# A Confederacy of Dunces

By John Kennedy Toole

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/a-confederacy-of-dunces-ac7ab753/

Ignatius J. Reilly lives with his mother in New Orleans and has exhaustive objections to modern life. When she pushes him into employment, a clothing factory and a hot-dog cart become fresh occasions for trouble.

## What makes it funny?

Asked for identification, Ignatius gives a policeman a lecture on the city’s vices. The encounter becomes a public spectacle, with sheet music and a dangling lute string pressed into service as weapons.

### The comedy at work

Ignatius brings the language of a great intellectual dispute to clothes, food and minor inconveniences. His certainty about everyone else’s shortcomings keeps colliding with his own helplessness, vanity and digestive complaints.

### Try this if…

An appetite for abrasive characters helps here. Elaborate speeches, local voices and overlapping misadventures give readers plenty to enjoy even when Ignatius himself is being intolerable.

### Good to know

Coarse language, sexual references and bodily humor run through this adult comedy.

## What to expect

- Genre: Adventure · Classic comedy · Contemporary & literary
- On the shelf: Picaresque
- Kind of humor: Farce · Satire
- The atmosphere: Irreverent
- Format: Novel
- Length: 416 pages
- Audiobook: 13 hr 33 min
- Published: 1980

## A few distinguishing details

- Medieval philosophy meets a New Orleans hot-dog cart.
- A grand social critic still depends on his mother.

## Sources & further reading

- Publisher: [LSU Press publication history](https://lsupress.org/around-the-press-in-80-books-a-confederacy-of-dunces)
- Review: [Kirkus review](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-kennedy-toole/a-confederacy-of-dunces)
- Publisher: [Grove Press description and opening excerpt](https://groveatlantic.com/book/a-confederacy-of-dunces)
- Publisher: [Blackstone audiobook record](https://www.blackstonelibrary.com/a-confederacy-of-dunces)