Random Developments – Books

A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
This book is like nothing I’ve ever read. It’s a comedy set in New Orleans in what seems to be the late 1950s or early 1960s, and it follows the adventures of Ignatius Reilly, his valve and the people he meets and whose lives he changes, almost always unintentionally.

One of the great things about the book, in fact, is the way in which the stories of all the characters interconnect and the way everything comes together at the end. In the mean time, the book will probably make you laugh out loud very often; it’s not a good book to read if someone is sleeping nearby.

I realize that I’m not describing the book very well, but that’s because it is somewhat hard to describe. Ignatius, our hero, is a very obese 30-something philosopher who lives with his mother in a minuscule house while writing his observations on the state of the world (apalling, according to him) and, occasionally, going to the movies to criticize loudly the depravation displayed on the screen. Suddendly, his life is turned upside-down by the need to find a job to help his mother pay a large debt. This leads him to meet several amazing characters in the streets (and bars) of New Orleans and to go through a number of adventures, most of which are quite different when viewed through his eyes. My favorite character is Patrolman Mancuso, the unlucky officer who tries to arrest Ignatius in the first pages of the book and suffers because of it for the next 400-odd pages.

One extra note: if, after reading this book, you feel like getting to know the work of Boethius, an English translation of “The Consolation of Philosophy” is available online here.

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