12 of 12 members found this review helpful.
“I was drawn to this book by the title alone and the uniqueness of the cover. The brilliance of the satire did not set in until after the first couple of chapters. Ignatius, an unforgettable force, is clearly a genius. Yet, he has no desire to be self-supporting, is slovenly, and writes his gifted essays in a diary on an elementary writing tablet. What's amazing to me, is out of 270 "Reviews" here, not one has alluded to the significance of the title which........ derives from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting) All of the characters are dunces in Ignatius' mind, not against him, but simply that they exist. He dissects, criticizes and judges their failings, but never his own. That's the flaw in Swift's analogy. ** After devouring every line, I wondered whether or not I was surrounded by the confederacy, or if I was one of the dunces within it? Each one believes themselves to be destined for greatness, whether it is the stripper, the general manager of the pants factory, the hot dog vendor or the police officer. ** They are all self-absorbed to which Ignatius attaches his hyper-critical assessments believing that his genius entitles him to that sovereign and authoritative right. He never quite grasps, except maybe toward the end, that he is the strongest member of the confederacy, giving the title and the theme an ultimate irony. **It's these parallels that make the book sooo uproariously funny capsulizing them all as dunces serving in a flaccid confederacy, charging onward always groping, doomed to failure. ** Collectively, they illustrate the mindset of the '60's, the timeframe in which this book was written. ** Learning of the author's suicide left me with a profound wondering of "Who will take his literary place?" His only other book, also published posthumously, The Neon Bible, cannot compare to "Dunces" -- but at least it gave me one more day with Toole, a true gift to American Literature. ”
