An Author's Life That Gives A Story Dual Meanings

John Kennedy Toole’s, A Confederacy of Dunces, is a Pulitzer Prize winning compilation of reckless happenings to the disillusioned New Orleans native Ignatius J. Reilly. Reilly is a former English major who lost his father and lives at home with his mom. The story begins describing Reilly’s simply-put goofy demeanor of being overweight, having a strange and somewhat discomforting mustache, possessing a flatulence problem and wearing a green cap. Some have even called him a modern Don Quixote. To make his character a bit more understandable, Zach Galifianakis is rumored to be playing the part of Ignatius in the film adaptation of the book. Ignatius preaches against materialistic comforts and things that are clearly lacking of “theology and geometry.”

After the first chapter, Toole takes the reader down a road of several sub-plots so large and unique that one might even worry that he won’t be able to tie the knot back together in the end. But he does, and quite skillfully in fact. Throughout the book, Ignatius holds a number of jobs to which he inputs his philosophical two-cents. He goes from working at Levy Pants where he organizes the predominantly African-American factory workers in a demonstration for higher wages which he titles the “Crusade for Moorish Dignity” to being a hot dog vendor dressed as a pirate in the French Quarter. Ignatius gets involved with some crazy characters and eventually stirs up real trouble in the end when he unknowingly helps expose a high school pornography distribution scheme out of one of the local bars. During the course of all these events, Reilly spends large amounts of time in his room reading Boethius and writing of his struggles and his political ideals about “Saving the World Through Degeneracy” in a most sophisticated manner, eventually trying to organize a social movement. He signs his journal entries: “Your working pacifist boy.”  Needless to say this book is extremely comedic, but still high-browish.

The only serious connotation associated with this book is the story of its author, John Kennedy Toole. I can usually remove the author’s background from my thoughts when reading a book, but not in this case. Toole himself was actually born in New Orleans in 1937. He earned his master’s in English from Columbia University and then went on to teach at three different colleges in Louisiana. But in the year 1969, under a mix of societal pressures and a failure to get this very book published, John Kennedy Toole parked his car near the edge of a wooded area in New Orleans after returning from a spontaneous cross country road trip, ran a hose from the smoking exhaust pipe into the vehicle and sat there basking in disillusionment with the way his life had gone. Three years later, his mother found the old manuscript that he had failed to get published, and made it her goal to do so. After submitting the manuscript to multiple different publishers, the famous novelist Walker Percy agreed to vouch for the work and it was made for the whole world to read. The novel was praised on many different levels of literary accomplishment.

And critics had ample reason to do so. A Confederacy of Dunces successfully points out all the eccentricities and ambiguities that comprise the New Orleans culture; a feat many have been unsuccessful in accomplishing. The story features so much of that indescribable New Orleans accent and most of Toole’s characters come off as somewhat uneducated, which is a major contrast with Ignatius Reilly and his over-the-top verbose lectures that are given in response to simple questions. The book is unpredictable, hysterical, and stimulating, yet it has never failed in making me look like a lunatic when laughing to myself about its contents. But more importantly, the reflection of John Kennedy Toole’s life in the story is powerful.

You cannot just read the book by itself. In order to appreciate it, the book must be read with the knowledge that it correlates directly with even some of the minutest details of Toole’s life like the absence of a father, the far too nurturing mother, and overall disillusionment with society to his favorite soda, “Dr. Nut”. That’s just the nature of the book. The entire story has tragic and serious undertones but they are played off by an overwhelming essence of comic relief. When people have asked me what the book that I’m reading is about in casual conversation, I simply say: “I can’t even begin to tell you.” John Kennedy Toole was able to make silly characters—in the grand scheme of things—contribute to a plot that seems even more stupid. Once you get to the end of the book you realize that any hard thought for prevalence of a theme won’t be anything that you’ve never come across in previous stories. But once you equate the life of the book’s author to that of the main character, the unique contrast between the highly comedic plot and the tragic deterioration of a brilliant writer’s psyche and life that inspired it becomes clear, revealing the work's real value.