#A Confederacy of Dunces

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[noodler1]

Cat In the Bun Compartment (Lithograph)

[bellasbookclub]

Reccer Spotlight: Edward's Cullencumber!

Three Men in a Boat

A Confederacy of Dunces

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

The Power

The Name of the Wind

Whether you'd like to read about people having a silly time in a boat or a bad time on land, EC's recs have you covered. Full text available in their tab of the Bella’s Book Club Summer Reading ‘24 Reclist.

more info on BBC Summer Reading 2024

more Reccer Spotlights

[stone-cold-groove]

Illustration detail from the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces.

[hollywood-montrose]

“Adoring Angels” by Benozzo Gozzoli (1459)

“Theology and Geometry” book cover, authored by Leslie Marsh (2022)

“Griffith”, by Kentaro Miura (2003-2005)

[stimtickle]

The cashier was real funny, he said, “I’m sorry sir, but that’s sold out.” I laughed and replied, “Yeah right.”

*Coppola’s not wrong: America is an empire on the verge of collapse and it will crumble sooner than later. His heart’s in the right place for sure. Yet that doesn’t stop him from making a garish af ersatz looking movie with questionable decisions (aesthetic and otherwise) throughout. And as usual Adam Driver is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Shia LeBuff is unintentionally funny just from how utterly stupid he looks. This movie’s a hot mess though and I often thought of that scene from A Confederacy of Dunces when Ignatius J. Reilly’s yelling at the movie screen, “What is this abomination before me!?” 💩🎥

[skippydiesposting]

after reading Lord of the Flies I'm even more mad at the people who compare Ruprecht to Ignatius Reilly......like if you want an example from classic literature there is a much better example RIGHT THERE

[tri-ciclo]

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[noahsbookhoard]

📚August 2024 Book Review (Part 4/4)📚

And that wraps it up for August! It had been a busy month but I loved the variety (although I could have lived without learning about Ignatius Reilly)

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

The misadventures of Ignatis Reilly, a lazy misanthropic man forced to work for the first time in his life in 60's New Orleans, from the Levy's Pant factory to hotdogs selling in the streets, around incompetent policemen, anticommunist elderly men, more or less dubious barkeeper and the gay community.

I haven't chosen to read this book, it was this month's book club blind draw. I probably would have read it ever if it wasn't for this and jury is still out on whether or not I would be happier not having read it or not. The book isn't even that bad! It just has the worst protagonist in the history of Literature.

The story itself is a satire of the US in the 60's, characters are archetypes turned into comedy by their meeting clashing personalities: the black man in need of a job and the barkeeper who wants to appear running a proper business but needs to sell explicit pictures on the side, the half blind half deaf already a little senile employee of Levy's factory about whom M. Levy and his wife keep arguing to see if she should retire or not... There's some sitcom comedy trope with an assortment of subplots opened but never closed as the story goes until one event makes everything fall back together in one perfectly geared sequence. This was good, this was funny, I wish this could have worked with Ignatius Reilly.

Sincerely the biggest reproach I can make to this book is its main character. Problem is said character is there nearly all the time and being an unsufferable 30 year old toddler who never ever face the consequences of his actions. Just thinking about Ignatius fucking Reilly makes me itchy. He is dirty, lazy, a liar, a hypocrit, self centered and just downright unpleasant. The most uncomfortable part of the novel were the articles written by Ignatius about hi experience as a worker because they are a concentrate of everything wrong with him with absolutely no critical perspective whatsoever. He is a racist that tried setting an insurrection by the black worker at the factory, he is a homophobe that tried to create a political party with the gay community of New Orleans...

I didn't even get the satisfaction of him getting, I don't know, run over by a cable car, punch in the nose by one of his former boss, kicked out of the house by his mom (or multiple of that I wouldn't mind) he just run away with his former girlfriend who is just as terrible on the opposite end of the scale.

It's a classic so I'm happy to have read it. But I won't be doing it again, thank you very much.

How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub by P Djeli Clark

A mysterious ad in the papers caught the eyes of Trevor: an offer for a kit that allows you to raise your own mythical creature at home. It might be his chance for a grand achievement! But careful what you wish for...

This is the short story that won the Locus 2024 and my first meeting with author P Djeli Clark which I wanted to read for quite some times. I have in the meantime already read Ring Shout and I'm really thinking of putting Master of Djinn higher on the TBR, I have a new author added to the favorites!

This short stoey is wickedly efficient, either in characterisation or in worldbuilding. Trevor is brushed in two strokes as ambitious (That's literaly the first word of the story) but not a hard worker and unable to think longterm about his decisions. The addition of merpeople in the story is seamless: I never question how they got here, we were just in a fantasy uchronia now, okay, carry on.

The foreshadowing works really well too: the main character is too clueless to click it but the reader does and waiting for the other shoes to drop is really satisfying.

I don't want to say too much, but the twist at the end still managed to surprise me. I was expecting something but not that, and yet it felt like I should have. It painted the entire story in a new light for the last half page or so, I love it.

If you want to read it it's on the Uncanny Magazine website. It's a quick read but it's worth the time!

Rendez-vous avec la mort (An Appointment with Death) by Agatha Christie

From his hotel room in Jerusalem Hercule Poirot hears a disturbing conversation "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" The detective doesn't think much of it until the tyrannical Mrs Boyton, on vacation with her family, is found dead in the ancient city of Petra.

What is it with Agatha Christie and making her victim absolutely awful people? Is it so there would be more suspects? Is it so they reader is more willing to distance himself and play the Whodunnit Game? Anyway!

You can really tell that this novel was written based on Agatha Christie's memories of visiting the place, it felt very alive,very realistic and more picturesque than her other novels. The setting is always important of course but here it's almost a decor.

There was so many suspects and they all had a very good reason to want Mrs Boyton dead (or to protect the one who did it) this investigation was very intricate and the plot pulls the reader in many different directions. It's a good thing Poirot takes notes in the book or I would have done it myself.

For once I had caught the Important Detail That Gives You The Answer TM but I took it totally in the wrong direction! So I had a theory that was (or so I thought) rather solid but I was misled by a detail. Maybe I missed it but the reveal includes one key information that I can't remember seeing anywhere; it is the only link between two characters and the only thing that makes the motive makes sense so I was a bit surprised by who the culprit was. Or maybe that's just me being a sore lover because once again Christie bested me.

The only thing I really disliked about this one - and it's wierd that it's even there - is the epilogue. There is so rarely an epilogue in her novels that I'm wondering if Christie wasn't pressure to add this Happily Ever After. It is very awkward because it is almost to good to be true, every one is married to another character even when the pairing doesn't make sense and everything is just perfectly fine for all of them. Not to mention the young schizophrenic daughter married to her acting agent who is twice her age because that's not creepy at all! /s I don't know what the intention was but it just flops very hard after what is a really nice book, that's a shame really.

Fortunately it is nothing but an epilogue, and van easily be discarded as just and after thought and I will keep deluding myself in thinking that the novel ends after Poirot's dramatic reveal of the culprit, as usual.

Under the Whispering Door by T J Klune

Wallace is having a hard time accepting that he just died, he barely lived the life he had! So when a reaper comes to bring him to a teashop and to Hugo, a Ferryman tasked to help souls pass to the afterlife, Wallace will have to make the best of what little time he has left in the land of the living.

After reading The House in the Cerulean Sea every other novel by T J Klune were just begging to be read. I stalled as long as I could bear so here I am!

There is kind of a similar structure between the two books (the main character is very professional and cold but learns to open up, Hugo and Arthur have pretty much the same patient, observing and enigmatic personality. Even Charon's Crossing and the foster house or a little similar, two secluded places, meant to be welcoming and homely, yet totally unfamiliar and scary at times for the protagonist) but it never really bothered me: I liked how comfortable it felt to find it all back in this novel.

Through exploring other people's fate, how they lived, how they died, how they went through this time after death but before passing over, Wallace changes and learns to be a better person. The story itself isn't intricate but it is cozy, funny and the life lesson put through the author's word is more than just a feel-good novel line. The main subject, grief, is heavy but Klune handles it really gently, even in very hard moment, violent deaths and character who just can't accept their fate. And once again the love story, although it isn't the main focus is very important and drives the characters forward. It was sweet and nice and I really liked how bitter sweet it felt until the very end and they get the Happy End they deserved.

I read someone reviews saying that the ending was too much but hey, what's the point of writing stories if you can't make it all perfectly okay for everybody in the end? The dead don't come back in real life but if it makes the character of this story happy I absolutely want them to come back!

Aaaand that's close enough to a spoiler so I'll wrap if up: impeccably good read, go for it! Just be aware that it deals with grief and death, including violent deaths and suicide.

[jazznoisehere]

[mistle-thrush]

'

' “Hey, how you making?” Miss Inez asked. “How you feeling, darling?” “Not so hot,” Mrs. Reilly answered truthfully. “Ain’t that a shame.” Miss Inez leaned over the glass case and forgot about her cakes. “I don’t feel so hot myself. It’s my feet.” “Lord, I wisht I was that lucky. I got arthuritis in my elbow.” “Aw, no!” Miss Inez said with genuine sympathy. “My poor old poppa’s got that. We make him go set himself in a hot tub fulla berling water.” “My boy’s floating around in our tub all day long. I can’t hardly get in my own bathroom no more.” “I thought he was married, precious.” “Ignatius? Eh, la la,” Mrs. Reilly said sadly. “Sweetheart, you wanna gimme two dozen of them fancy mix?” “But I thought you told me he was married,” Miss Inez said while she was putting the cakes in a box. “He ain’t even got him a prospect.” '

'(from 'A Confederacy of Dunces' by John Kennedy Toole)

[hollywood-montrose]

Ignatius J. Reilly, from "A Confederacy of Dunces" (1980), novel by John Kennedy Toole

Morshu, from "Link: The Faces of Evil" (1993), videogame by Philips Interactive Media

[ronk]

Rereading the novel. And now I want a hot dog.