For Seller

By: Steve Scheele

A Confederacy of Dunces is an intellectually engaging novel by the deceased author John Toole Kennedy. Ultimately I adore this book for its zany creativity, stark originality, and downright incredibleness. This book exudes an aura of academic unrationality. By this I mean the novel is quite logical. The wacky happenings and theories appeal to judgment but not common sense. At times this book seems theoretical, speculative, and hypothetical. This presence is evident in some of the plot twists Kennedy has chosen to include. One of them is how Ignatius starts to believe the world would do better with having "orgies" than wars. Very possibly the author came up with this fanatical idea for the book, however from a non-biased point of view, Kennedy uses reasoning to convince a reader that however wild his idea may seem, it is a sensible, ahead of its time theory that would work.

One incredible reason that I enjoyed this novel was the characters. Naturally, another reason was the language and diction. Kennedy did an amazing job of combining the two. He employs Ignatius (the main character) as a well educated "slacker" who has an incredible vocabulary and an admirable mastery of his language (even though he uses his own words like all the zoids (barbazoid), but that may just be his genius.

At first reading it, I was very reserved, and a little wary of this book. However once I began to get to know Ignatius and his mastermind of manipulation and superior thought, I began to worship Ignatius and even find myself using similar language, and hoping that my mom would be as kind as Ignatius’ (without sending me to the Charity!) I began to think of ways of changing my current chore status with her. I also admired Ignatius’ quip, wit, and quickness in thought with serious retorts. Soon after I envied Ignatius Kennedy pried open all my reservations with his amazing characters, settings, and twists.

Ultimately I thoroughly enjoyed A Confederacy of Dunces, and in the back of my mind wish it were I who starred in this wonderfully thought out book. I recommend this book to everyone, and hope they soon start to realize the benefits of Ignatius’ amazing qualities.