A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces

Summary

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

'My favourite book of all time... it stays with you long after you have read it - for your whole life, in fact' Billy Connolly

A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with...

Never published during his lifetime, John Kennedy Toole's hilarious satire, A Confederacy of Dunces is a Don Quixote for the modern age, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a foreword by Walker Percy.

'A pungent work of slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities ... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue'
The New York Times

Reviews

  • My favourite book of all time. I've read it so many times and I still go back to it today.
    Billy Connolly

About the author

John Kennedy Toole

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