Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole: Massive Meatloaf (1615 words)
by MALU - written on 22.03.05 (Very useful, 729 readings)
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Kill for a book? We´ve read about this in Umberto Eco´s novel ´The Name of the Rose´. Kill oneself because of a book? Sadly, this happened in real life when John Kennedy Toole (born 1936) realised that no publisher was interested in the manuscript of his novel ´The Confederacy of Dunces´, he committed suicide in 1969. Only thanks to his mother who kept pestering people and finally, in 1976, succeeded in making the novelist and professor of literature Walker Percy promise to have a look at it the literary world knows about this book; in the foreword to the Penguin edition he admits to have taken the manuscript only to get rid of the woman, glance at the first ...

Theology and geometry via comedy (793 words)
by mo79 - written on 21.05.02 (Very useful, 215 readings)
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Apart from one other published book written when the author was just 16, 'A Confederacy of Dunces' is John Kennedy Toole's only work, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. The novel however was written sometime during the 60's, and when Toole had become depressed by his failure in getting the book published he comitted suicide at the age of 32. It was only through the faithful persistence of his mother that this classic book eventually reached printing presses and into the hands of many lucky readers. The latest Penguin Classics edition (and previous editions) comes complete with a brief and worthy foreword to the book by Walker ...

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole: Well Written and Hilarious Book (1090 words)
by rianleeann - written on 17.08.02 (Very useful, 589 readings)
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Just a quick history on this book, before I go into details: The author, John Kennedy Toole, wrote this book in the late 1960's. He couldn't get it published, and he ended up committing suicide. His mother found the manuscript and managed to get it published. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. I have passed by this book in the bookstore many times, mainly because by the time I see the book I?m already at my book limit for the day. (That is, the limit of books I allow myself to buy in one trip to the bookstore. If I didn?t set a limit for myself, I?d probably walk out with a towering stack of novels every time!) The other day, however, I finally bought ...