There seems to be little point or direction through most of the novel. The story is about a series of characters in New Orleans in the 60s, who are all affected by the main character, Ignatius J Reilly, and his ridiculous delusional arrogance. You have to implicitly grasp that the characters, even the narrative, are saying one thing while meaning another. It's funny like Stephen Colbert (without the political bent). It's not funny like Jim Carey or Robin Williams or Howard Stern. That's not a measure of intelligence, it's just like rolling your Rs-some people can, and some people can't. Reading the reviews, it's obvious that not everyone gets satire. This book has become an American comic masterpiece. Reilly, an obese, self-absorbed, hapless Don Quixote of the French Quarter, whose half-hearted attempts at employment lead to a series of wacky adventures among the lower denizens of New Orleans. The hero of John Kennedy Toole's incomparable, Pultizer Prize–winning comic classic is one Ignatius J. So enters one of the most memorable characters in recent American fiction. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.

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. it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”- The New York Times Book ReviewĪ green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. the novel astonishes with its inventiveness.

A confederacy of dunce's