Word: ignatius
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
ARIDE ON the T. David R. Ignatius '72 now works for the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street fuckin' Journal. He used to write about Revolution with a capital R which stood for Right Now and Right here in River City. It was the day after a Chicago jury, under the studious supervision of Judge Julius Hoffman, found five of the remaining Chicago 7 guilty--Seale had already been bound, gagged, hit with contempt of court and severed from the case. The Day After--TDA, for short--15,000 angry protesters gathered in Government Center and about a third...
Unfortunately for Ignatius, his dipsomaniacal mother forces him to look for a 20th century job. He first fetches up at Levy Pants, a somnolent factory with a senile secretary named Miss Trixie. "Am I retired?" she asks often. Ignatius tries to organize the black workers into an ill-fated Crusade for Moorish Dignity. Then he takes up selling hot dogs in the French Quarter. His mother comes to the belated conclusion that Ignatius is disgracing her and wonders about committing him to Charity Hospital. A friend urges her on: "If it's free and they lock people away, Ignatius...
...number of satellite characters keep orbiting Ignatius' girth. There is Burma Jones, a young black who has to take a low-paying job at a Bourbon Street strip joint or be arrested for vagrancy. As a sidewalk shill for the acts inside, Jones seeks his revenge: "Night of Joy got genuine color peoples workin below the minimal wage." Then there is Patrolman Mancuso, who has been ordered by his chief to bring in at least one suspicious character. Donning the odd costumes he is forced to wear for the purpose of enticement, Mancuso constantly goes out and gets himself...
This book passes from his hands to a policeman's; it is stolen by a juvenile delinquent and next appears as a prop in a pornographic photograph, which winds up back in Ignatius' hands...
...When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Ultimately, Ignatius is simply too grotesque and loony to be taken for a genius; the world he howls at seems less awful than he does. Pratfalls can pass be yond slapstick only if they echo, and most of the ones in this novel do not. They are terribly funny, though, and if a book's price is measured against the laughs it provokes, A Confederacy of Dunces is the bargain of the year. - Paul Gray