I'd love to read this book, but it was purchased specifically for a special trade with a fellow book lover at the Rome meetup.

Well... I expected to buy this book from Cobaltcat, cos I'd love to keep it in my bookshelf among my favourite books... but since Kathi registered it... it has to be released sooner or later... so, I promise I will release it as soon as I get another copy for myself. In the meanwhile it will be with me, and I will love it... Thanks Cobaltcat!?

It took me one year, but I've finally found a copy of this book! :-)
I bought it yesterday afternoon...
Now I plan to organise a bookring or a bookray with this book, hoping to be forgiven for keeping it with me so long.

Editorial Review from Amazon.com

"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs."

Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.

Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Lana Lee and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life. --Alix Wilber

The list of participants so far:

Miss-Piggott - Italy --->
lizzyblack Italy
legs-weaver - Italy
siddharta - Italy
lupurk - Italy
dadaista - Italy
stalakosa - Spain
PCSAF - Portugal
Katchie - England
eltano77 - Italy
rainbow83 - Italy --->
Testuggine - Italy
Miss-Piggott

The ring will leave as soon as my dear friend Testuggine comes back to Rome from her birth town in Sardinia...
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Update February, 4.

Since Testuggine is stuck in Sardinia for a while, yesterday morning I sent the book to lizzyblack, who gets to be the first participant of the ring. Testuggine will "catch" the book as soon as it gets back here...

Happy reading!

Nice, it finally is here! It looks like really interesting, I'll read as fast as I can! Thanx!!

Quite funny, but long as well!! Thanx for giving me the chance to read it! I'm sending it as soon as I have the address!
Have a nice reading you all!! :)

I received it by mail just now.
I'll try to read it as fast as possible.

I had it all summer and tried to read it twice but couldn't get through, sorry
I passed it along tu Lupurk

taken at last tuesday's meet up from legs...already began to read it =)

I couldn't read it out, sorry. I'll send it to dadaista as soon as I can. =)

Received the book in the mail today.

I'm so sorry for keeping the book such a long time, beg your pardon!
It made me laugh a lot (the dialogues are really grotesque and the story line full of inventiveness), but it made me sad too: how many people are there so navel-gazing like Ignatius? Too many, I'm afraid!
In some parts I found it a bit too long, too.
I've sent a P.M. to stalakosa, in a few days I hope it will be travelling again :)

I forgot: by the time the book was at my place, my 'momma' tried to read it, but she stopped after a while 'cause Ignatius got on her nerves!!


Update: Sat, September 16th
Stalakosa did not answer to my P.M., PCSAF told me she/he's got too many bookrings to read and too less time to do so: the book will soon travel to London.

Found on my desk as I returned from holidays, was a nice break from all the work post! Looking forward to reading it and adding my comments to the informative ones above before I pass it to Eltano

It has taken me a long time to get around to reading this - I'm sorry. And....... I am not going to finish it. I just can not warm to the book or get into the story. I understand the point it will eventually make (well I guess it will make) and Ignatius is just too much for me!

Posting to the next person on the list!

received! I will read and re send the book asap.

boring.... worst book of this year...

The book came back to me eventually.
As someone once said, "A confederacy of dunces" is just like Marmite, either you love it or you hate it.
It appears the people who tried to read it couldn't stand Ignatius!? ^-^
Poor guy! But, if I know him well, I think he wouldn't care what people think about him... :-p
Nonetheless, I'll try to let the book travel again: who knows, it could finally find someone who likes it as much as I (and a few others) do.
Thanks again cobaltcat for bringing this book with you from the US a looong time ago: I cannot believe it is still here 4 years later!
And thanks to all the others who tried to put up with Ignatius. I can understand how he can get on people's nerves... :-)

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