Winner of the Pulitzer Prize"A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue."-The New York Times Book Review
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. 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. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.
So enters one of the most memorable characters in recent American fiction.
The hero of John Kennedy Toole's incomparable, Pultizer Prize–winning comic classic is one Ignatius J. 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. This book has become an American comic masterpiece.
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
"An astonishingly good novel, radiant with intelligence and artful high comedy."
"A corker, an epic comedy, a rumbling, roaring avalanche of a book."
"The dialogue is superbly mad. You simply sweep along, unbelievably entranced."
"A masterwork of comedy…The novel astonishes with its inventiveness, it lives in the play of its voices."
"If a book's price is measured against the laughs it provokes, A Confederacy of Dunces is the bargain of the year."
"His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures…What a delight, what a roaring, rollicking, footstomping wonder this book is! I laughed until my sides ached, and then I laughed on."
"A Confederacy of Dunces has been reviewed almost everywhere, and every reviewer has loved it. For once, everyone is right."
"A brilliant and evocative novel."
"The episodes explode one after the other like fireworks on a story night. No doubt about it, this book is destined to become a classic."
"A masterpiece of character comedy…The novel can hardly contain burstingly funny Ignatius-and the mix of high and low comedy is almost stroboscopic: brilliant, relentless, delicious, perhaps even classic."
"Barrett Whitener strikes just the right note…He does justice not only to each memorably drawn character but also to the witty, elegant writing."
"The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end."
"A comic masterpiece that memorably evokes the city of New Orleans…Toole's prose is energetic."
