled to capacity with both high and low humor, this book is also richly ingrained with literary allusions and antecedents - from Bethius and Chaucer to Falstaff and W.C. Fields. Both wonderfully intelligent and delightfully silly, this Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel will keep you both enraptured and giggling. It also possesses what is sure to be one of the most bizarre publishing stories that you will ever encounter.

This book was published by the author's mother after he committed suicide (numerous pubishers' rejections?). It went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winner and a literary classic. It is absolutely brilliant. You will, at once, despise and adore Ignatius J. Reilly, and the abundant and bizarre cast of characters in New Orleans. Curious and more curious!