When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College, I got bored to death with Southern Gothic. It was all any English major ever talked about, except for
Ulysses: I had my fill of
The Sound and the Fury, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Light in August, The Grass Harp, A Streetcar Named Desire, the disgusting stories of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty...
So when everybody began praising
A Confederacy of Dunces, around the fall of 1980, my junior year in college, I wasn't interested.
But they kept up. Spectacular! A masterpiece! A classic! The greatest novel ever (except for
Ulysses).
Plus, like all "great novels," it had an interesting origin story. John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969), a gigantic mass of flab, an aspiring writer, a literary wit, a permanent student who never finished his Ph.D. (although he was much smarter than his professors), an avid heterosexual stymied by constant "just friends' speeches from girls (maybe cut back on the cake?), an anti-Catholic teaching at a Catholic college, a prude who railed against the vulgarity of the 1960s co-eds who filled his classes, finally couldn't take it anymore, and committed suicide at the age of 31.
While cleaning out his things, his mother found a carbon copy of a novel called
A Confederacy of Dunces (the original had been rejected by some publishers and finally destroyed). She contacted writer Walker Percy, who at first refused to read it -- who needed another Truman Capote, especially a heterosexual one? But eventually he gave in, loved it, and after 11 years managed to get it into print. The rest was history: Stupendous! Colossal! A masterpiece!
Prey to peer pressure, I bought a copy, read a few pages, and threw it out, not so much offended as disgusted, like when you touch a door handle and there's something gross and sticky on it. 40 years later, I don't remember what the problem was. I remember that it featured a bulbous jerk who hated everybody and everything except Boethius, but why the visceral disgust? Why does it come back every time I hear about
Confederacy.
So I found a preview on Amazon and read the first few pages.
Page 1: In a godforsaken small town in the South, no doubt somewhere near Yoknapatawpaw County, the bulbous Ignatius waits for his mother to finish shopping and criticizes the fashion choices of passersby (
Ignatius is O'Toole. I get it). He's wearing a hunting cap and boots too small for his bulbous feet. He's so fat that movement is difficult.
Page 2: The town turns out to be New Orleans (
not that small). More about how fat he is: when he tries to move, "in his lumbering elephantine fashion," he sends "waves of flesh rippling." Even his boots are swollen to bursting from his swollen fat feet. (
This guy isn't just fat, he's a disgusting bloated white caterpillar with a nearly human face.. That's what caused the disgust! I feel my gorge rising even now!).
Plowing on: the bloated white caterpillar is upset because his favorite game at the arcade is missing, which we hear about for several paragraphs.
(Boring, but it beats hearing how fat he is again).
Page 3: More about the arcade game. A police officer, seeing his bag of sheet music and spare string for his lute, saunters up and asks him for an ID. Ignatious objects, complaining that the city is full of criminals, like sodomites and lesbians. Why not target them instead? (
And he's blathering homophobe! Help!)
Page 4: Meanwhile, Mom is buying macaroons and cakes. More about how fat her son is. She talks to a friend, who complains about her feet (
More about feet! Was Mr. Toole a bit of a foot fetishist?). They discuss the fact that Ignatius isn't married, and how he gets nasty when she doesn't provide enough cake (
he's nightmarishly fat -- I get it).
Page 5: Back on the street, people are gathering around in defense of Ignatius, and the cop threatens to arrest them, particularly when they imply that he might be a "comuniss." Fortunately, Mom comes to the rescue, macaroons and wine cake in hand (
I'm never eating a piece of cake again. I may never eat again, period).
According to wikipedia, I'm not missing much plot.
Confederacy seems to be mostly episodic, minor adventures with various colorful characters, in fact, just about everyone from his opening-cop diatribe, including a sodomite, lesbians, strippers, onanists, and so on. Meanwhile, Ignatius discusses how vulgar modern society is, and how much he likes Boethius. The only major events: Mom decides to get married, and to commit Ignatius to a mental hospital (good!)
There's a statue of Ignatius on Canal Street in New Orleans, to scare away the tourists. He looks rather svelte for a bloated white caterpillar.
There have been numerous attempts to film the book, but most actors who have agreed to play Ignatius died before they could sign a contract: John Belusi, John Candy, Chris Farley, Divine. John Goodman is still alive, but getting a little old to play the 20-ish misanthrope. Will Farrell and Zack Galifianakis have also agreed to star in versions that never got made (
good!)
Oddly, I have no problems with chubs or even superchubs in real life. I find them rather attractive. But the bloated white caterpillar was disgusting. And homophobic.
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