A Confederacy of Dunces - Book Report/Review Example

Many fictional characters have had an influence on my life, but there has been one in particular that stands out. It would be difficult if not ridiculous to say that I have patterned my way of life on this character; in fact, I think it would be disturbing to find that anyone had patterned their way of life on this character. Nonetheless, I have learned a valuable lesson in life from reading this book and studying this character and what I have learned has given me a philosophy on which to live.

The book I am talking about is called A Confederacy of Dunces and it was written by John Kennedy Toole. In the outrageous character of Ignatius Reilly-ranked as the 17th best fictional character of all time by Book Magazine in 2002-Toole truly created one of the most original characters of all time. Ignatius Reilly is an obese, opinionated, unemployed man who still lives with his mother and is completely out of touch with the world. Due to a set of circumstances that ends with his mother crashing their car, Ignatius is forced to go out into the world and find a job.

He finds several in a series of hilarious episodes that continue to point out how out of step he is with the world. Ignatius clearly could be misconstrued as a nut, a loser, or even a psycho. Although I disagree with his worldview on several points-he believes the world attained perfection during the Middle Ages and longs for a return to monarchy, not believing the average human is quite intelligent enough to allow for democratic principles of self-rule-I prefer to look at Ignatius in a better light.

Ignatius may be lazy, he may be profoundly self-centered, he may be more than willing to let his elderly mother do everything for him while he watches TV, but he refuses to conform. In a society in which nonconformity is all too often confused with fashion choice, Ignatius truly is a rebel. His rebelliousness does include a fashion statement, yes, but that fashion statement is anything but trendy and is instead anti-fashion, built upon comfort rather than style. But beyond that, Ignatius is a rebel in the best and truest sense of the word in that he steadfastly refuses to accept anything that doesn't correspond with his philosophy.

All too often in literature and film, the rebel is presented as the cool, good-looking guy who doesn't seem to care about anything until he stands to lose something. And he also dresses really nicely. The great thing about Ignatius is that he isn't good-looking and from the opening pages of the novel it's clear that he deeply cares about many things. He's passionate and committed and the whole concept of "cool" is probably something that he couldn't even fathom existing. What passes as the rebel in most works of art of the twentieth-century is really nothing but a character who is afraid to express an opinion because of the possibility that that opinion will expose him for what he really is, whatever that might be.

I have been influenced by Ignatius precisely because he's completely oblivious to the possibility that he might not be liked or admired or thought interesting. To me, being a rebel or an interesting human being isn't about caring if you're cool or not. Being a rebel or an interesting human being is about not caring if you're cool or not. And no other character in the fiction that I have read better exemplifies that disregard of other people's opinion than Ignatius Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's masterful comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces.