Win اتحادیه‌ی ابلهان Constructed By John Kennedy Toole Digital Copy

“Qué falta de gusto y de decencia!” “Qué falta de teología y geometría!” A ver, que yo soy tan misántropo como el que más, el ser humano me da razones a diario para aumentar sin pausa el número de individuos e individuas a los que despreciar con toda el alma.
Lo que inevitablemente me lleva a compartir con Ignatius Reilly, el egregio grandote con gorra de cazador protagonista de la novela, el pesimismo más atroz y para el que solo encuentro consuelo en la seguridad de que en pocos años todos estaremos comiendo mierda, y eso si hay para todos, como añade siempre mi primo con esa gracia que el diablo le dio.
Si algo envidio de Ignatius Reilly es, sin duda, su desvergüenza en la falta de consideración que tiene con casi cualquier individuo o individua que se le cruza.

“Si un blanco de la clase media fuera lo bastante suicida como para sentarse a mi lado, imagino que lo golpearía sonoramente en la cabeza y en los hombros con una manaza, arrojando, con suma destreza, uno de mis cócteles molotov a un autobús en marcha atiborrado de blancos de clase media con la otra.
”

Pero aun así, me niego a ver a Ignatius Reilly como un ser tierno y entrañable malogrado por una sociedad decadente contra la que luchaba en una guerra desigual.
Nadie va a convencerme de ello, ninguna conjura logrará tamaña majadería conmigo, Un Don Quijote obeso Un Cristo moderno Ignatius Reilly es un haragán, sexófobo, cobarde y pontificador de soberbia infinita y luces muy justitas que se comunica con el resto del mundo a través del desagrado y que despotrica contra todo lo que se mueve con una elegancia y una gracia, eso no se lo puedo negar, que en ocasiones nos divierte por su despropósito, que en otras nos indigna, sin dejar de divertirnos, por el reaccionario y casposo espíritu que lo inspira, y que en otras tantas más, aunque en mi criterio son las menos, nos asombra por la inesperada agudeza con la que saca los colores a la sociedad de su época, en realidad de cualquier época que sea posterior a la edad media.


Tan es así que me veo en el inevitable deber de llamar la atención de todos esos pancartistas proIgnatius con la débil esperanza de que no pierdan el norte.
Todo tiene sus límites, hasta la empatía, la comprensión o la compasión.
Que uno empieza riéndose con estos seres solitarios que se pasan el día hurgando en su sucio ombligo con restos de patatas fritas en el bigote, tendidos sobre sabanas mugrientas en camas a punto de venirse abajo, garabateando en su ordenador personal sus necedades sobre la planicidad de la tierra o la salud incólume de Elvis para finalmente descubrir, con el consiguiente cerrazón de nuestra válvula pilórica, que algún cabronazo ha reconducido su odio, los ha agrupado bajo un nombre y los ha convencido de que un salvador mesiánico llamado Trump ha venido a salvarles de una conspiración de pedófilos adoradores de satán o lo que viene siendo un asqueroso atajo de degenerados comunistas.


Y no crean que esta es otra de las exuberancias quiméricas de nuestro obeso amigo.
Un grupo con tales fundamentos ha surgido en el país de Ignatius Reilly bajo el nombre de QAnon, y hasta una adepta, Marjorie Taylor Greene, se presentará al congreso por el partido republicano en el distritode Georgia con muchas posibilidades de salir elegida.
Ante cosas así uno abraza sin pensar las ideas con las que Ignatius pretendía cambiar todos los gobiernos del mundo, apoyando a muerte a su partido SMTD, Salvar al Mundo a Través de la Degeneración, y ayudándole en su afán de infiltrar a “pervertidos” homosexuales en todos los Estados Mayores de los países con el fin de metarfosear las guerras en orgías.
Al principio lo mismo perdemos el voto calvinista de los conservadores rurales, pero los inicios son siempre duros.


Quedan ustedes oficialmente avisados, This is the book that almost broke my book club,

John Kennedy Tooles A Confederacy of Dunces is as famous for its backstory as it is for its content.
It was published posthumously in, over a decade after Toole ended his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning.
Despite having been earlier rejected by publishers, the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.


A Confederacy of Dunces is a rambling, aimless, comedic novel centered on Ignatius J.
Reilly, a buffoonish overweight manchild with poor fashion sense, worse social skills, and deplorable hygiene, Throughpages which is relatively long for a book in which nothing happens we follow Ignatius through various minor misadventures: Ignatius goes to a bar Ignatius gets a job at Levy Pants and attempts to unionize the factory Ignatius sells hotdogs Ignatius in what passes for a large set piece attempts to use a gay soiree as a political rally.


Comedy is all about personal, subjective reactions, Thus, any artistic medium that relies heavily on comedy is likely to engender varied responses, For my book club, at least, those responses were all passionate,

It was my buddy Colin who picked the book, Hed loved it as an eighteen yearold now, fourteen years later, he thought it a propitious time to revisit it.
Ruleof Book Club at least our book club is that the person picking the book has to have read it before.
He is then forced to “defend” the book at our bimonthly meeting, In his opening statement, Colin declared his undying love, A hilarious romp with an indelible central character,

The salvos came fast and fierce, The group was roughly split on loving or hating the book, and responses lived at those two extremes.
Colin was the chief defender, I was his chief inquisitor, No one at our meeting had an indifferent response,

Eventually, the others got tired, their attention drawn by the frozen pizza and beer.
The debate came down to Colin and me battling away over the inherent worth of A Confederacy of Dunces while the others looked for a way to exit quietly.


Ill tell you what I told him,

I hated it,

Hate is a pretty strong word, Perhaps a bit imprecise as well, Overall, I strongly disliked the book, But I hated everyone in it, Based on the epigram by Jonathan Swift, it is clear that Tooles title refers to Ignatiuss worldview: that his inflated sense of intelligence, his delusions of grandeur, and his unrelenting condescension has created a paradigm in which he believes that every other person in this world is an idiot.
And what is more, he thinks this idiotfilled world is in league against him,

I took the title differently, I assumed it to be Tooles worldview, His evident intelligence, his publishing failures, and his depression clearly combined to lead him to his unfortunate end.
Reading this book, I got the sense that Toole really thought himself a genius one destined to be misunderstood.
To that end, the “confederacy of dunces” consists of us the hapless, clueless world,

There is a strong disgust for humanity permeating every page, There is not a single likeable character, There is not a single person walking the streets of Tooles New Orleans who shows a flash of wit, warmth, or love.


The proDunces members of my book club pointed out that I have a tendency towards “likeable” characters.
I considered the possibility, and though there is a grain of truth, I dont think its entirely accurate.
It was not the characters unlikability that struck me it was their creators disdain, Toole appears to despise his own characters, How could I feel otherwise

Ignatius is a tiresome, boorish person to follow, He is disruptive, dishonest, and frankly disgusting, His interactions with others are marked by a tendency towards sociopathy, He is written for laughs or so I am told, by those who found him funny but he is clearly suffering from undiagnosed mental illnesses.
But rather than

seeing him to a hospital, we have to follow him as he plods and farts his way through each day, griping about his “valve,” unable to reach the tiniest bit of insight.


The side characters are just as bad, Ignatiuss widowed mother Irene is an alcoholic enabler and so immensely irritating that I nearly defenestrated my copy of this book on several occasions.
Ignatiuss longdistance “girlfriend” for lack of a better word Myrna is a sexcrazed New York beatnik who attempts to solve Ignatiuss problems by analyzing his sex life.
To be fair, her correspondence with Ignatius is fairly hilarious, Mr. Gonzalez, the manager at Levy Pants, is a clueless bungler who doesnt realize that Ignatius is filing things in the trash.
The owner of Levy Pants, Gus Levy, is dumb, indifferent, and put upon by his wife, a trite, doityourself psychoanalyst.
Patrolman Angel Mancuso seems to have a decent enough heart, but he is such an inept milquetoast that its impossible to care about him.


The one character with a semblance of actual rather than perceived aptitude is Burma Jones, a black porter at the club Night of Joy.
He works there for Lana Lee and puts up with her unpleasantness so that he isnt arrested for vagrancy.
Burma rises above the crowd with his ability not to be taken lightly in this novel to accurately observe life as it swirls around him.
He is, in other words, relatively sane, But even this character is marred by the black stereotypes and tropes he is forced to carry.


Honestly, I sometimes enjoy trashing a book, Especially a trashy book that deserves it, I dont feel that way in this instance, For one, the background Tooles publishing woes, his death is sad, For another, he was a man of obvious talent, A Confederacy of Dunces is a masterpiece in that it absolutely achieves with great skill exactly what it sets out to achieve.
I simply did not like it,

After our book club disassembled, I didn't hear from Colin for awhile, I wondered if I hadnt assaulted his favorite book a bit too hard, Books are personal. Sharing them is a risk, Especially with our book club, We dont stab in the back we stab in the front, I almost texted him to apologize, But his wife was also expecting a baby any day, so it occurred to me that he had other things on his mind.


Then, the other night, I was taking an evening stroll when I ran into him and his wife as they walked around, trying to jumpstart labor.
I was going to ask them about babyrelated stuff, but Colin cut me off immediately,

“Ive been thinking about A Confederacy of Dunces,” he said, “Im more certain than ever that youre completely fing wrong, Its a great book. It changed my life. ”

“Did it really change your life” I asked,

“Well, no. But its really damn funny, ”

So, there you have the dissenting opinion, I didn't care for A Confederacy of Dunces, But maybe Im just completely fing wrong,
.

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