Quote:
Originally Posted by Fathermole
I nominate ,"A Confederacy of Dunces" is a novel written by John Kennedy Toole, published in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a revealing foreword) and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a cult classic, and later a mainstream success. Toole posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. It is an important part of the 'modern canon' of Southern literature.
The story is set in New Orleans in the early 1960s. The central character is Ignatius J. (Jacques) Reilly, an educated but slothful man still living with his mother at age 30 in the city's Uptown neighborhood, who, because of family circumstances, must set out to get a job. In his quest for employment he has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces
nevermind can't find it in ebook format anymore |
I completely agree with your assessment of this book: It's an important novel and has relevance to the Southern Gothic tradition in liteature. I would also like to see
Barry Hannah's catalog made available.
I'll PM you about another issue regarding contemporary modern literary fiction (in addition to postmodernist fiction), and the limited "understanding" of websites that have a fan-base catering mainly to genre fiction and the growing ebook industry. In fact, there have been reports that genre fiction is the main driving force of the ebook market. This is a matter for serious discussion and contemplation among a select few. However, my feeling is that once the ebook industry really takes off, that ebooks and the level of discussion (in general) will improve drastically as contemporary literary fiction is anyalzed, critiqued, and enjoyed.
Cheers,
Don