“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
This brilliant and true observation is an epigram from a Jonathan Swift essay, and is the basis for the title of this hilarious and strange book. (As a side point, the essay itself is called: Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting. I love this. Clearly he wrote this in a time when there was less competition for user attention. It’s like the least specific, least click-baity title I ever heard).
The key character is Ignatius J Reilly, and given that the plot is patchy at best it is this character that is the whole joy and energy of the book. Ignatius is an unemployed obese man who lives with his mother. He is however not idle. As he puts it:
“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.”
He also has lots of advice for others:
“I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate façade there may be a soul of sorts. Have you read widely in Boethius?”
“Who? Oh, heavens no. I never even read newspapers.”
“Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age,” Ignatius said solemnly. “Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.”
“You’re fantastic.”
“I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he’s found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.”
“Who? Oh, heavens no. I never even read newspapers.”
“Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age,” Ignatius said solemnly. “Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.”
“You’re fantastic.”
“I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he’s found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.”
He wonders through a number of different jobs, each ending more catastrophically than the one that went before, and ends eventually fleeing being confined in a mental hospital:
“Oh, Fortuna, blind, heedless goddess, I am strapped to your wheel,’ Ignatius belched, ‘Do not crush me beneath your spokes. Raise me on high, divinity.”
He has a lot to say on belching, and particularly about his pyloric valve, about which both you probably, and the other characters in the novel (definitely) do not want to be informed.
I found this wonderful book in the Gambia, at one of those free book exchanges they sometimes have in hotels (Note to self: 4 books not enough for 7 day holiday). I was shocked to find something so not-rubbish, right there between a thriller in Norwegian and some chicklit in a pink cover. I loved it. I was sad to learn it almost did not get published. The author had it rejected multiple times, (Simon & Schuster were particularly way off the mark, finding it “pointless”), and eventually killed himself at just 31. It was his mother who doggedly pushed for publication, taking around an old mimeographed draft, till she eventually got the attention of Walker Percy, who realized how wonderful it was. It went on to win the Pulitzer, which must be cold comfort for his mum.