| Product Summary | | Format: Hardcover Large Print | | ISBN: 9780807130087 | | Publisher: Louisiana State University Press | | Publish Date: 4/23/2007 | | Buy.com Sku: 36413315 | | Item#: BV2WYR | | Dimensions (in Inches) 9.25H x 6.25L x 1.75T | | Pages: 640 |
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| | | Released by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, A Confederacy of Dunces is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon. Rejected by countless publishers and submitted by the author's mother years after his suicide, the book won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Today there are almost two million copies in print worldwide in eighteen languages. Now, for the first time, John Kennedy Toole's comic masterpiece is available in a large print edition. Toole's lunatic and sage novel introduces one of the most memorable characters in American literature, Ignatius Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubs "slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one." Set in New Orleans, A confederacy of Dunces outswifts Swift, one of whose essays gives the book its title. As its characters burst into life, they leave the region and literature forever changed by their presence-Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levi Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; Jones the jivecat in spaceage dark glasses. Included here is the introduction that writer and New Orleans resident Andrei Codrescu composed for the book's twentieth anniversary. Set in oversized type for ease in reading, the large print edition will gratify both first-timers seeking to discover this modern-day classic and longtime afficionados wishing to reread a favorite novel.
Annotation:
Ignatius J. Reilly, a grossly overweight medieval scholar who lives with his mother, is forced to seek employment when she can no longer tolerate his laziness. His disdainful encounters with the modern culture of New Orleans, his habitual misunderstanding of its inhabitants (some of them no less eccentric than himself) and his often hypocritical efforts at scholarly success make him one of the most memorable comic characters of modern literature.
| PraiseChicago Sun-Times
"What a delight, what a roaring, rollicking, footstomping wonder this book is! I laughed until my sides ached, and then I laughed on....[Ignatious J. Reilly is] huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gragantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures." - Henry KisorNew York Times Book Review
"A masterwork of comedy.... The novel astonishes with its inventiveness, it lives in the pay of its voices. 'A Confederacy of Dunces' is nothing less that a grand comic fugue." Baltimore Sun
"The episodes explode one after the other like fireworks on a stormy night. No doubt about it, this book is destined to become a classic." New Republic
"One of the funniest books ever written." |
| Author Bio| John Kennedy Toole | | Toole's masterpiece "A Confederacy of Dunces" was published posthumously, after the author committed suicide in large part due to his frustration in getting his work published. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. |
| Awards |
Pulitzer Prize (1981) |  | won, Fiction | | |
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