“When a true genius appears in the world, / You may know him by this sign, that the dunces / Are all in confederacy against him.” Jonathan Swift’s quip comes to life in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces through the bumbling Ignatius J. Reilly. Published in 1980 eleven years after the author’s tragic death, the book was only able to reach the public when Toole’s mother brought the manuscript to Walker Percy and fought for its publication. It earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1981 and became an icon of satirical fiction.
The whole world makes a formidable confederacy against Reilly, whose self-proclaimed genius is recorded in sprawling manifestos written inside the pungent bedroom at his mother’s house. When Reilly’s mother gets in a minor car accident, he is faced with the daunting task of making enough money to pay the insurance costs with a meager master’s degree in English literature. From a pants manufacturer where he starts a worker’s revolt to a hot dog cart that he eats out of, Reilly is unable to subject himself to the hell of employment due to a valve that causes him extreme discomfort anytime he has to leave the house.
Reilly wages a war against society fought entirely in his head, believing that he is the only one to see the world how it truly is. He goes to the movie theater day after day only to yell at the screen about the disgrace he is being subjected to. He believes that his mother’s wishes for him to get a job are gross assaults on his genius, and fights for his right to sit in his own filth thinking about the absurdity of the world around him.
The side characters are a gallery of caricatures that form a hilarious backdrop for Reilly’s incompetent exploits. A cop disguises in ridiculous costumes to arrest “suspicious characters” in the bus depot. The janitor of the sleazy “Night of Joy” engages in a campaign of sabotage against his employer. Their spectrum of tomfoolery compliments Reilly’s ridiculous odyssey, and all paths converge together for an ending that wonderfully delivers the promise of outrageousness the book sets up.
Confederacy is one of the best works of satire in literature, rivaling the works of Heller, Vonnegut, and Twain. Though Toole’s tragic death means that we are robbed of more of this brilliant comedic voice, we are fortunate to have glimpsed such a master’s work at all.