By now, most people are aware of this book. It was one of those tragic circumstances of how this novel got published is one of legend. Walker Percy’s introduction to the book describes how a determined mother tried to get her late sons novel published. And as I read Dunces, I felt that Toole could’ve become one the best writers the latter half of the 20th Century produced. Instead, he became the tragic figure of a man who’s depression about not getting his novel published led him to take his life in March 1969.Often compared to Miguel De Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Toole’s novel about Ignatius J. Reilly could be a parable about a man who lets his intellectual ideals get the best of him, as he chased his many windmills through the French Quarter in New Orleans.
I wondered many time while reading this glorious book if Toole was Ignatius. I mean most writing classes will teach you to write about what you know. Toole worked at both a mens clothing factory and sold tamales from a hand cart, was born and raised in New Orleans. His description of New Orleans may’ve left some city officials a little pale, but like most cities, there is not much of line between the everyday world and the lost one just below it.
And much like Ignatius, Toole was highly educated and must’ve realized early on that the world saw intellectuals as more of problem. I would say this novel was way ahead of its time, written sometime in the mid 1960's. And nearly 40 years later -much like Valley of the Dolls - it’s still pretty relevant. Which makes this novel worthy of all the accolades its recieved since its publication in 1980. And while some might say that Toole won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for fiction because of his tragic suicide, I would say that is bunk. It is a brilliant work of fiction and the sad aspect -as history has proven in the past - that sometimes we lose the best people early to show us how putting profits before work is (mostly) wrong.
Read it.
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