“You realize, of course, that this is all your fault. The progress of my work will be greatly delayed. I suggest that you go to your confessor and make some penance, Mother. Promise him that you will avoid the path of sin and drinking in the future. Tell him what the consequence of your moral…
“I also told the students that, for the sake of humanity’s future, I hoped that they were all sterile. I could never have possibly read over the illiteracies and misconceptions burbling from the dark minds of these students. It will be the same wherever I work” (p. 45). a confederacy of duncesJohn Kennedy Toolenew orleans
” . . . Some poor white from Mississippi told the dean that I was a propagandist for the Pope, which was patently untrue. I do not support the current Pope. He does not at all fit my conception of a good, authoritarian Pope. Actually, I am quite opposed to the relativism of modern Catholicism…
“Employers sense in me a denial of their values” (p. 44). Check out the lovely work of Matt Dawson, the artist behind the featured image. a confederacy of duncesJohn Kennedy Toolematt dawsonnew orleans
“Ignatius, what’s all this trash on the floor?” “That is my worldview that you see. It still must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step.” “And all the shutters closed. Ignatius! It’s still light outside.” “My being is not without its Proustian elements,” Ignatius said from the bed, to which he…
Here is the intro to a review essay: Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces. Cory MacLauchlin. Boston and New York: Da Capo Press, 2012, 319 pages, $26.00 hardcover. The book is not autobiography; neither is it altogether invention. While the…
I would very much like to know what the Founding Fathers would say if they could see these children being debauched to further the cause of Clearasil. However, I always suspected that democracy would come to this . . . “A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United…
The Great Chain of Being had snapped like so many paper clips strung together by some drooling idiot; death, destruction, anarchy, progress, ambition, and self-improvement were to be Piers’ new fate. And a vicious fate it was to be: now he was faced with the perversion of having to GO TO WORK (p. 26). a…
What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale (p. 25). a confederacy of duncesJohn Kennedy Toolenew orleans
I’d imagine that Fry would have done a decent job on the script and he’s absolutely correct that Robbie Coltrane would have made for a plausible Ignatius, circa 1980 that is. Robbie by the way does a very convincing American accent. But we know that the best Iggy would have been Charles Laughton! (in-joke). This said,…
manwithoutqualities 