Every time I read a prize-winning book, I try to discover what was so laudable about it. Some elements I try to take into account are the nature of the book’s protagonist, its artistic construction, and its theme or main point. Though I feel a little vulnerable critiquing a Pulitzer prize-winning novel so harshly, I must say that A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole failed on all three counts.
Although advertised as a comic masterpiece, the most entertaining part of A Confederacy of Dunces is the origin of its title. The novel’s epigraph is from Jonathan Swift:
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Swift’s is an intellectually satisfying claim. If the genius in question is Ignatius J. Reilly, the dunces who are against him are the most intelligent group of people around; for Ignatius is a slob of tremendous self-importance, a coward and slacker of proportions to rival that of his actual girth. He is not funny. He is annoying. It was disappointing to me that he did not receive the punishment he deserved. (Failure #1.)
A Confederacy of Dunces is something of a puzzle (that is, beyond why it was written). The many secondary characters connect and interact in amusing ways, but the circuitous method of arrival (the delay of the aha! moment) is tiresome. And the dialogue that is described as ‘realistic’ is in fact tedious and rambling, as many actual conversations can be. We want our fiction to have a veneer of realism – we want to believe it could happen – but we don’t want it to be that convincing. A suggestion of dialect rather than a transcription of it is more in order, I should think. (Failure #2.)
As for the novel’s main point, I will applaud anyone who can tell me what it is. Ignatius J. Reilly suffers no consequences for being an enormous, offensive buffoon, and the trouble he causes resolves itself reasonably well without him. Is the world better for his clowning? I shouldn’t think so. What does this suggest? I’m not sure. Artful ambiguity can add depth to a novel, allowing for multiple interpretations of the same events, but in this case I feel that the ambiguity is less artful than accidental. I extract no meaning from this book. (Failure #3.)
If I err, correct me. As it stands, I must believe that the ‘Don Quixote of New Orleans’ is able, like its protagonist, to waste anyone’s time.
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