The Insufferable Ignatius J. Reilly

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

The above quote from Jonathan Swift's "Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting", which is at the front of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, is quite meaningful. When something new, brilliant, and innovative is introduced, the dunces of the world will resist said innovation. This quote is a sad statement about human progress, the true hidden gems of humanity will be beaten down mercilessly by masses who falsely believe they know better. Of course, this quote in no way applies to Ignatius J. Reilly, the protagonist of this novel. The word "protagonist" only being used in the broadest sense here, given Ignatius's overall unlikeability. Ignatius is a lazy, obnoxious, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-spiritual man, and, for lack of a better term, an absolute dunce.

In the first three chapters of A Confederacy of Dunces, we're introduced to a handful of characters, denizens of 1950s New Orleans who each play some role in the life of Ignatius J. Reilly or the people around him. One such character is Ignatius's mother, who he lives with despite being thirty years old. Ignatius's mother is incredibly patient with her son, it's evident that he's quite spoiled. However, one important characteristic we see early on in her is her patience with Ignatius starting to run thin. In chapter 1, the two of them get into a car accident that destroys part of a building. When his mother tries to talk to him about the money they owe due to this crash, Ignatius simply waves her legitimate concerns aside, saying "If you are going to stage one of your hysterical scenes, I shall have to return to the living room. As a matter of fact, I think I will." (Pg 42). That is followed up by a remark from Mrs. Reilly, as Swift writes ""What I'm gonna do with a boy like that?" Mrs. Reilly sadly asked Patrolman Mancuso." (Pg 42). Mrs. Reilly might be overly patient with Ignatius, but we see this patience waver when she looks at her son's abhorrent actions with dismay.

Other major characters introduced early on include the aforementioned Angelo Mancuso, a police officer who's down on his luck, being forced by his police sergeant to go undercover in ridiculous outfits to undercover suspicious individuals. He encourages Mrs. Reilly to go bowling with him at night, which she does, indicating a bit of growth on her part as she does things without Ignatius. Another character is Jones, a young black man introduced at the police precinct and later seen getting a job at the Night of Joy bar as an underpaid janitor. He always wears sunglasses and smokes cigarettes, and he's quick to reference things like slavery to poke fun at white people.

Now, at this point, I feel like I should take a brief moment to mention a few elements of this book that would be frowned upon had it been written today, a few wrinkles that show the novel's age. It is written by a white author, and it does frequently use outdated, offensive language to refer to various minorities, seemingly moreso to satirize racists and homophobes than actually be racist or homophobic, but that obviously isn't really okay by today's standards. I'm interested to see where this book's racial commentary goes, but it's hard to say at this point.

Anyways, a couple more important characters are introduced, mainly Mr. Gonzales and Miss Trixie, employees at Levy Pants where Ignatius reluctantly gets a job. I find these two to be some of the funnier characters in the novel--Mr. Gonzales is a nervous office manager who's desperate for steady employees, and Miss Trixie is an extremely old and mostly incompetent assistant accountant, who the company only holds onto because the wife of the company's owner wants Miss Trixie to stay busy and occupied in the late years of her life. I think these two characters are well summed-up in one of their early interactions in the book. Toole writes, ""Good morning, Miss Trixie," Mr. Gonzales called in his effervescent tenor. "And how are we this morning?" "Who? Oh, hello, Gomez," Miss Trixie said feebly and drifted off toward the ladies' room as if she were tacking into a gale." (Pg 65). This quickly characterizes Miss Trixie as disoriented, loopy and confused, which in turn characterizes Mr. Gonzales as someone who's willing to put up with just about any level of incompetence as long as they'll remain steadily employed--hence why he hired Ignatius.

Ignatius himself is an absolutely ridiculous character. He spends his days in his room writing ridiculous articles he'll never send off to get published, watching children's television or films and loudly remarking on their "perversions," or playing a variety of musical instruments (presumably quite poorly due to the complaints from his neighbors.) We see the inner machinations of his mind as he speaks and writes, but I think the most powerful moment in characterizing Ignatius is one of his inner thoughts on the very first page. "Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul." (Pg 1). This highlights a crucial element of Ignatius that seems like it'll be one of the main things this book satirizes: pseudo-intellectualism and pseudo-spiritualism. The things Ignatius are thinking make no sense when you think about them--"lack of theology and geometry" can't be determined from someone's choice of clothing. Overall, Ignatius is hilariously incompetent, and I eagerly await reading more of his misadventures.