The Bloated White Caterpillar of "A Confederacy of Dunces"

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.

The Flowers of Evil: A Place Where Hercules and Christ are One

Back before there were shelves labeled "gay literature" in bookstores, when library card catalogs contained two books labeled "homosexuality," if that, you found gay books through key words in the title: something dark, dangerous, sinister was likely to be gay.

So one day when I was an undergrad at Augustana College, I found a copy of Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867).

A series of poems about a man who is an alien in his own society, searching for a beauty that the people around him cannot understand.  He remembers countless past lives of Arabian Nights opulence, living only for the pleasures of sight, sound, taste, and touch, surrounded by "nude, perfumed slaves." Male slaves, I assumed.




He longs for a "good place," the distant country portrayed by Michelangelo, where "Hercules and Christ are one."  Where they worship masculine beauty?

He tells the story of four boys charting out their futures. The first longs for the theater, the second, for God, the third, for women...and the fourth, for gypsy men "with enormous black eyes" who live together and make "astonishing music."

The fourth boy is obviously gay.

Turns out that most scholars disagree with my undergrad reading of Les Fleurs du mal.  Baudelaire was a precursor of the Symbolist Movement, whose main voice, Paul Verlaine, was indeed gay.  And he was a dandy, one of one of those flamboyantly feminine men who scandalized polite society in Paris and London.



But Baudelaire himself was apparently heterosexual.  He has a prurient, sordid interest in women's bodies, especially lesbian bodies -- his first title for Les Fleurs du Mal was The Lesbians.  But barely a glimmer of interest in male beauty.

No do we see any significant same-sex loves in his life.  He smoked and drank heavily, wrote in taverns, patronized prostitutes, and had a series of mistresses.

But we know that author's own identity is not necessary for a gay reading.  Nor is authorial intent.  The meaning arises in the interaction between the text and the reader's life experience, expectations, and desire. When you are erased from most literature and mass media, you find meaning where you can, and Les Fleurs du mal remains one of my favorite books.

See also: The Dandy and the Gay Cult; A Season in Hell

"Ginny and Georgia, Season 2": 22 Dads, Moms, Gram-Grams, Pop-Pops, Aunties, Love Interests, Siblings, and Gay Guys at 3 Thanksgivings

 

Ginny and Georgia, a comedy series on Netflix, is about a mother-daughter team, like The Gilmore Girls.   I reviewed the first episode in March 2021, but I don't remember anything about it.  No doubt the three gay characters listed in its Wikipedia page had not yet appeared.  So I'll give Season 2, Episode 1 a shot.

By the way, the Wikipedia page was terrible, fraught with grammatical errors and overuse of the cliched term "love interest."  I fixed a little of it, but then gave up.  I have other things to do today.

Scene 1: Ginny and Georgia, Mom and Daughter, dancing in slow motion, experiencing that intense sort of ecstatsy that you see only on tv commercials when someone has achieved everlasting happiness by purchasing their brand of toothpaste or dishwashing liquid.  Daughter explains that when she was growing up, they were soul mates, so deeply in love that they didn't need anyone else.

Switch to Daughter as a teenager, no longer in love with Mom.  She's reading the Parable of the Sower, when Mom, who looks like she is around 15, comes into her room. "What the heck is this trash that you're reading?  I'm so stupid that I don't know what 'parable' or 'sower' mean."  

"It's about the demise of civilization through facist capitalism." 

 "Oh, I don't know what any of those words mean, so let's make out  We haven't had sex in ages."   Smothering Mother jumps into bed with Daughter/Lover but calling herself "Mommy" turns the girl off.  She refuses sex, so Smothering Mother ttries smothering her with a pillow. 

Scene 2:  Daughter/Lover wakes up.  It was all a nightmare, a metaphor for Mom's smothering. I may have exaggerated the incest subtext -- a little.  But it's still very obvious, and very creepy.

Her hunky Dad (Nathan Mitchell, left) bursts into her room, calls her "Gummy Bear," and asks if she's ok.  So she's left her smothering Mom for Dad.

Scene 3: A prim Southern Belle who looks like Melanie from Gone with the Wind, opens the door and yells "Welcome back, bitches!" to an elderly heterosexual couple.  A blond woman with a man's haircut  admonishes her to not call "Nanna and Pappy" bitches. So, a lesbian couple?

The elderly Nanna and Pappy enter, hug the couple, and ask Football Fan (Chris Kenopic), a middle-aged man, if he's ready for the Pats to lose.  The New England Patriots, so this is the Northeast.  I thought it was the South due to the Southern belle and the Mom named Georgia. Plus Nanna brought "whoopie pies," a Southern dish. 

Nanna asks Man's Haircut where Marcus is.  So both of the woman have heterosexual partners, and they're all living together?  "He'll be down in a bit."

Scene 4: Marcus (Felix Mallard), a rebellious teenager, is in his room, smoking and drawing bugs on the wall.  Southern Belle bursts in to tell him that Nanna and Pappy have arrived.  

"Too bad -- I'm not doing Thanksgiving this year, because it is a celebration of Native American genocide."

Ok, I'm completely lost.  How are these people related?  Wikipedia to the rescue: Southern Belle, who is "openly lesbian" is Marcus's sister, although she looks about 30 years older.  They are children of Man's Haircut, even though she looks younger than them, and Patriots Fan. 

Marcus wants to know if Southern Belle has talked to "her," because she hasn't been to school in a week, and she's stolen his bike.  Oh, great, not another person to fit into this extended family tree.

More note-taking after the break

"Tell Me a Story," and be sure to include biceps, butts, bulges, shootings, and sleazoids.

Tell Me a Story (2018-), on CBS and Vudu. "A re-imagining of classic fairy tales."

Well, I've already seen Once Upon a Time, but ok, I'll give it a shot.

Scene 1:  "Three Little Pigs."  Close-up of a bare chest tattooed with the words "Fuck You." belonging to the uber-muscular Pig #1/Eddie (Paul Wesley, left), a low-life drug dealer.  

He is asleep in his underwear in his trailer, showing a nice bulge, when his friend Pig #2/  Mitch (Michael Raymond Jones) drops in. They discuss how much they need money.

Scene 2:  The Pigs' Big Bad Wolf/Jordan (James Wolk), a restauranteur, strips down to take a shower. He's with a girl, but still, bare chest and butt, and I think a bit of his penis. Wow!  They argue over whether to get married or just continue hooking up.

Scene 3: "Hansel and Gretel" Gretel/ Gabe (Davi Santos) and his roommate Billy (Luke Guldan, left), discuss their lives as gay strippers, hustlers, and druggies. Ok, they're promoting the negative stereotype that all gay men are sleazoids, but they are promoting the negative stereotype in their underwear.  Muscular physiques, underwear bulges!  Four in a row!  

I've never seen a tv show display so much male skin and so little female.  Just the way I like it.

Scene 4: "Little Red Riding Hood" High schooler Red/Kayla, mourning her dead mother, is smoking marijuana and acting out, so her Dad moves her to small-town Manhattan to get a fresh start.  

Scene 5:"Hansel and Gretel"  At a mixed gay-straight club, Billy and Gretel/Gabe meet the ultra-rich, cocaine-addled Dan (Paul Rolfes), and go back to his apartment for a three-way.  While Gretel/Gabe is...um...busy, Billy goes into the bedroom and steals from the guy's wallet.   Dan catches on, gets violent, and ends up dead.  Billy runs away, leaving his "friend" Gretel/Gabe alone an apartment with the corpse of a man he didn't even know.  He calls his sister Hansel/Hope for help.

Scene 6: "Red Riding Hood"  Meanwhile, at the same club, Red/Kayla graduates from marijuana to Ecstasy, washed down with vodka, and picks up her Big Bad Wolf/Nick (Billy Magnusson).  After a lot of sex (showing us Big Bad's bare chest and butt, of course), she discovers that he is her new teacher. 

Well, I guess they couldn't help that, except  they continue the relationship.  Teacher-underage student.  Nice. 

Scene 7: "Three Little Pigs"   Pig #1/Eddie and Pig #2/Mitch visit Pig #3/Sam (Dorian Missick), a corrupt cop.  He suggests that they can pay off their massive debts by robbing a jewelry store wearing pig masks. 

Meanwhile, the pigs' Big Bad/Jordan finally talks his girlfriend into getting married, so they go ring shopping at the..um...jewelry store where...um...the three pigs...you know what happens next.  

I need a shower and about six hours of Workaholics.  There's a reason I don't do depressing crime dramas.

Instead of more plot summary, wouldn't you rather see the chest of Dan Amboyer, who plays one of Gretel/Gabe and Billy's go-go-boy coworkers?

Or the bulge of Rarmian Newton, who plays one of Red/Kayla's classmates who gets a crush on her, finds out about her relationship with her teacher, and goes ballistic?