Review: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

While planning to go to New Orleans from Ft. Lauderdale, I was told two things: Do not eat the Lucky Dogs and read A Confederacy of Dunces so I would know why. John Kennedy Toole's novel was supposed to tell me everything I needed to know about New Orleans. I love books, especially new books I haven't read, so I picked up the book and read it. That was 1984.

Writing about the French Quarter and New Orleans again in my followup novel to Among Women, I decided to pick up A Confederacy of Dunces (for my Kindle) and read it again. It was like reading the book for the first time: a little baffling, but addictive, much like Lucky Dogs, which I used to sell in the French Quarter. Ignatius J. Reilly, the central character and troublemaker in the novel, works for Lucky Dogs under the name of Paradise Foods, Inc. Toole changed the name of the company, but not the name of the owner, and Clyde was still sending out vendors when I walked through their door in 1984, but that's another story for another time.

Ignatius Jacque Reilly is a behemoth of a man-child with a mammoth vocabulary and a fixation on ancient literature. He has a Masters Degree in literature but has never worked a day in his life. While waiting for his mother outside D. H. Holmes on Canal Street, he is accosted by Officer Mancuso, a New Orleans police officer, starting a near riot from which Mrs. Reilly extracts Ignatius and flees down the street to her car in the rain, backing into a house that will cost her more than $1000 and force her hermit son into the work force. It is Ignatius's trials and tribulations -- and chaos -- in the work force that is the central focus of A Confederacy of Dunces around which the other characters revolve. Ignatius is the black hole which devours everything -- or at least attempts to devour -- all in his path.

With his green hunting cap (ear flaps usually dangling) on his head and his voluminous parka and dangling scarf that looks more like a blanket, Ignatius trolls the waters of commerce wreaking havoc and sowing the seeds of chaos wherever he goes spouting his Medieval views on the world spouting Boethius and chastity. The one fixed point in Ignatius's life is the Minx, Myrna Minkoff, with whom he trades wit and social monkey wrenches in order to create a more perfect world in their disparate views and completely antithetical to each other. Myrna is free with her female charms and Ignatius keeps a death grip on his virginity, both struggling to bend the other to their view of the world.

John Kennedy Toole's vision of the world of New Orleans as seen through Ignatius J. Reilly's eyes and pyloric valve dysfunctions, was published in 1980, 11 years after his suicide. Toole's mother stormed the bastions at Tulane University to make her son's dreams of publication real, earning Toole a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. Toole took his title from one of Johnathan Swift's essays: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Dunces abound in Toole's 1960s New Orleanian world from 30-year-old Ignatius right down the line through his alcohol baking and imbibing mother and her friends, among which Officer Mancuso numbers, right on to the denizens of the Night of Joy where Burma Jones, a colored porter working for slave wages to avoid a vagrancy charge, the owner, wife, and employees of Levy Pants, and right on to the Sergeant at the precinct who is determined to make Mancuso's life as miserable as possible. Peppered by letters and telegrams between Myrna Minkoff and Ignatius, A Confederacy of Dunces is a bloody train wreck that readers can't avoid watching until the last moment. 

Toole's vision of New Orleans was not too far from what I found in 1984, although with fewer dunces and and dark humor. Reading the novel again was as fresh as reading it for the first time and I was unable to put the book down until I had read the last word. Ignatius is equal parts humorous and shocking and the machinations of Santa Battaglia, Irene Reilly's bowling partner, matchmaker, and stirrer of pots, a sad and infuriating meddler. The exchanges between Gus Levy and his bored wife as she badgers Gus and begins yet another  new projects while going up and down on her exercise board ("Leave the board out of this.") provide more train wrecks to goggle at.

In short, join Ignatius on his downward spiral from his hermit's existence in his mother's home into the working world of New Orleans as his pyloric valve determines his actions while he reforms the world in his own image. A Confederacy of Dunces is 5/5 in my estimation.

Afternoon Delight

Just have time for a quickie post, but I wanted to share the finished cover for my novel. This is the cover without the logo in case I cannot convince Jerry that my book will do his business good.

This cover, as are several other covers, is due to the very talented Michael R. Reighn, who does beautiful work and puts up with my futzing around with things. I give him a little grief and he gives me beautiful covers.

I would also like to mention that Among Men is the sequel to Among Women and is the 2nd book in a series about Pearl Caldwell and her misadventures. If you want to be up to date, read Among Women first, so you'll be ready for the big showdown.

Thank is all. Disperse.

No Pictures, Please

Imagine my surprise when my cover artist reminds me that we need permission from a vendor prominently displayed on the cover of the new novel, Among Men, and in the bulk of the story, much of which happens around a hot dog cart in New Orleans. I found a great picture and negotiated with the photographer for its use as the background for the cover, which is coming along beautifully, thanks to Michael R. Reighn, my cover artist, and now I might have to take out the hot dog cart.

I'm a take the bull by the horns kind of writer, so I took the bull by the horns, looked up the number, and called the vendor. I asked to speak to the manager and ended up with Jerry, who I assume is the manager. I can't possibly be the guy I worked for over 30 years ago because he was probably 40 or 50 then and Jerry didn't sound that old. He sounded positively friendly -- at first -- when he said, "Sure, go ahead and use it. It will be great advertising for us." When I responded in a similar friendly manner, his tone changed immediately. "We need to deal with this in a more professional manner," he said, a note of we are not going to laugh and have a good time in his tone. And he got professional on me.

He said I could not use the logo or the cart or mention the company after he found out it was for a novel, a fictionalized version of my own experiences in New Orleans and working for the company 30 years ago. He suggested I fictionalize the name as well, as John Kennedy Toole did when he called the company Paradise Dogs in his novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, which, Jerry told me, is being made into a movie with a sequel already planned. I began to see what was really on Jerry's mind.

Jerry wrote a book about the company in Managing Ignatius, which was published in February 1999, and is now experiencing a resurgence of sales due to the focus on Confederacy, which is why he is coming out with a sequel to his own nonfiction offering about the company. I own the book, by the way, as I also own a copy of Confederacy. I bought my copy of Jerry's book for a penny and there are lots more available for a penny, too. I imagine the price will go up once the movie and the sequel to Jerry's book are released. I wish him luck with his second book. 

At any rate, we settled on a compromise of sorts. I will send him a finished copy of the novel and a copy of the cover so he can look it over and decide that my use is in no way defamatory and I can continue with it as planned. I do not foresee any problems and I hope I won't find the photo I bought royalty-free rights to isn't a costly mistake, though not as costly as it could have been. The photographer and I were able to negotiate a compromise that benefited us both and I will rely on my talent with talking my way out of or into whatever crops up in my path. I do not want to have to change the book that drastically or dilute the story, especially since I may have mentioned the company in the first novel, a copy of which I have sent to Jerry to scan for defamatory remarks and misuse of the company's good name.

I know one thing. The company is as much a part of New Orleans and the French Quarter with the carts on nearly every corner up and down Bourbon Street and along the Riverwalk. They can be found all over New Orleans and everywhere there is a gathering of hungry people, each vendor in the red and white striped shirt that marks him or her as a vendor for the company and purveyor of 8 inches of meat in a bun with whatever condiments will draw the hungry crowds. I ate a few of them before and after I worked for the company, but never when I was working with the company. Here's to indie publishing, even without lawyers and a high powered publisher's name to shock and awe companies willing to have their logo displayed prominently in novels the world over.

 

It's Live

It's not often I get a chance to plug my book, so please forgive me if I plug mine.

Among Women just went live at David Wisehart's Kindle site. Take a look.

Much of what goes on in jails has been sensationalized for movies, television, and novels. What really happens is very different. Orleans Parish prison in New Orleans is jail, despite the name, and Pearl Caldwell was incarcerated there for six weeks, six interminable weeks when she didn't know how long she'd be there or when she'd get to see a judge or a lawyer. Among Women is the story of those six weeks and what led up to being jailed. It is also the story of how Pearl's eyes were opened and her views changed of the kinds of people who end up in jail.

She began writing as a way to maintain her sanity, but became a confidante, a modern Scheherazade, who wrote down the stories of the women she met and came to know. The long hours, the injustices, the tales of the women are woven in and around the core of Pearl's experiences. It's not an easy story, but it one that at last can be told.

The time is late December 1984. The place is New Orleans. The story is Pearl's and the women of Orleans Parish Prison.

Among Women is available at all bookstores in print and ebook. Also available at Smashwords in all ebook formats. Check it out. You'll be enlightened if you do.

Old-fashioned manners

One thing I find continually fascinating is how people view someone who is polite, even when they are irritated or angry.

I was brought up to be unfailingly polite and it has served me well in some very sticky situations. Being polite has also made some circumstances a bit weird.

When I worked in New Orleans as one of the attractions in a haunted house on Conti about a half-block from Bourbon Street -- I was the gypsy fortuneteller -- people often came through drunk. With all the daiquiris and Hurricanes floating around, it wasn't a surprise. Add cheap and plentiful beer in 32-ounce, or larger, cups and you have a sloshing mix of vomit, slurred speech, passing out and belligerence that makes everything else seem pedestrian. All that alcohol, especially in most men, super fuels their worst traits. One inebriated tourist who was scared when he found out I wasn't a wax figure, like Madame Tussuad's on Bourbon, tried to impress his friends with his knowledge of animal anatomy.

There was a small skull on my black velvet covered table next to the crystal ball on an ornate golden stand. "What's that?" he asked as he lurched over the short railing that surrounded my enclosure. "The jawbone of an ass," I responded, smiling sweetly behind my black lace veil. "Don't you recognize it?" He nearly broke his neck attempting to jump the railing to get to me as he shouted curses and spilled beer over his friends, the drapes and the walls. He wanted to kill me for killing his punch line. The roaming specter caught him just in time and hauled him off to the relief of his wife and friends.

Most of the people who have flung their disdain and pique and foulness in my direction have been similarly met with a cool and calm demeanor and some very cutting and quick retorts, but most of the time I prefer to rely on what I was taught: always be polite. Sometimes it's the best defense.

Recently, someone I know pretty well but who just didn't get the message that we were through until a couple of days ago, had contacted me on Monday morning after six months of silence to ask a favor. I didn't have what he required, but I did point him in the direction where he could find what he wanted. He thanked me and I responded with, "You're very welcome." It was a short and to the point exchange. No frills and no conversation. Just the facts.

When he later finally paid attention and found out that I was done waiting around for him to show up or carry on any kind of normal communication expected in a relationship, he was devastated. He could not understand how I could be so polite and obliging and not give him a sign that I was angry at him. It's because I'm not angry. There is a point where someone has ignored you and caused so much pain and so many tears that you reach a point where there are no more tears and no more pain. Emotional resources are exhausted, at least where they are concerned, and all that remains is cool politeness, common civility of the kind reserved for casual acquaintances and strangers. It's always best to save the anger, rancor, bile and venom for people close to you so you can hurt them as much as they hurt you. After all, we only hurt the ones we can reach. Don't you find that so?

He keeps searching for an answer. Why was I polite if I was so hurt and angry? The answer is simple. I am no longer hurt and angry. The emotional trash has been taken out and we continue now as common and indifferent acquaintances, as Jane Bennett observed. It never hurts to be polite to people, even the ones you can reach, and I've found that common civility and politeness usually leave a deeper impression than screaming tantrums and tearful scenes. I certainly left a lasting impression on the pickled and beer-soaked tourist who found himself likened to an ass. That was one polite retort I doubt he'll ever forget, no matter how drunk he gets, or at least that is the impression his wife left when she showed up at the box office the next day to deliver a message for the gypsy fortuneteller who put her overweening and pompous husband in his place.

A kind word, a smile and a polite manner always leaves them guessing. Old-fashioned manners are best.