A Confederacy of Dunces - Hardcover

Toole, John Kennedy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807106577 ISBN 13: 9780807106570

Publisher: Louisiana State University Press, 1980

Synopsis

After more than three decades, the peerless wit and indulgent absurdity of A Confederacy of Dunces continues to attract new readers. Though the manuscript was rejected by many publishers during Toole's lifetime, his mother successfully published the book years after her son's suicide, and it won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This literary underdog and comic masterpiece has sold more than two million copies in twenty-three languages.

The 35th anniversary edition of A Confederacy of Dunces celebrates Toole's novel as well as one of the most memorable protagonists in American literature, Ignatius J. Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubbed "slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one." Set in New Orleans with a wild cast of characters including Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levi Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; and Jones, the jivecat in space-age dark glasses, the novel serves as an outlandish but believable tribute to a city defined by its parade of eccentric denizens.

The genius of A Confederacy of Dunces is reaffirmed as successive generations embrace this extravagant satire. Adulation for Toole's comic epic remains as intense today as thirty-five years ago.

About this title

Review

It's been hailed as a masterpiece and reviled as trash, but A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole has never been lightly dismissed. By creating Ignatius J. Reilly, a bigger-than-life bag of wind stuffed with some of the most comically outrageous and disturbingly insightful opinions ever put to paper, Toole made an indelible mark on the landscape of American literature--a feat recognized with the posthumous publication of this novel, followed by a Pulitzer Prize. Forced to wade the lower depths of New Orleans society, the gargantuan Ignatius, his poor mother in tow, takes us on a tour de force through the back alleys and juke joints of the French Quarter of New Orleans as he implores the gods, railing against the hypocrisy of contemporary politics and the crushing weight of late capitalism. "The luminous years ... dimmed into dross; Fortuna's wheel had turned ... Having once been so high, humanity fell so low. What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale." Toole's suicide at 32 silenced a uniquely promising literary voice, denying his critics and fans the opportunity to determine whether his talent was a flash in the pan or a first spark of genius. Read A Confederacy of Dunces and you'll no doubt have formed your own inflexible opinion, which you'll defend tenaciously against all reason. --George Laney, Amazon.com

Review

"What a delight, what a roaring, rollicking, footstomping wonder this book is. I laughed until my sides ached, and then I laughed on."

"A masterwork... the novel astonishes with its inventiveness... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue." -- New York Times Book Review

"Crazy magnificent once-in-a-blue-moon first novel.... There is a touch of genius about Toole and what he has created." -- Publishers Weekly

"A masterwork... the novel astonishes with its inventiveness... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue." New York Times Book Review"

"Crazy magnificent once-in-a-blue-moon first novel.... There is a touch of genius about Toole and what he has created."-- Publishers Weekly"

Edition details

• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
• Publication date: 1980
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807106577
• ISBN 13: 9780807106570
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 350