Hangin' With Ignatius

I don't tend to just read a book. I devour it. I luxuriate in it. I get deeply engrossed. I find myself pondering the characters as I go about my day, their cadence and vocabulary slipping into my own thoughts and speech, and even invading my dreams. I think that my manner of reading contributes to this total immersion...I tote my book around with me wherever I go, greedily snatching a few minutes of the story whenever I can. I read as I wait for my children outside of their school, in the doc's office or while stuck in traffic, and I fall asleep every night in the middle of the very last sentence that my tired eyes can possibly be made to comprehend. So I read my one book at a time (I'm definitely a monogamous reader!), a paragraph here and a chapter there, and in between times the characters are present with me as I go about my day...and lately I've been hangin' with Ignatius.

Ignatius J. Reilly that is. Yes, I've been reading A Confederacy of Dunces.
A synopsis:
A monument of 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. In magnificent revolt against the twentieth century, Ignatius propels his monstrous bulk among the flesh posts of the fallen city, documenting life on his Big Chief tablets as he goes, until his maroon-haired mother decrees that Ignatius must work.

What a character! Colourful? Chit. Colourful doesn't even begin to cover Ignatius. He has made for a strange bedfellow these past couple of weeks. He smells funny. He takes up a lot of room. He fills me with perverse desires to complain about my valve and the capriciousness of Fortuna, and to call for anyone who opposes me to be flogged. I am tempted to take to wearing a green hunting cap and voluminous plaid scarf, although after much consideration I've decided that a plastic hoop earring might be a little too much...

I loved this book, and not just for Ignatius. It is blisteringly well written, and the tragic/comic characters ricochet off of each other in a plot so improbable that it seems somehow completely inevitable. I laughed out loud, and squirmed uncomfortably, perhaps in equal measure. I gobbled it up, belching heartily in honour of Ignatius, and am now left savouring the experience, as I slobber over the last few crumbs.

This book has been on my "should read" list for ages. One of those books that has become part of pop culture, an iconic main character, a tragic author, a posthumous Pulitzer prize...one of those books you really ought to read, but probably won't if you don't have the impetus of a book report about it due on Friday. I've been reading quite a few of those must read books in the last little while, and each one has been a revelation and a reward...The Bell Jar, Slaughterhouse 5 and A Confederacy of Dunces are now firmly ensconced on my personal all time favourites list. There are reasons why those certain really important novels have wormed their way deep into our social culture...they are really frakken' good!

So your homework assignment, boys and girls, put down that TV remote / get off the interwebs / step away from that copy of Twilight (!), and pick up a book off of your "really should read" list...it doesn't matter if it's Moby Dick or Naked Lunch, Charles Dickens or Jack Kerouac, pick something that piques your curiosity and suits your particular taste...and read. Read like the dickens, read like your book is water and you have been hiking in the desert, read like literacy is a precious gift and a truly good story in the hands of a master storyteller is one of the greatest treasures / soul foods / tickets to escape the mundane and prosaic every day that there is.

(pictures by Chris Chua and Mark Martin courtesy of Hey Oscar Wilde! It's clobberin' time!!!)

Tags: a confederacy of dunces, books, ignatius j reilly, reading

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Comment by serenity on April 2, 2009 at 2:28pm: I'm with E gorgeous ink work!

Comment by Evangeline on March 30, 2009 at 2:44pm: I love the Beautiful Crap site! Thanks so much for sharing it. Her work with inks is amazing. I just got a bottle of India ink yesterday...so inspiring...

Comment by Mel on March 30, 2009 at 11:11am: You know, Deb, I went into it sad, because how pathetic to write a book noone reads, kill yourself then win the Pulitzer, it's just really sad. No wonder Van Gogh books come up. And it took me a chapter to get into the swing of things. I had to look at it as farce, sort of a Monty Pythonesque spin on stupid humans, caught up in their silly dramas and misconceptions, incapable of meaningful self awareness, less they kill themselves too. Lifes but a tale, told by idiots sort of mindset. I had to work hard to not think of the New Orleans that became the wreckage that came after Katrina, too. Anyway, it was one of those books I had to tweak my attitude to enjoy. And I should shut up, because it's still sitting next to my reading chair, unfinished. I think David foster Wallace had just killed himself when I started reading Confederacy, and writer suicide was much on my mind. As a total art aside, DFW's wife is an artist, she has some interesting ink and mixed media stuff, some of it is beautiful, some is quite sad. beautiful crap is her gallery and web site.

So much for the KT's, :)

Comment by serenity on March 14, 2009 at 10:28am: i hate a long afterward that doesn't live up to it's promise :S Anne rice got too much power and started editing her own books and that was the beginning of the end for me with her.

i haven't been able to get into neil gaimen yet although i have tried a few times. I love his work when turned into a visual medium like film or tv, but so far his writing hasn't drawn me in--timing thing there i'd hazard.

hitchhiker is a big fav of mine, but for sure not everyone's cup of tea. I adore it's witty irreverence, but then i read the series in my twenties and witty irreverence was high on my list of priorities XD--or was that silly irreverence :P

Comment by Evangeline on March 14, 2009 at 9:26am: The "ugh" at the end of your comment made me lol. And definitely no peer pressure from me. I tend to get swept up in really, really, really big enthusiasm for the things I like (just finished reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book yesterday! Don't get me started...thought it was fantastic -warm, clever (without trying to be clever, which I feel like Gaiman sometimes does) and delightfully creepy! But I do understand that my tastes are not everyone's tastes, and that yes, timing for books is crucial. So please, don't anybody feel pressured by my geeking out over books, it's just what I do. :)

I hope "Dear Theo" eventually takes for me too. This is my second go around with it, and I really liked what I've read both times...but then it just doesn't hold me and I wander off to a new book. And I am afraid Hitchhiker was just a "meh" for me too...some really funny bits, but it seemed like just as I was getting into it, it ended! It also didn't help that our edition has this long afterword at the end, and I got duped into thinking there was a bunch more story!

Comment by Deb S on March 14, 2009 at 6:39am: It definitely has to to with timing. It took me years to finally read Dear Theo. I had started and stopped a gazillion times. It is indeed a "quiet" book. Then about 2 years ago, I picked it up and did NOT put it down. Loved it. Love both those boys. OMG. And "Hitchhiker's Guide", meh. I finally read it because everybody loved it and I was unimpressed. So unimpressed that I can't remember a single thing about it. Oh well.

And VT, I can soooo see you at "Waiting for Godot" with jittery legs, looking from side to side with your palms up, "Is it ME?" Hahahaha. Thank you sweetie pie for backing me up. I WAS feeling Ning-based peer pressure! But that's 'cuz E is my favorite writer and I don't want to miss out on anything she thinks is good. And she hasn't lost any critic's cred, this book just hit me the wrong way. And you're right, E, there was a bit of pitiful hope for each of them at the end. Ugh.

Comment by VT100 on March 9, 2009 at 2:21pm: Deb, I know what you are saying. When I was in college, I saw "Waiting for Godot". I though it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. I didn't mean a thing to me. And every person I discussed it with started with "It is really famous". As if that would be a good reason to enjoy something! If we all liked the same stuff, what kind of a dull world would that be? Enjoy the stuff that makes you happy, and don't let any Ning-based peer pressure get you down.

Comment by Evangeline on March 8, 2009 at 9:58am: Deb, whatever's the matter with you must be contagious. I've been reading "Hitchhiker's Guide" and I know it's funny and I know it's clever, but it just hasn't grabbed me yet. It's that whole magical personal resonance thing...a bit like falling in love maybe? kinda undefinable, why a certain book will hit you like a tonne of bricks at a certain time...or won't.
I know what you're saying with Conspiracy, when I was about a 1/4 way through it I thought Ignatius was absolutely odious and felt the "tough hard scrabble poverty" with little love thing...but I don't know, he grew on me and as the author brought the threads of the different stories to their point of convergence, I started to feel the love. He had everyone end up happy. As improbable and outlandish as it was for such a raggle-taggle bunch of oddballs, each and every one of them was left in some sort of triumph or with some small hope (except mean old Lana Lee who got what she deserved, which was good too!) . Even good ol' Ignatius pressing his wet moustache against Myrna's ponytail, we see the faint grain of hope that he could actually form an attachment. Maybe I'm just hopelessly optimistic?
I'm sorry it was no fun for you. It just has to be the right book at the right time, doesn't it?

Comment by Deb S on March 8, 2009 at 9:42am: OMG. Let me get on here and try to explain how I feel about Conspiracy. Before I lose it. First of all, let me just say that I think I've completely lost my sense of humor. Working full time has done that to me. WHAT was my problem, with this. The jacket is just COVERED with "the most HILARIOUS book ever written", yada yada. Now, I will admit I laughed out loud a couple of times. But, what IS it? I'm a real live-in-my-head, rich fantasy life person and when every so often I get a CLEAR view of reality, I hate it. It's a Diane Arbus photograph. It's waaaaay toooo bleak and I close my eyes and pray for the soft blue/pink fog to come back in. The place where you clap for Tinkerbell and there are happy endings, etc. etc. This book felt like that clear view of reality from the first page to the last and I, too, wanted to kill myself. There was great, spot-on vernacular dialogue and wonderful social commentary, especially by Jones, the black guy working so he won't be hauled in as a vagran. But, whereas Holden Caulfield also saw all the hypocrisy and shallow self-serving motivations of those around him, Holden was brimming with love. Ignatius has none, nada, zip. Clever, yes. And none of these people have any love in them. And the writer, it feels like to me, had no love for any of these characters. A great acerbic wit but no fellow-feeling. Am I just not getting it? It was an absolutely accurate view of the tough hard-scrabble poverty all these people were living in. I didn't find it funny. It depressed the hell out of me. E! What's the matter with me?! Can I not have FUN anymore? Whew! I'm so glad that's over.