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A Confederacy of Dunces

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TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#1: Dec 6th 2013 at 5:23:41 AM

A Confederacy of Dunces is a book that is seriously rustling my jimmies. It's supposed to be a funny "commedia", but I'm finding myself seriously disturbed and angered by the protagonist. He hits too close to home, you see; I get the feel that, if my mum had had to raise my by her lonesome, I might have ended up like him. Even as we speak, I feel like I'm not safe from becoming something like him. The laziness, to the point of spending entire days in my room with the blinders on (not in a row, though, that's unbearable). The not-paying-attention-to-people, the self-absorption, the over-dramatizing of one's own problems. The spending inordinate amounts of time discussing and complaining about TV Shows, books, and so on.

On the other hand, and I apologize for saying such a mean thing, he kind of reminds me of some banned tropers (Rottweiler in particular bears an uncanny resemblance), and some folks at Lesswrong and Something Awful. They were eloquent and grandiose and could give a surface illusion of intelligence and sanity, but their insane behaviour in debate soon proved that they were only interested in... what, exactly? Seriously, what's the deal of the Ignatius-es of this world? Why are they so endlessly selfish? Why do they play at being Gentleman and a Scholar? What's with their obsession with dead white dudes, with dead white history? What's with the Big Words all the time, especially given the Small Deeds?

I'm seriously disturbed here. Back to the book, what's so funny about it? I don't get it...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
edgewalker22 Lawful neutral Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Lawful neutral
#2: Dec 9th 2013 at 3:05:38 AM

Slightly-OT: this is my favorite book of all time.

What's so funny about it? I'd like to just say "everything" and call it done, but thinking back on it, here's what I like best about the book:

  • Everyone is horrible. A grand-hotel style novel where everyone is an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist is very unusual, and the execution here is golden. That they occupy basically every point on the social and political spectrum gives the book a strangely good-natured feel despite all the Black Comedy. Everyone's a screw-up in their own way.
  • The details are hilarious. From Mrs. Levy failing so hard the school refused to give her an F, to Ignatius's valve, to Myrna's bizarre salutation coming from habitually writing editors as opposed to friends- it's the little things that take it from Black Comedy Slice of Life to a subtly Life Embellished.
  • "Diary of a Working Boy." This is a straight one-up on Ignatius's character, taking his delusions of eloquence and giving them a medium to run wild in a gloriously OTT way.
  • Not strictly comedy-related, but worth noting: the plotting here is AMAZING. The way each story interlocks, and how each effect turns into a cause in a different plot thread and everything comes together beautifully in the end. The grand hotel style is very hard to write well- contrast A Man in Full, which is decidedly less than the sum of it's parts due to interesting characters hampered by sloppy plotting.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#3: Dec 9th 2013 at 5:08:48 AM

Yeah. See, now, the bits you find funny are the bits that depress me. The general mediocrity and lameness of everyone. The surreal details.

That valve.

Ugh.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
edgewalker22 Lawful neutral Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Lawful neutral
#4: Dec 13th 2013 at 2:32:05 AM

(Sorry, didn't see you'd replied.) I'll agree to the lameness, but mediocrity? Heavens no. These people are pillars of ineptitude, shining stars of idiocy, monuments to failure. If I had to make a comparison, I'd say that Confederacy of Dunces could be broadly equated to Eight Bit Theatre in prose form- a huge cast of screwups inflicting themselves on each other, so it's easy to laugh at all the suffering and failure they give and receive.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#5: Dec 13th 2013 at 2:45:06 AM

... No it's not. You want to help, but you can't, and you expect that, even if you were allowed to go speak to the characters, they wouldn't listen, they would keep hurting themselves and each other and not improve, and this makes you feel frustrated and impotent in the face of human misery.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
edgewalker22 Lawful neutral Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Lawful neutral
#6: Dec 13th 2013 at 3:24:47 AM

ITT: Joseph Joestar has very mixed feelings about a book.

There's no accounting for taste, obviously. One of my takeaways from this book (and a lot of other media, like Serenity) is that you can't make people better- that is, you can't force them. You can help them, and support them, and be their friend/family/whatever in spite of their faults, but they need to be willing to face those faults before they can improve. This is the "unsympathetic" part of "Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist"- you ARE impotent in the face of human misery, but it's self-inflicted. These people have nobody but themselves to blame, and the reader has no moral culpability to try and improve their lives.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#7: Dec 13th 2013 at 3:49:33 AM

Well, we can't help the way we're built, I suppose. Some struggle with Samaritan Syndrome, others struggle with their utter selfishness and inability to feel empathy for others. And then there are the lucky who can feel sympathy only for those who actually deserve it.

edited 13th Dec '13 3:50:20 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Know-age Since: May, 2010
#8: Dec 17th 2013 at 12:40:08 PM

Personally, I feel sympathy toward officer Mancuso, irritation toward Ignatius, and I just laugh at everyone else.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#9: Dec 17th 2013 at 1:29:26 PM

I've just gotten through the introduction of The Office, the hiring of Ignatio, and Jones sassing his boss up, because for twenty dollars a week he's not putting up with any bullshit from her.

Things got really funny. I've genuinely begun cracking up.

I think what really got in my way in the earlier chapters was Ig's poor mom and the poor policeman. I couldn't help but feel genuinely sorry for them. The others... they can take care of themselves![lol]

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
edgewalker22 Lawful neutral Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Lawful neutral
#10: Dec 19th 2013 at 3:32:45 AM

Trust me, it all pays off in the end; I wasn't exaggerating about the plotting. Glad to hear you're enjoying yourself, though.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#11: Dec 19th 2013 at 5:10:13 AM

I've come to the letter from Myrna—I can now see how they were made for each other. They're perfect together. It's like reading the stupider, more pedantic kind of discussion on Less Wrong, only with the "stupid" and "pedant" dials Up To Eleven.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
edgewalker22 Lawful neutral Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Lawful neutral
#12: Dec 20th 2013 at 11:29:37 AM

Ignatius really is the protoypical basement-dweller. What changed is that the Internet let the Ignatiuses of the world find (and reinforce) each other without leaving their comfort zones, outside of which they might encounter some reality.

... you're a genius, incidentally. I'd never thought of that until you brought it up.

edited 20th Dec '13 11:30:54 AM by edgewalker22

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#13: Dec 20th 2013 at 4:20:16 PM

As I said, the main reason I find Ignatius so horrifying is how much he reminds me of myself. He's basically me, stripped of every virtue, every merit, every sense of empathy, bereft of all perspective, and yet oh so grandiose and self-important, casting himself as the protagonist of an epic, imitating details of the personal lives of celebrated authors as if that was enough to make himself like them, kind of like the "cultured" equivalent of buying an Aston Martin to feel like James Bond... There's so much of me I see in him... it's horrible, thinking I might have ended up like that.

It's certainly giving me a lot of perspective on pedants and charlatans of all kinds. Whenever someone attempts to bully me with Big Words and a tone of definite certainty, especially when they make Serious Business of inconsequential things, I shall remember Ignatius and his valve, and seriously re-evaluate the point of listening to what they have to say, let alone of actually spending any further time engaging them in debate.

You know, the most remarkable thing about Ignatius, all things considered? It's All About Me. He's the most literal, all-encompassing embodiment of this trope I've ever seen. Some villains have at least some goal, or have an enemy or a meaningful relationship. But Ignatius really only cares about himself and nothing else, about his own self-image and how to aggrandize it, his vision of himself as a genius, which he so dearly wants to roleplay in live-action. Well, that, and, obviously, Never My Fault. To him, the world is a defective toy that doesn't do what he wants when he wants.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
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