I just had a thought, inspired by this post and somebody else saying something about Ignatius’ mother being the only character who grew (though I feel that other’s grew as well). What if …
… Ignatius isn’t the protagonist? What if, instead, he is the vehicle?
Change the genre.
The book is a disaster story, and Ignatius becomes the hurricane whose path of destruction is the one thing that connects a bunch of random people who otherwise would have nothing in common.
The book is a science fiction story; Ignatius becomes the strange new planet, the reason a disparate group of people are brought together to explore/colonize it.
The book is a documentary about a period in US history; Ignatius becomes the Civil War, and the story is about individual people whose lives were affected by it.
Do this with any genre. Ignatius is simply the Big Event that provides a reason to tell a story about regular people. Because Ignatius himself is a person, and not an event, he has to be bigger than life. He has to be outrageous. He has to be horrifying. Otherwise he wouldn’t be affecting all these random people so strongly and there would be no story.
Enjoyed reading it, didn’t have me guffawing but it’s a definite rib-tickler. It probably is a bit over-hyped - it reads like what it is, the first book of a brilliant talent, who was still learning his trade. It would be wrong to expect a fully-formed masterpiece.
I have, on rare occasion, been threatened with legal action by pompous blowhards. It always puts me in mind of Ignatius - Unless you rectify this issue with immediate effect, I shall be placing the matter in the hands of my attorney
Did any of Confederacy’s here fans ever read The Neon Bible? I realize it can’t have been very good, but I wondered if at least it showed some promise.
Huh. I had no idea there was another written work by Toole out there. I’ll have to check it out. The Wikipedia article on it doesn’t make it seem too promising, and apparently Toole himself didn’t think much of it, but the Amazon reviews are almost universally positive. Granted, I understand they’re probably mostly coming from what are presumably fans of his who dug up this book, but reading through a few of the reviews, it seems like it might actually be a reasonable book.
Has anybody ever read the book “Managing Ignatius: The Lunacy of Lucky Dogs and Life in New Orleans” by a guy that managed the Lucky Dog (Paradise Dogs in the book) hot-dog cart company for 20 years? I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet but I’ve heard good things.
It definitely showed a lot of talent and potential for a 16 year old- in fact, brilliant for a 16 year old- but it never would have been published without the success of Confederacy. Its tone is far more serious, and shows amazing emotional characterization considering his age (and a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of a gay teacher), but plotwise and in other ways it wasn’t ready to go and was totally a cash-in attempt by his family.
Toole’s relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins) felt cheated after they’d mostly signed away their rights to Confederacy of Dunces to his mother Thelma. In most [perhaps 49] other states his mother would automatically have been sole heir to the intestate estate of her only child (well, after her husband’s death), but due to really weird antiquated Louisiana inheritance laws of the time she was only one of multiple heirs to his property. She got Toole’s other relatives to sign a release when she was trying to find a publisher to the book and they probably couldn’t care less, seeing it as just “some bunch of foolishness ain’t nobody ever gonna feel like reading” as Ignatius’s mother said of his writings- but when the book found commercial success they got resentful and blocked her from publishing anything else he wrote until they got their lawful [if not what most would call fair] share; in fact I think some sued her for a share of Confederacy citing fraud or some such.
Anyway, she refused to publish Neon Bible (no great loss) because the relatives wouldn’t sign a release and she was going to be damned before she’d see them receive a nickel, so it was published after she died. It didn’t have the success of course, but probably earned them a few bucks each, which isn’t bad considering they didn’t have jack to do with writing it.
I read it years ago. Had some funny moments; I wouldn’t go out of my way to get a copy, but it’s a fun read. It has very little to do with Confederacy of course, other than it deals with the sort of street characters of the book and shows those (like me) who didn’t grow up in NOLA why Mrs. Reilly and her pals were so mortified at the idea of Ignatius selling “Twelve inches from Paradise”.
I agree. I knew it would be a bit of a mess, based on Toole’s own assessment, but I always meant to read it (and finally did last year) because of how much I love Confederacy. Very impressive for a 16 year old. Not the masterpiece Confederacy is, of course.
