Knap en prachtig picaresk. Erg meeslepend ondanks...
4 1/2 ster. ( )

Oh, Ignatius. You would be thriving in the 21st century - a marble statue avi with 50k followers, no doubt.

This didn't crack me up quite as much as it did when I first read it 10 years ago (perhaps on account of the way the world has since been Reilly-ified), but that's okay. Toole captured such a real and distinct type of Guy in a perfect, crystalized form. Like Carl Linnaeus at a Carl's Jr., he offers a taxonomy of the pseudo-intelligent boor indigenous to North American (and more recently, the internet).

The novel's star is just the beginning of the author's ability to capture life on the fringes. Street toughs, radicals, vagrants, and queers wend through the streets of New Orleans and weave into the story for brief but memorable appearances. Whether high status or low, most characters are too sweaty, too tired, too sapped by the Louisiana heat to really care about whatever is going on. Relatable. ( )

Normally, one of my major pet peeves when reading is too much dialogue but somehow, here, I almost enjoy it. Now, after reading this, I can see what others are trying to do when they stuff a work full of dialogue. What’s going on here is reminiscent of old 1940s films where the dialogue is a rapidly paced staccato trading blows smart-alecky type of back-and-forth. Which I do like (hey I have a lot of old black and white films in my collection). So, I guess I’ll let my old pet peeve about overlong swaths of dialogue rest here for now as most of this book is pure dialogue.
I happened upon this one from amongst the plethora of books I inherited. Of course, I was curious and had heard of this book before especially where famous comedic writers, actors, and directors were concerned. It even seems to me that the book's picaro (Ignatius) has lent his visage to a few comedic figures in 1980s comedic cinema.
The novel itself was engrossing and I read well over the two-hour mark on a few occasions, losing track of time. Always the sign of a good book. The story follows a bunch of strange, self-absorbed, and not particularly likeable characters through a meandering plot of one disaster after another (usually set in motion by the previous disaster) typically centering around one Ignatius J. Reilly on the streets of New Orleans. I did giggle a few times and even laughed twice, so, it is funny in my estimation. And near the end, in the last two chapters, the irony became so thick that I thought the novel might actually end on a dour note. However, the book sticks to the comedy mode by ending with most characters actually benefiting from the meddling and lying (in tall tale fashion) of Ignatius and those who were racist and homophobic (Lana Lee the club owner/porn model, and George a high school dropout who sells Lana’s nude photos to high schoolers and equally if not more racist and homophobic), essentially the bad ones, have to deal with the police and jail time for the immediate future.
Would I recommend this one? Yeah, I would. Be warned it does deal in stereotypes, but the characters quickly outgrow it in the frantically paced plot. Overall, I liked this book and am glad I read it though I can’t help but feel slightly personally attacked by the character of Ignatius on a certain level. ( )

I read this a long time ago, but I recall really not liking it. I didn't find it funny, which doesn't leave much room for enjoying a book with unlikeable characters. ( )

Can I give a book "0" stars? I absolutely hated this book, and finished it only because it was a book -club selection. I could not believe it won a Pulitzer; was the committee on drugs that year? Maybe I just don't get it. But I was bored to tears by the pseudo-intellectual crap spouted by the "hero" Ignatius J Reilly. I didn't even think it was particularly funny. ( )