Wednesday, July 08, 2009

CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

There’s a new comedy trend afoot – lead characters who see themselves very differently from the way the rest of the world perceives them. Seth Rogen in the recent release OBSERVE AND REPORT plays a psycho security guard who thinks of himself as an ace crime fighter. Michael of the OFFICE, Amy Poehler’s new character in PARKS AND RECREATION, the ballplayer in EASTBOUND & DOWN, all the way back to Will Ferrell’s ANCHORMAN and Ted Baxter’s anchorman.

It’s a rich comedy vein. Characters with an inflated self-importance are always funny (except for George Bush). And by far, the greatest, most hilarious example of this is Ignatius J. Reilly.

Reilly is the centerpiece of the funniest book I’ve ever read, A CONDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole. Ignatius J. Reilly is this highly eccentric disgusting sloth who believes everyone in the world is out of step but him. His distorted worldview is a riot and practically every sentence of this rather large tome will make you laugh. For my money, it’s a comic masterpiece.

The story behind the book is not so humorous, however. John Kennedy Toole wrote it while in the Army in 1962 at the age of 24. He then spent seven years trying to get it published with no luck. Toole was so despondent that in 1969 he killed himself. His mother continued to peddle around the huge smudged manuscript, finally getting it to author Walker Percy who reluctantly agreed to read it. Much to his amazement it was astoundingly good. With Percy as a champion the book finally got published.

And promptly won a Pulitzer Prize.

If I may be Oprah for a moment, check it out. Especially if you’re an aspiring writer with a spec script or novel and a stack of rejection letters. Don’t give up. You could be sitting on the next CONFERACY OF DUNCES. Be around to enjoy it.

Here are a couple of excerpts.

Ignatius explains what should be studied for a proper education:

"Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age," Ignatius said solemnly. "Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.... I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman."

And finally, Ignatius has a run in with some women showing their art at a church. He is a hot dog vendor in New Orleans, by the way.

Ignatius lumbered over to the picket fence, abandoning the hopeless cause espoused by the wagon, and viewed the oil paintings and pastels and watercolors strung there. Although the style of each varied in crudity, the subjects of the paintings were relatively similar: camellias floating in bowls of water, azaleas tortured into ambitious flower arrangements, magnolias that looked like white windmills. Ignatius scrutinized the offerings furiously for a while all by himself, for the ladies had stepped back from the fence and had formed what looked like a protective little grouping.

"Oh, my God!" Ignatius bellowed after he had promenaded up and down along the fence. "How dare you present such abortions to the public."

"Please move along, sir," a bold lady said.

"Magnolias don't look like that," Ignatius said, thrusting his cutlass at the offending pastel magnolia. "You ladies need a course in botany. And perhaps geometry, too."

"You don't have to look at our work," an offended voice said from the group, the voice of the lady who had drown the magnolia in question.

"Yes, I do!" Ignatius screamed. "You ladies need a critic with some taste and decency. Good heavens! Which one of you did this camellia? Speak up. The water in this bowl looks like motor oil."

"Let us alone," a shrill voice said.

"You women had better stop giving teas and brunches and settle down to the business of learning how to draw," Ignatius thundered. "First, you must learn how to handle a brush. I would suggest that you all get together and paint someone's house for a start."

"Go away."

"Had you 'artists' had a part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, it would have ended up looking like a particularly vulgar train terminal," Ignatius snorted.

"We don't intend to be insulted by a coarse vendor," a spokeswoman for the band of large hats said haughtily.

"I see!" Ignatius screamed. "So it is you people who slander the reputation of the hot dog vendor."

"He's mad."

"He's so common."

"So coarse."

"Don't encourage him."

"We don't want you here," the spokeswoman said tartly and simply.

"I should imagine not!" Ignatius was breathing heavily. "Apparently you are afraid of someone who has some contact with reality, who can truthfully describe to you the offenses which you have committed to canvas."

"Please leave," the spokeswoman ordered.

"I shall." Ignatius grabbed the handle of his cart and pushed off. "You women should all be on your knees begging forgiveness for what I have seen here on this fence."

CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. I wish I were you and didn’t know how it ends.

55 comments :

  1. I've read this book twice and listened to it as an audiobook. It's brilliant.

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  2. It is a book I always pick up when I see it in used bookstores so I can give it to people who haven''t had the pleasure.

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  3. This certainly makes me want to borrow it from the school library if we've got it.

    I'm an English teacher so it's been on my list for a while, but I've never had a reason to bump it to the front. I love the style though. Thanks.

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  4. It's truly a tragedy of proportions almost as epic as Ignatius' own that this book wasn't immediately recognized and cherished as the treasure it is. He's one of the most awful people in the history of bipeds, but he's utterly captivating. Reading the book is like watching a train wreck that, after all the crashing and banging and exploding stops, jumps off the tracks and goes wandering across the countryside looking for more trains to crash into. You can't stand him, and you can't take your eyes off of him. Now I need to go read the book again! Why the Hell does Ann Coulter get to squeeze out book after book while John Kennedy Toole was only allowed one?

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  5. Best. Book. Ever.

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  6. Diane, who does the audiobook you've heard? And is it unabridged? I'm not much for audiobooks but would seek this out if it really conveyed Ignatius and the many supporting characters [and all their various New Orleans (and Bronx) accents].

    Penh, there is another published Toole novel -- not a comic one -- that I've heard of but not read: The Neon Bible.

    I'm very glad that so far ACoD has resisted attempts to film it. On the last page of Outrageous Conduct: Art, Ego, and the Twilight Zone Case -- a 1988 book about John Landis' career and the deaths of Vic Morrow and two children while filming his segment of the Twilight Zone movie -- Landis is said to be preparing to direct ACoD. Oy.

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  7. I've read this book 1.5 times... the first time because I heard it was funny, the second half of a time because I figured I must've missed something the first time. I didn't find it more than mildly amusing either time.

    Same with Catch 22. I had to force myself to read more than 3 pages at a time. I apparently just don't get it.

    I wish I was like you and found this amusing.

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  8. read it when it was first released to paperback years ago. in fact, i still have that dog-eared paperback on my bookshelf. the first chapter is drop dead funny and i nearly peed my pants when i read it - not unlike the same reaction i had when i read terry southern's "candy" in high school, or "fear and loathing in las vegas" by hunter thompson when i was in college.

    what a tragedy toole couldn't bear to live; and i was always touched by his mother's persistence to have it published.

    thanks for blogging about the book, ken. every so often it gets press. a good thing.

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  9. Just the in the middle of a rejection after three great meetings on a writing gig. This really helped. I won't give up.

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  10. If you want something in similar style, but from an earlier age and the other side of the pond, then try "Augustus Carp Esq, Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man"

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  11. A few days ago, you wrote a great post on beating the joke. As you put it: "Ask the second question. How can you make the joke funnier? What’s a more offbeat reference that achieves the same result? What’s fresher? Is there a better set up? Is the wording just perfect? Or is there just a better line altogether?"

    And what do we get from you today? "Characters with an inflated self-importance are always funny (except for George Bush)." A first impulse line. Cheap, silly, hacky and, when you get down to it, doesn't even make sense. (Also, "especially" would work better than "except.")

    I'm not denying Bush is a safe choice, but, as Shakespeare put it, "though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others."

    Blagojevich, Cheney, Biden, Mark Sanford, Al Sharpton, Ryan Seacrest, Sean Penn, Perez Hilton--almost any name (except for Palin)would have worked better. And if you'd said Obama, I would have really been impressed. Brave, different, ahead of the curve, and about a man who actually is taken with himself.

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  12. Jim, many thanks for that Carp link. I've never heard of the book and it looks fantastic.
    Confederacy Dunces was very funny, I agree. I've always been highly impressed with his mother who kept hawking the MS around. I'm sure my mother would have binned it or given it to a church fete.

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  13. Jerad, I'm with you. I've started the book twice in the last 2-3 years and still haven't gotten through it.

    Maybe the thrid time's the charm.

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  14. Yeah, Ken. Clearly you should have gone with:

    "Characters with an inflated self-importance are always funny (except for Larry the Commenter)."

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  15. I'm always entertained and often amazed when I read your blog, Ken. The entertainment is no surprise since you're one of the funniest people I've ever read.

    It always amazes me when people critique your jokes and proceed to break them down on why they weren't funny or why they would have been funnier if you'd said x, y or z.

    It's particularly amazing when the person acts like their opinion is the righteous truth and gives the attitude that those who disagree are blithering idiots.

    In that case, count me among the blithering. The Bush joke made me laugh.

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  17. No need to read the book -- you can find characters like this every night on the Fox News Channel. Their names are Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly...

    wv: cometis -- short for the latin name for what killed the dinosaurs -- "cometis explodis"...

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  18. Thanks very much for reminding me of Ignatius' greatness. You are correct, it is the funniest book ever.

    As my gift to you (but I'll bet you know already) the greatest comic essay ever (or at least since Thurber) is Coyote vs. Acme by Ian Frazier, from the New Yorker. It's available in a collection and of course a Google search will turn it up. As a legal brief for the downtrodden predator (or eatibus anythingus as he is occasionally called) it should be in every textbook.

    I have reread it at least fifty times over the years and it never fails to crack me up.

    Also, I will avoid using parentheses in the future (unless needed).

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  19. I guess I'll add my voice to the few contrarians.

    Drawn principally by his backstory, I read Toole's "THE NEON BIBLE" years ago and, while duly impressed a 16-year-old could complete a novel, the material itself left me flat. Thinking I perhaps started with the wrong book, I preceeded to his masterwork, "A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES". Same result.

    Both books left very little impression on me.

    As for the Pulitzer, not unlike the Oscars, posthumous award-giving is apparently difficult to resist. I suspect that without the suicide and a mother's long quest for publication, it might not have happened.

    I also suspect there are more than a few people who "love" these books because they are told they must.

    Todd

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  20. And I suspect there's a little Ignatius J. Reilly in all of us.

    Todd, especially.

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  21. A clever reply, Screwtape...

    ...unless, of course, by consensus, I'm not allowed to feel that way, in which case I withdraw my remark.

    Todd

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  22. My frist screenwriting teacher gave me this book. Now I've read it at least half a dozen times and own three different versions of it. Excellent, excellent.

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  23. I'm one of those who find JKO'T's vision very funny - and still remember scenes and characters after giving up on it for the second time 2 years since - but that his novel could have used an editor. That recurring pyloric valve just makes me nauseous. And now that I realise how much like Ignatius I sound, I might try it again.

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  24. Serious question:

    "You don't have to look at our work," an offended voice said from the group, the voice of the lady who had drown the magnolia in question.

    Should "drown" be "drawn"? Or is "drown" correct?

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  25. I love this book so much. I know so many people like the main character. Thanks for sharing it with more people.

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  26. Sorry, it's 'Toole', not 'O'Toole', isn't it.

    WV: hatrot = what you get if you use bay rum as a hair restorer.

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  27. Sandy Koufax7/09/2009 10:19 AM

    If this book was ever to be made into a movie, I could see Kelsey Grammer playing the part of Ignatius. He could really pull it off well.

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  28. I'm afraid my original, 1st edition copy got lost in one of my many moves. It wasn't it pristine condition, because I got it when it was first published and, as a college student at the time, I wasn't thinking in terms of 1st editions. So multiple readings resulted in multiple damages.

    I did manage to hold on to it for at least 15 years, which was probably at least as many moves. But I haven't even thought about it in years, even though it is one of my all time favorites. So, thanks for the reminder. I need to go hunt up another copy.

    I heard someone was planning on making a movie from the book. Any word on that?

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  29. It’s a rich comedy vein. Characters with an inflated self-importance are always funny (except for George Bush).

    I was tempted to put Ken Levine as the reference in the parentheses. But I see the error of my ways. George Bush is much funnier...fresher, even, and hasn't been used in this context before. And with Mary Stella and mp confirming this, I know I'm wrong.

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  30. I think that ACoD is a good litmus test for what sort of sense of humor someone has, much like George S. Kaufman or P.G. Wodehouse would be.

    I, personally, didn't find it hilarious. Which always made me a bit edgy when others marveled at the hilarity.

    But this allowed be to identify with Woody Allen's character Leonard Zelig, whose troubles all began when he is too embarrassed to admit he never read Moby Dick.

    WVW - flysines: the sort of trigonometric functions performed by insects

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  31. Comedy, is not just difficult, it is incredibly subjective. Seems like an obvious statement, but yet there are a few commentators here that would rather just consider it all so formulaic. Formulas help get the wheels rolling, but as I'm sure the author of this blog can attest - he being an award winning professional in the comic writing industry, eho uses formulas successfully - the really funny stuff sits somewhere over the formula. It's usually injected into the material in an organic way, with a flash of "genious".

    So to quibble over reference choices in punchlines seems a bit useless (maybe even political/partisan), don't you think? (And here's where I am not at all like Ignatious) Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we do need to discuss what is funny, and what is not - what could make it funnier. I'm sure this has contributed to some incredible writing room scripts. But we all know there is plenty of material that comes out of writing rooms that just doesn't hit the mark, no matter how "worked" for funny those scripts are.

    As far as the Toole issue, I was also told that I "had to read this" many years ago. I remember enjoying it, but it didn't leave me nearly as impressed as, say, a Tom Robins yarn. I think the reason why I was turned onto Toole was because I mentioned to someone that I was a huge Robbins fan. He also creates these fantastic characters that bounce off of each other page after page. But I definately appreciated what Toole was going for. The difference between the two writers would appear to be self-confidence. And this is the difference between so many with creative talents. The ones who "make it" usually have that confident edge over the ones who don't. There is no formula to being confident. You either are, or you aren't. Robbins is so prolific. Toole could barely complete two manuscripts. Both are, and were incredibly gifted. We are just the audience of students who try to break it all down into something we can learn from.

    "A Confederacy of Dunces" is a very funny, lasting tribute to a guy who couldn't keep it together. It is more than just a manuscript that noone "got". I think Mr. Levine is most on point when he uses it as a reminder to never give up. To critique the book is a natural impulse, but I think it may best be a secondary impulse in this case.

    I love this blog - just found it a few weeks ago. I've been enjoying all the written material and the commentary. Thanks for hearing me out on this one. I feel like I should edit with a fine toothed comb and add a punchline somewhere in here just to keep up - hate to be a winded drag. Maybe next time I'll dazzle you all with some brevity and wit. Maybe ...

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  32. S. Koufax: Ignatius's age is clearly stated:

    "I am thirty," Ignatius said condescendingly...

    Grammer is way too old and moreover probably couldn't pull off the accent, which I think would be crucial.

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  33. Reading some of these comments, someone unfamiliar with the book might get the idea that Ignatius J. Reilly is some sort of right-wing zealot. In fact, I think this character is beyond Left or Right (though his two forays into politics, first where he attempts to ignite a race/labor riot, and then a gay revolution, does have a liberal bent to it, but that's just because he's trying to impress his beatnik girlfriend Myrna)

    I think Reilly wants respect and acceptance from others, but strictly on his own terms. THAT'S why he's so deluded.

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  34. The two movie attempts (both long ago) I'm aware of would have starred Jim Carrey (boy was that one wrongheaded!) -- and a far more appealing choice, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

    I was recommended the book by a friend; it was a great gift. Another book I read every couple of years is Thomas Berger's Little Big Man. The sequel, while not as well known, is pretty good as well.

    wv -- "hyplu" a form of Japanese poetry pioneered and perfected by publicists

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  35. Read it, didn't think it was brilliant, it had its moments of funny though. Thought it could use a good editor. Really, though, it all really did for me was remind me of all those geeky "A" kids in Lit class who the prof thought were going to be the next great American writer and floundered in real life...

    "Dunces" is once again the hot rumor to go the book to movie route. We'll see how bad the studios fuck it up.

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  36. The unabridged audiobook by Barrett Whitener is a masterful performance. His delivery of Ignatius's "Oh my god!" catchphrase alone had me stitches to the point that I would laugh in anticipation of him delivering it when Ignatius was presented with some new outrage. I had also had picked the book up a couple of times without success until I tried the audio. It's on audible.com.

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  37. I've heard that Walker Percy made up Toole out of whole cloth and that Percy actually wrote the book. Any truth to that?

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  38. Thank you. I have been meaning to read this book for years and lately have been dying for something to read but everything just looked so...blah. I'll be ordering this book now.

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  39. "gottacook said...
    Grammar is way too old and moreover probably couldn't pull off the accent, which I think would be crucial."

    On the other hand, he could probably get fat enough for the role easily.

    "MarkD said...
    I've heard that Walker Percy made up Toole out of whole cloth and that Percy actually wrote the book. Any truth to that?"

    No, none, but way to sully a dead writer's reputation (indeed, his very existence) on the basis of a groundless rumor. It wasn't enough he didn't live long enough to learn he'd been published and won a Pulitzer Prize, you then have to rumor him out of the universe.

    Francis Bacon didn't write Shakespeare's plays either, especially the ones written after his death.

    I, on the other hand, am entirely fictional, and my book was indeed written by some imposter.

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  40. I've never heard of it, but if its really that great ill definitely check it out. ive been looking for a good book to read...

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  41. I hate to be pedantic, but this "new comedy trend" of yours is at least 400 years old (Sir John Falstaff, for instance). Even older is the book where somebody says "There is nothing new under the sun, especially in comedy writing." I read "Dunces" long ago, on a train trip across Ontario, but I'm afraid to re-read it and be disappointed, as often happens. And hasn't there been talk of a movie version for years?

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  42. I thought this book was amusing and the character was great, but until page 250, I thought it was terrible. Then, when everything came together, I thought it was great.

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  43. I heard there was a third attempt to remake it starring will ferrell but that got scrapped due to katrina messing things up somehow.

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  44. There are some books, speaking of the film rumors of ACoD, that seem to defy filming, or at least filming something that captures the essence of the book.

    Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy leaps out at me as one such example. All those years, all those efforts and by the time it came out it was a pale-ish reflection of the book. Weird that the lower-than-low budget BBC-TV production was better able to capture the spirit (and humor) of the book.

    I suspect the same would apply to ACoD.

    (The point about persevering is well taken, though.)

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  45. Good point about some books don't translate well. There is a difference between the printed word and projected image. Reading about sand worms in Dune can make them seem majestic and exotic. Seeing them ends up with them seeming bizarre and off putting.

    I read this book years ago and it is a comic masterpiece, but I think an acquired taste as some of the comments have indicated...

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  46. Joe:

    The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was originally a conedy series on BBC radio which was then adapted to TV and only later turned into a book. That's why the TV series is so good; If you can find the radio version then that's even better.

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  47. Hmmm. At around the time of John Belushi's death, there was talk of him being cast as the lead.

    John Alexander Hall

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  48. Another good example, again from our cousins across the pond, is the Stephen Fry/Hugh Laurie "Jeeves and Wooster" series.

    It worked well on TV (in no small part due to the excellentness of Fry & Laurie) but there were great liberties taken with the stories...sympathetic liberties, to be sure, but liberties nonetheless.

    Off to rummage for the radio version of THHGTTG...

    WVW is "grasteet" or the way one says fat breast in Quebec.

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  49. The British do this sort of 'Confederacy of Dunces' humor better than we Americans do it...one such show that comes to mind is The Brittas Empire starring Chris Barrie (people know him from Red Dwarf, he plays Arnold Rimmer on that).

    The trick to Gordon Brittas causing so much trouble to the people at the leisure center (gee now we have some idea of where Parks & Recreation came from) he manages and in his family & personal life is that he has to be oblivious & ignorant of the chaos & grief he causes for everyone else. Americans tend to want to play this intentionally, meanly, snarky. (think Sasha Baron Cohen)

    Chris can do snarky too (as Rimmer is) but he walks a fine line in Brittas Empire quite masterfully...he's the anti-Sasha Baron Cohen (SBC is exaggerated mean on purpose and SBC puts people off his 'humor' eventually because of this one trick schtick).

    Many people don't get through the first couple of episodes of Brittas Empire because they can't quite get their head around what is going on, but if you do, the show is amazingly funny once you get that Gordon never gets it.

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  50. I paid $5,000 for my copy of A Confederacy of Dunces, but that's because it's a rare signed edition.

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  51. If it's a hardbound copy signed by the author, then, man, it IS a rare edition!

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  52. I am a fortunate soul who has never read this book, but I know beforehand (thanks to all of you nice folks) that it will be a real pleasure.

    Well, off to the used book store.

    PS: condolences to the guy who paid for a signed edition. He should have read this post before bidding.

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  53. I just finished this book (for my book club) and thought it was a masterpiece. I also thought it captured the flavor and feel of New Orleans better than anything I've read....

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  54. I've read and re-read this book several times and it is my all time favorite. I never fail too see something new each time! It's dear to my heart so I'm always alarmed when there is talk of a file adaption popping up every few years....BUT ....

    My dream cast for the ACOD film....
    Ignatius = Oliver Platt
    Mrs. Reilly = Olympia Dukakis
    Miss Trixie = Cloris Leachman
    Jones = Mos Def
    Mr. Levy = Alec Baldwin
    Mrs. Levy = Kathy Najimy
    Patrolman Mancuso = Hector Elizondo
    Santa = Rita Moreno

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  55. Great article, thanks!

    An astonishing thing about Ignatius Reilly is that, despite everything, he turns out to be very convincing for the rest of the characters in the book - at least, in the beginning (I can't remember a character he has not duped at least once). For me, he is the best example of an intellectual demagogue - a person who convinces by the way of presentation of the ideas, rather than their content. I have recnetly written an article comparing Ignatius' "ode against the modern world" with Bradbury's revered "Fahrenheit 451": http://www.vladimirkokorev.com/195
    Commentsand bashings are welcome.

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