Leave the Board Out of this

November 19, 2008 | Filed Under quick thoughts 

I have been reading “The Confederacy of Dunces” in the bathroom stall at work, because that is the only time I really feel like reading it.  You can read this and completely understand that John Kennedy Toole was not a happy person.  No one in the book is happy.  Everyone is put down by anyone and everyone at every part of the book.  That was this guy.  He couldn’t be a happy guy.  I know nothing of Toole except that he killed himself and I don’t know how shortly after the book.  But think of this guy, writing this book without wanting to publish it (as far as I know, maybe he tried and failed).  What kind of person would write this just to write.  I mean this guy is Ignatius.  But he is a little bit of every character.

I see the humor that everyone else says is there, but I’m not enjoying as others have, it’s more annoying than anything.  This book is a car wreck.  It has the same beauty as a car wreck.  Everyone looks at a car wreck because it is unbelievable.  It’s hard to fathom that that much metal can be tossed around and bent and crushed.   I might have a hard time comparing the two but I can’t put down this book just like I can’t stop looking a ta car wreck.

O.k. I’m gonna rephrase this.  It’s not like looking at a car wreck that has already happened but a car wreck in progress.  I need to see how this thing is gonna end.  It was a collision at the very begining with how Ignatius is confronted by the Police Officer and how he treats his mother and how he looks down upon everyone as everyone looks down on him.  Then I, the reader, can look down upon everyone in this book and only thank gOD that they are in a book and this is not the “never ending story” and I will not be joing these people into their car wreck.  But goddamn if it doesn’t feel like the never ending story.

I just feel the need to finish this book.  In hopes that there is somehow it could turn out good, but I know better than that.

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