Dunces is a picaresque novel featuring the misadventures of protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, overweight, misanthropic, self-styled scholar who lives at home with his mother. He is an educated but slothful 30-year-old man living in the Uptown neighborhood of early-1960s New Orleans who, in his quest for employment, has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters. Toole wrote the novel in 1963 during his last few months in Puerto Rico. It is hailed for its accurate depictions of New Orleans dialects. Toole based Reilly in part on his college professor friend Bob Byrne. Byrne's slovenly, eccentric behavior was anything but professorial, and Reilly mirrored him in these respects. The character was also based on Toole himself, and several personal experiences served as inspiration for passages in the novel. While at Tulane, Toole filled in for a friend at a job as a hot tamale cart vendor, and worked at a family owned and operated clothing factory. Both of these experiences were later adopted into his fiction.
Synopsis
Ignatius J. Reilly is an overweight and unemployed thirty-year-old with a master's degree in Medieval History who lives with his mother in New Orleans. He utterly loathes the modern world, which he feels has lost the medieval values of "geometry and theology". One afternoon Ignatius is waiting on the street for his mother. He is dressed in a green hunting cap, voluminous tweed trousers, a red plaid flannel shirt and a muffler. Officer Angelo Mancuso approaches Ignatius because he reckons he looks like a suspicious character and demands that he produce identification. Affronted and outraged by Mancuso's unwarranted zeal and officious manner, Ignatius protests his innocence to the crowd while denouncing the city's vices and the graft of the local police. An elderly man, Claude Robichaux, takes Ignatius's side, denouncing Officer Mancuso and the police as communists. Mrs. Reilly arrives and demand that Mancuso arrest Robichaux as the cause of the disturbance. In the resulting uproar, Ignatius and his mother escape, taking refuge in the Night of Joy, a bar and strip club, in case Officer Mancuso is still in pursuit.
At the police station Robichaux meets Burma Jones, a young black man who also been wrongly arrested, he claims, but seems resigned to his fate. The Sergeant tells Mancuso off for arresting Robichaux and punishes him for his uselessness by making him start to wear a different costume every day on the beat, beginning with a ballerina outfit.
At the Night of Joy the bar owner arrives and throws Ignatius and his mother out, saying they are bringing the tone of the place down. Mrs. Reilly has drunk too much. As a result, she crashes her car. The compensation she owes for the accident totals $1,020, a sizable amount of money in early 1960s New Orleans. Ignatius is forced to work for the first time in many years in order to help his mother pay the debt.
At the police station Jones is told he must get a job or be arrested for vagrancy. He reluctantly starts work as a janitor at the Night of Joy. The owner can get away with paying him below the minimum wage and treating him badly because Jones knows if he loses the job, he will be in jail. The only way he can fight back, he decides, is to try to sabotage the business if opportunities occur.
Darlene, the bar hostess, has an ambition to perform there as a stripper, and has devised an act involving her pet cockatoo. She has trained the cockatoo to pull off rings that hold her costume together.
Ignatius answers an ad for a position in the office at the Levy Pants factory. Here he performs no useful work, but does arbitrarily throw away several entire file cabinet drawers full of important files. He sends an insulting letter to a complaining customer on official stationery over the owner's signature. He carries out a regular and aggressive correspondence with his college friend Myrna Minkoff in New York. She criticizes his self-centered lifestyle and urges him to join her in radical political agitation. To impress Myrna, Ignatius tries (unsuccessfully) to incite the black workforce at the pants factory into a violent demonstration for better pay.
Dismissed from this job, he chances into employment pushing a hot dog cart. He makes no sales and spends most of his time consuming the stock himself. His boss insists that he wear a pirate outfit to try to entice trade from tourists in the Latin Quarter.
Ignatius gets the idea that universal peace could be brought about by inciting gay men to encourage all the homosexuals in the armed forces to declare themselves, and substitute love making for warfare. To this end he attends a wild gay party in the Latin Quarter looking for recruits to his cause, but when he begins to harangue the guests he is thrown out.
He arrives at the Night of Joy to find Jones at the door dressed as a plantation slave and Darlene about to have her opening night stripping as a Southern Belle character. Jones urges him in, hoping that trouble will ensue. When Darlene takes to the stage her cockatoo spies the gold pirate earring dangling from Ignatius’s ear and flies at it, causing chaos.
Ignatius spills out into the street and is rescued by Jones from being hit by a passing bus. Ignatius faints.
When Ignatius gets home his mother has had enough and phones for an ambulance to take him away to the mental hospital. Just then Myrna arrives at the door, having come from New York to rescue Ignatius from his lifestyle. Ignatius urges her to drive him away right then, and on the road they pass the ambulance heading to Mrs. Reilly's house.
Major characters
Ignatius J. Reilly
Ignatius Jacques Reilly is something of a modern Don Quixote—eccentric, idealistic, and creative, sometimes to the point of delusion.[2] In his foreword to the book, Walker Percy describes Ignatius as a "slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one". He disdains modernity, particularly pop culture. The disdain becomes his obsession: he goes to movies in order to mock their perversity and express his outrage with the contemporary world's lack of "theology and geometry". He prefers the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, and the Early Medieval philosopher Boethius in particular.[4] However, he also enjoys many modern comforts and conveniences and is given to claiming that the rednecks of rural Louisiana hate all modern technology, which they associate with unwanted change. The workings of his pyloric valve play an important role in his life, reacting strongly to incidents in a fashion that he likens to Cassandra in terms of prophetic significance.[5]
Ignatius is of the mindset that he does not belong in the world and that his numerous failings are the work of some higher power. He continually refers to the goddess Fortuna as having spun him downwards on her wheel of fortune. Ignatius loves to eat, and his masturbatory fantasies lead in strange directions. His mockery of obscene images is portrayed as a defensive posture to hide their titillating effect on him. Although considering himself to have an expansive and learned worldview, Ignatius has an aversion to ever leaving the town of his birth, and frequently bores friends and strangers with the story of his sole, abortive journey out of New Orleans, a trip to Baton Rouge on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bus, which Ignatius recounts as a traumatic ordeal of extreme horror.
Myrna Minkoff
Myrna Minkoff, referred to by Ignatius as "that minx," is a Jewish beatnik from New York City, whom Ignatius met while she was in college in New Orleans.[2] Though their political, social, religious, and personal orientations could hardly be more different, Myrna and Ignatius fascinate one another. The novel repeatedly refers to Myrna and Ignatius having engaged in tag-team attacks on the teachings of their college professors. For most of the novel, she is seen only in the regular correspondence which the two sustain since her return to New York, a correspondence heavily weighted with sexual analysis on the part of Myrna and contempt for her apparent sacrilegious activity by Ignatius. Officially, they both deplore everything the other stands for. Though neither of them will admit it, their correspondence indicates that, separated though they are by half a continent, many of their actions are meant to impress one another.
Irene Reilly
Mrs. Irene Reilly is the mother of Ignatius. She has been widowed for 21 years. At first, she allows Ignatius his space and drives him where he needs to go; however, over the course of the novel she learns to stand up for herself. She also has a drinking problem, most frequently indulging in muscatel, although Ignatius exaggerates that she is a raving, abusive drunk.[2]
She falls for Claude Robichaux, a fairly well-off man with a railroad pension and rental properties. At the end of the novel, she decides she will marry Claude. But first, she agrees with Santa Battaglia (who has not only recently become Mrs. Reilly's new best friend, but also harbors an intense dislike for Ignatius) that Ignatius is insane and arranges to have him sent to a mental hospital.
Others
Santa Battaglia, a "grammaw" who is friends with Mrs. Reilly and has a marked disdain for Ignatius
Claude Robichaux, an old man constantly on the lookout for any "communiss" who might infiltrate the United States; he takes an interest in protecting Irene
Angelo Mancuso, an inept police officer, the nephew of Santa Battaglia, who, after an abortive attempt to arrest Ignatius as a "suspicious character," features prominently in the novel as Ignatius's self-perceived nemesis
Lana Lee, a pornographic model who runs the "Night of Joy", a downscale French Quarter strip club
George, Lana's distributor, who sells photographs of her to high-school children
Darlene, a goodhearted but none-too-bright girl, who aspires to be a "Night of Joy" stripper, with a pet cockatoo
Burma Jones, a black janitor for the "Night of Joy" who holds on to his below-minimum wage job only to avoid being arrested for vagrancy
Mr. Clyde, the frustrated owner of Paradise Vendors, a hot dog vendor business, who inadvisedly employs Ignatius as a vendor
Gus Levy, the reluctant, mostly absentee owner of Levy Pants, an inherited family business in the Bywater neighborhood where Ignatius briefly works
Mrs. Levy, Gus's wife, who attempts to psychoanalyze her husband and Miss Trixie despite being completely unqualified to do so
Mr. Gonzalez, the meek office manager at Levy Pants
Dorian Greene, a flamboyant French Quarter homosexual who puts on elaborate parties
Frieda Club, Betty Bumper, and Liz Steele, a trio of aggressive lesbians who run afoul of Ignatius
Dr. Talc, a mediocre professor at Tulane who had the misfortune of teaching Myrna and Ignatius
Miss Annie, the disgruntled neighbor of the Reillys who professes an addiction to headache medicine
Ignatius at the movies
Toole provides comical descriptions of two of the films Ignatius watches without naming them; they can be recognized as Billy Rose's Jumbo and That Touch of Mink, both Doris Day features released in 1962.[6] In another passage, Ignatius declines to see another film, a "widely praised Swedish drama about a man who was losing his soul". This is most likely Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, released in early 1963. In another passage, Irene Reilly recalls the night Ignatius was conceived: after she and her husband viewed Red Dust, released in October 1932.[7]
The book is famous for its rich depiction of New Orleans and the city's dialects, including Yat.[8][9] Many locals and writers think that it is the best and most accurate depiction of the city in a work of fiction.[10]
A bronze statue of Ignatius J. Reilly can be found under the clock on the down-river side of the 800 block of Canal Street, New Orleans, the former site of the D. H. Holmes Department Store, now the Hyatt French Quarter Hotel. The statue mimics the opening scene: Ignatius waits for his mother under the D.H. Holmes clock, clutching a Werlein's shopping bag, dressed in a hunting cap, flannel shirt, baggy pants and scarf, 'studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste.' The statue is modeled on New Orleans actor John "Spud" McConnell, who portrayed Ignatius in a stage version of the novel.
Various local businesses are mentioned in addition to D. H. Holmes, including Werlein's Music Store and local cinemas such as the Prytania Theater. Some readers from elsewhere assume Ignatius's favorite soft drink, Dr. Nut, to be fictitious, but it was an actual local soft drink brand of the era. The "Paradise Hot Dogs" vending carts are an easily recognized satire of those actually branded "Lucky Dogs".
Structure
The structure of A Confederacy of Dunces reflects the structure of Ignatius's favorite book, Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy.[11] Like Boethius' book, A Confederacy of Dunces is divided into chapters that are further divided into a varying number of subchapters. Key parts of some chapters are outside of the main narrative. In Consolation, sections of narrative prose alternate with metrical verse. In Confederacy, such narrative interludes vary more widely in form and include light verse, journal entries by Ignatius, and also letters between himself and Myrna. A copy of The Consolation of Philosophy within the narrative itself also becomes an explicit plot device in several ways.
The difficult path to publication
As outlined in the introduction to a later revised edition, the book would never have been published if Toole's mother had not found a smeared carbon copy of the manuscript left in the house following Toole's 1969 death at 31. She was persistent and tried several different publishers, to no avail.
Thelma repeatedly called Walker Percy, an author and college instructor at Loyola University New Orleans, to demand for him to read it. He initially resisted; however, as he recounts in the book's foreword:
...the lady was persistent, and it somehow came to pass that she stood in my office handing me the hefty manuscript. There was no getting out of it; only one hope remained—that I could read a few pages and that they would be bad enough for me, in good conscience, to read no farther. Usually I can do just that. Indeed the first paragraph often suffices. My only fear was that this one might not be bad enough, or might be just good enough, so that I would have to keep reading. In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity: surely it was not possible that it was so good.[12]
While Tulane University in New Orleans retains a collection of Toole's papers, and some early drafts have been found, the location of the original manuscript is unknown.[13]
Adaptations
In March 1984, LSU staged a musical adaptation of the book, with book and lyrics by Frank Galati and music by Edward Zelnis; actor Scott Harlan played Ignatius.[14]
Kerry Shale read the book for BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime in 1982, and later adapted the book into a one-man show which he performed at the Adelaide Festival in 1990,[15] at the Gate Theatre in London, and for BBC Radio.[16]
There have been repeated attempts to turn the book into a film. In 1982, Harold Ramis was to write and direct an adaptation, starring John Belushi as Ignatius and Richard Pryor as Burma Jones, but Belushi's death prevented this. Later, John Candy and Chris Farley were touted for the lead, but both of them, like Belushi, also died at an early age, leading many to ascribe a curse to the role of Ignatius.[17]
Director John Waters was interested in directing an adaptation that would have starred Divine, who also died at an early age, as Ignatius.[18]
British performer and writer Stephen Fry was at one point commissioned to adapt Toole's book for the screen.[19] He was sent to New Orleans by Paramount Studios in 1997 to get background for a screenplay adaptation.[20]
John Goodman, a longtime resident of New Orleans, was slated to play Ignatius at one point.[21]
Various reasons are cited as to why the Soderbergh version has yet to be filmed. They include disorganization and lack of interest at Paramount Pictures, Helen Hill the head of the Louisiana State Film Commission being murdered, and the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.[17] When asked why the film was never made, Will Ferrell has said it is a "mystery".[23]
In a 2013 interview, Steven Soderbergh remarked "I think it's cursed. I'm not prone to superstition, but that project has got bad mojo on it."[25]
In November 2015, Huntington Theatre Company introduced a stage version of A Confederacy of Dunces written by Jeffrey Hatcher in their Avenue of the Arts/BU Theatre location in Boston, starring Nick Offerman as Ignatius J. Reilly. It set a record as the company's highest-grossing production.[26]
Critical reception
On November 5, 2019, the BBC News included A Confederacy of Dunces on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels.[27]Confederacy of Dunces is included on a list of 'most funny' or 'best comedic novel'.[28]
Walker Percy, OblSB was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction.
John Franklin Candy was a Canadian actor and comedian who is best known for his work in Hollywood films. Candy first rose to national prominence in the 1970s as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its SCTV sketch comedy series. He rose to international fame in the 1980s with his roles in comedic films such as Stripes (1981), Splash (1984), Brewster's Millions (1985), Armed and Dangerous (1986), Spaceballs (1987), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), The Great Outdoors (1988), Uncle Buck (1989), and Cool Runnings (1993). He also appeared in supporting roles in The Blues Brothers (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Home Alone (1990) and Nothing but Trouble (1991).
John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, whose posthumously published novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981; he also wrote The Neon Bible. Although several people in the literary world felt his writing skills were praiseworthy, Toole's novels were rejected during his lifetime. Due in part to these failures, he suffered from paranoia and depression, dying by suicide at the age of 31.
Katie Scarlett O'Hara is a fictional character and the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the 1939 film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Leigh. She also is the main character in the 1970 musical Scarlett and the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994. During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy", and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print. PBS has called O'Hara "quite possibly the most famous female character in American history..."
The Neon Bible is John Kennedy Toole's first novel, written at the age of 16. The novel is a bildungsroman about a callow youth named David in rural Mississippi during the late 1930s to early 1950s. He learns of religious, racial, social, and sexual bigotry in the narrator's ten strongest memories, one memory per chapter. The memories begin with David on a train, escaping the past, hoping for freedom. The book is told entirely from the first person.
New Orleans English is American English native to the city of New Orleans and its metropolitan area. Native English speakers of the region actually speak a number of varieties, including the variety most recently brought in and spreading since the 20th century among white communities of the Southern United States in general ; the variety primarily spoken by black residents ; the variety spoken by Cajuns in southern Louisiana ; the variety traditionally spoken by affluent white residents of the city's Uptown and Garden District; and the variety traditionally spoken by lower middle- and working-class white residents of Eastern New Orleans, particularly the Ninth Ward. However, only the last two varieties are unique to New Orleans and are typically those referred to in the academic research as "New Orleans English". These two varieties specific to New Orleans likely developed around the turn of the nineteenth century and most noticeably combine speech features commonly associated with both New York City English and, to a lesser extent, Southern U.S. English. The noticeably New York-like characteristics include the NYC-like short-a split, non-rhoticity, th-stopping, and the recently disappearing coil–curl merger. Noticeably Southern characteristics include the fronting of and possible monophthongization of.
The Big Chief tablet is a popular writing notebook designed for young children in the United States. It is made with newsprint paper and features widely spaced lines, easier to use for those learning to write. The tablet has a prominent representation of an American Indian man in full headdress on the cover, hence the name "Big Chief".
Cassian, or Saint Cassian of Imola, or Cassius was a Christian saint of the 4th century. His feast day is August 13.
Robert Adams Gottlieb was an American writer and editor. He was the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker.
That Touch of Mink is a 1962 American romantic comedy film directed by Delbert Mann, and starring Cary Grant, Doris Day, Gig Young and Audrey Meadows.
The 12th Ward or Twelfth Ward is a division of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, one of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. The Ward was formerly part of the old Jefferson City annexed by New Orleans in 1870.
Mancuso is an Italian surname derived from a Sicilian noun, related to the Italian mancino, which means "left-handed". An alternate form can be Mancusi. Notable people with the surname include:
Charity Hospital was one of two teaching hospitals which were part of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (MCLNO), the other being University Hospital. Three weeks after the events of Hurricane Katrina, then-Governor Kathleen Blanco said that Charity Hospital would not reopen as a functioning hospital. The Louisiana State University System, which owns the building, stated that it had no plans to reopen the hospital in its original location. It chose to incorporate Charity Hospital into the city's new medical center in the lower Mid-City neighborhood. The new hospital completed in August 2015 was named University Medical Center New Orleans.
John "Spud" McConnell is an American actor and television/radio personality based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is married to actor/producer Maureen Brennan.
St. Mary's Dominican College was a liberal arts college for women in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana.
Dr. Nut was a soft drink produced by New Orleans–based World Bottling Company. It was introduced in the 1930s and was produced until the late 1970s. Dr. Nut had a distinct almond flavor, similar to Amaretto liquor, and bottles were characterized by their plain logo depicting a squirrel nibbling on a large nut. In the 1940s it was marketed at a competitive price, was known for its slogans, and for having a man in a running costume who ran with the Mardi Gras parades.
Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans is a hotel on Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. A downtown landmark, the building was constructed in 1849 and served as a highly successful department store for more than a century. The structure was redeveloped as a boutique hotel, opening in 1995. It features suites named for writers Tennessee Williams and John Kennedy Toole, as well for jazz musician Louis Armstrong – all of whose work is associated with the city and the Quarter.
D. H. Holmes was a New Orleans department store and later a New Orleans–based chain of department stores. The company was founded in 1842 by Daniel Henry Holmes, after whom it is named. In 1849 he moved his headquarters to Canal Street, where he developed his first department store. He followed the model of pioneering department stores in Paris and New York City to offer his customers the best products and services.
New Orleans Review, founded in 1968, is a journal of contemporary literature and culture that publishes "poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, photography, film and book reviews" by established and emerging writers and artists. New Orleans Review is a publication of the Department of English at Loyola University New Orleans. Lindsay Sproul is the current editor-in-chief.
William Kenneth Holditch was a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Orleans. He was one of the pre-eminent scholars of the American playwright Tennessee Williams. Notably, he co-founded the Tennessee Williams Literary Festivals in New Orleans; Columbus, Mississippi; and Clarksdale, Mississippi, and he served on the advisory board of the festival in Provincetown, Rhode Island. His published works include Tennessee Williams and the South and The World of Tennessee Williams with Richard Freeman Leavitt as well as co-editor with Mel Gussow for the Library of America's Tennessee Williams Plays 1937-1955.
↑ Patteson, Richard F (1982), "Ignatius Goes to the Movies: The Films in Toole's 'A Confederacy of Dunces'", NMAL: Notes on Modern American Literature, 6 (2), item 14.
↑ Allman, Kevin. "John Waters". Gambit New Orleans News and Entertainment. Best of New Orleans. Archived from the original(interview) on 2010-06-12. Retrieved 2011-08-01.
↑ Brodesser-Akner, Claude (2012-05-22), "Exclusive: 'Dunces' Finds Its Ignatius in Galifianakis", Vulture, archived from the original on 2012-06-14, retrieved 2012-06-09.
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Dunne, Sara L (2005), "Moviegoing in the Modern Novel: Holden, Binx, Ignatius", Studies in Popular Culture, 28 (1): 37–47.
Kline, Michael (1999), "Narrating the Grotesque: The Rhetoric of Humor in John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces", Southern Quarterly, 37 (3–4): 283–91.
Leighton, H Vernon (2007–2012), John Kennedy Toole Research, Winona, three scholarly articles (including one free full text) and other materials.
Lowe, John (2008), "The Carnival Voices of 'A Confederacy of Dunces'", Louisiana Culture from the Colonial Era to Katrina, Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State UP, pp.159–90.
McNeil, David (1984), "A Confederacy of Dunces as Reverse Satire: The American Subgenre", Mississippi Quarterly, 38: 33–47.
Palumbo, Carmine D (1995), "John Kennedy Toole and His Confederacy of Dunces", Louisiana Folklore Miscellany, 10: 59–77.
Patteson, Richard F; Sauret, Thomas (1983), "The Consolation of Illusion: John Kennedy Toole's 'A Confederacy of Dunces'", Texas Review, 4 (1–2): 77–87.
Pugh, Tison (2006), "'It's Prolly Fulla Dirty Stories': Masturbatory Allegory and Queer Medievalism in John Kennedy Toole's 'A Confederacy of Dunces'", Studies in Medievalism, 15: 77–100.
Rudnicki, Robert (2009), "Euphues and the Anatomy of Influence: John Lyly, Harold Bloom, James Olney, and the Construction of John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius", Mississippi Quarterly, 62 (1–2): 281–302.
Simmons, Jonathan (1989), "Ignatius Reilly and the Concept of the Grotesque in John Kennedy Toole's 'A Confederacy of Dunces'", Mississippi Quarterly, 43 (1): 33–43.
Simon, Richard K (1994), "John Kennedy Toole and Walker Percy: Fiction and Repetition in A Confederacy of Dunces", Texas Studies in Literature & Language, 36 (1): 99–116, JSTOR40755032 .
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