““Is it the part of the police department to harass me when this city is a flagrant vice capital of the civilized world?” Ignatius bellowed. “This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, antichrists, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, hades, litterbugs, and lesbians, all of whom are only too well protect by graft.””
There’s a certain duality to New Orleans. No where else would you be able to find priests and nuns going to the cathedral for confession and mass on the same street as topless women and the “Trashy Diva Lingerie Boutique”. It’s a eccentric and colorful quirk of New Orleans that can be distilled into John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer Prize winning comedy “A Confederacy of Dunces”.
You can’t really escape this book in New Orleans. It’s on bookshelves in every bookstore we’ve gone into, and even in the most tourist-y of gift shops in the French Quarter, our “protagonist” Ignatius Reiley’s bushy black mustache and green hunting cap with its large green earflaps stare back at me, the only book in a boutique full of jewelry and various bric-a-brac. I’ve had people come up and tell me how much they love the book as I’ve brought it to restaurants and cafés to prepare for this blog post, New Orleans natives sharing how the book like no other captures the true eccentricity and “soul” of New Orleans.
It’s ironic how the first night we arrived in New Orleans, we immediately were greeted by a bronze statue of Ignatius. We had no idea he was there, and many of us walked past him without a second glance. However, the tousled earflaps drew us in, and to our great delight, the statue of our protagonist Ignatius greeted us with caterpillar eyebrows and his impressive mustache. A literary Ignatius definitely would not have been pleased with our ragtag group of California tourists stopping and taking pictures with him, us probably lacking “taste and decency”, our outfits “casting doubts upon one’s soul”. Since he’s a statue though, he has no choice but to entertain us bookpackers delighted at finding a character in one of our books captured in bronze during our first night in the Big Easy.
Group photo op with Ignatius!
What’s been interesting to me is how strongly my classmates have expressed their dislike for Ignatius. From middle school English to our writing classes and AP courses in high school through the books we’ve read in our time at USC, we’ve been constantly reinforced with the idea that in every story, there’s this arc, character progression that leaves our protagonists changed from how we initially met them. Ignatius' frustrating selfishness, clumsiness, and inconsiderateness led me to initially be irritated, but as I read, the comedy of the novel started to make sense to me. It’s quite like Don Quixote, as Ignatius similarly goes from adventure to adventure like how Don Quixote tilted at windmills, letting out gas and bringing about the stench of old tea bags wherever Ignatius goes.
“I dust a bit. In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”
In my mind, I think of Curious George, Sherlock Holmes or Paddington the bear when I think of what type of character I’m looking at Ignatius through. They each have their charm: Curious George is always curious, Sherlock is consistently witty and brilliant, Paddington charming and clumsy, and now Ignatius’ lumbering, gassy, and blundering figure joins the rest. The fact that they are static characters going through different scenarios is what makes the story so exciting, charming, or in our case, funny. When I realized that Confederacy of Dunces was one of those types of books, I no longer read it critically for metaphors, themes, or various analytical purposes, but instead as how Toole intended it to be—a truly laugh-out-loud comedy, timeless and absurd.
As we walked the streets of Bourbon Street coming back from our ghost tour on my last night in New Orleans, I couldn’t help but think about what righteous outrage Ignatius would have toward the tourists drunkenly drinking daiquiris, the racy stores and bars, and the party atmosphere Bourbon Street embraces. It’s part of the whole comedy, seeing how licentious and exotic the atmosphere is and the contrast to Ignatius’ chivalric ideals.
One of many Daiquiri shops around Bourbon Street
The city of New Orleans has been a true experience of a lifetime. As we depart New Orleans for the state capital of Baton Rouge next, which Ignatius describes as the “heart of darkness, where the true wastelands begins”, I’m excited to put the parties behind and explore the city in which our next book, Lessons Before Dying, is set. I’ll remember how colorful and exciting New Orleans is though, and if I’m ever longing for a piece of the wild and riotous city, Confederacy of Dunces is there to remind me of the eccentricity and soul of the city.