It is a bit difficult for me updating this blog with a description of our discussion last night, May 7th, 2009 at Houston Freed-Montrose Library but I'll do my best. The reason for the difficulty is that I was one of only a handful of attendees who didn't like the book very much. Twenty one of us met at our regular time and only about five out of the twenty-one thought the book was not very enjoyable. Normally I try to cover everyone's opinions but since I was in the minority, my opinion here is going to skew my description of the discussion I think. But I will overcome my concern and hope that what I write here will still adequately describe the discussion especially for anyone who would like to have a view of how our discussions work.
To explain why I disliked it, I will say that since we are affiliated with Great Books (http://www.greatbooks.org), I expect to either learn something from the books we read, maybe even truth and wisdom or for the book to have historical significance or for there to be significant beauty presented in some way. Originality is nice if that is included as well.
I thought after finishing reading that this book was pure entertainment. Not something I object to but if that is all it is, it becomes comparable to watching a TV sitcom or a romantic comedy at the movies. Having read the definition of "farce" from wikipedia , I learned that a farce is written to entertain and has a few standard features such as a chase scene at the end or some final scene where a catastrophe threatens. This fits exactly the outline of CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES in my opinion.
When the discussion finished, I had a few more thoughts about themes that might have been present that might have been more subtle and original adding more complexity perhaps than I at first thought. In particular, near the end of our discussion, we talked about the death of the author by suicide and some of the references in the book that were pertinent to that. My opinion was improved after our discussion since I developed more of an appreciation about how dark the humor really was though I don't plan to be reading this again anytime soon. For those not aware, getting more from a book after doing a second reading is a classic way to tell if something is a Great Book (note uppercase "G").
Our discussion was led very capably by Claudia who began by asking us about the first paragraph of the book where Ignatius J. Reilly, the protagonist is described as having a "fleshy balloon of a head", wearing a green hunting cap with green ear flaps that "stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once" possibly indicating his mental state. Several gave their opinions of Ignatius by describing him as looking like a "baby Huey", as someone who loves to criticize everything, insecure with insecurity as a defense mechanism, narcisistic, as someone with no morals, and someone who didn't accept any responsibility for any problems in his life.
Claudia followed up her first question with a question about the relationship between Ignatius and his mother. It was mentioned that his mother was someone Ignatius could feel superior to even though she provided a roof over his head. We didn't seem to agree on whether there was love between the two. Some thought his mother really did love him but others thought she too easily arranged for his commitment to the mental hospital when he became an obstacle to her getting married and becoming more financially secure. One interesting comment was that it wasn't impossible to believe that his mother both loved him and was glad to get rid of him because he was such a burden. Claudia asked what the mother got out of the relationship since it seemed all one way. Some in the group thought that she got an identity, that she was very co-dependent. It seemed threatening to Ignatius when she made new friends with Santa and Claude and started moving outside of his control.
Also, one important point someone made regarding whether Ignatius loved his mother was that many of Ignatius actions indicated jealousy such as when his mother formed a relationship with Claude, who was financially stable and a potential candidate for marriage. We were reminded of how Ignatius tried to keep his mother from going out with Claude by expressing fear at getting robbed. How he locked himself in his room until she returned home trying to manipulate her with guilt.
When we were asked "what is Ignatius' world view", a particularly good response in my opinion was a reminder to the rest of us how Ignatius kept invoking the name of Fortuna, i.e. claiming that his bad luck was all due to fate, Fortuna thus being a mechanism for allowing him to take no responsibility for anything. Also, we're not asked to buy into Ignatius' world view, one where he doesn't consider himself a bum but does consider himself an intellectual.
One person said that as readers we don't like him, aren't meant to like him but that we think he's funny, at which time some (just a few) indicated they didn't think he was funny. The plot provides Ignatius the chance to criticize everything by going to places he says he hates but he really likes thus providing him with an unpleasant world that he loves to criticize and feel superior to. I thought that some how, the author was tricking us because the world of stupidity and absurdity that Ignatius criticizes is one that the reader also is critical of (for the most part). So my question was does that make us like Ignatius? Some in the crowd thought no because Ignatius actually liked living in this world and we (most of us anyway) wouldn't.
The character of Jones a black man struggling to avoid being jailed for vagrancy seemed very admirable to most of us. He seemed likable and the opposite of Ignatius. I think it was at this point where I brought up the issue of stereotypes being the primary mode of presenting the characters. We discussed why this was good and why this was bad. Jones was a victim of racial prejudice and a victim of greed by "whitey" here played by Lana, the white merciless, greedy bar owner.
I explained how characters in literature were an important part of my enjoyment and the characters in this book appeared to be like stick-figures. Some challenged me on this. Some indicated that the characters only needed to be developed to the point where the author could use them to give us a laugh. The author definitely wasn't trying to help us be empathetic or sympathetic with the characters, that seemed clear, except maybe for Jones who was being taken advantage by his employer, Lana the bar owner and maybe for Mr Levy who had a wife who was a parasite and a shrew. One perceptive attendee notes that the characters were "stick-figures" because Ignatius did not want to know these characters at any deeper level and this was his world, after all. He only wanted to know enough so that he could formulate his criticisms and formulating criticism seemed to be his "raison d'etre".
Other details of the discussion and/or the book which I won't be writing about here included:
- a patroman named Mancuso who was portrayed as dumb but who was rewarded in the end, in the meantime provided the author yet another opportunity to stereotype or at the very least to provide us a character who was not very interesting except for the humor of his situation.
- a passionate, promiscuous, young jewish woman named Myrna, the driving force that caused Ignatius to get into many of the absurd situations that provided the humor
- Mr Levy, Mrs.Levy, Trixie, Mr. Gonzalez and the events surrounding the pants factory where Ignatius worked until he got fired
- the homosexual character of Dorian Greene and his homosexual friends which allowed the author to portray yet more stereotypical characters
- Mr. Clyde, owner of the hot dog franchise where Ignatius worked and which was basically a plot device to get Ignatius into the French Quarter culture and encounter situations where he could act out yet more absurd behaviour with more absurd characters.
- The ending which caused us to have a lengthy discussion about whether we thought Ignatius changed, grew and became more emotionally mature by the end of the story. And how much hope did we have for his future.
Could this novel have taken place anywhere else in the world besides New Orleans, we were asked? Some thought yes, San Francisco or Houston would have worked. I brought up the theme of "kitsch" which I was very unsure about, it seemed to be ever-present in the novel but yet I couldn't really describe how. A couple of members of the group indicated that New Orleans was a very "kitschy" place.
Now as I look up the definition of "kitsch", I find that what I really think is that the whole novel is kitsch, referring to that definition of kitsch at http://www.wikipedia.org as something which denotes that type of art which is "aethetically deficient", which is "formulated by the needs of the market and given to a passive population"...and "serves its purpose of giving the audience leisure and something to watch" and most importantly in this case, something to laugh at.
Looking forward to our next meeting on June 4, 2009 at 6pm at Houston Freed-Montrose library when we will discuss TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by Bohumil Hrabal. More details about the work and our group at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/
