Watching for signs of bad taste
Many cities have theme songs, like Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” or Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” New Orleans has not one, but many signature tunes, delivered by great musicians ranging from Louis Armstrong to Dr. John. The city does, however, have one definitive theme novel: John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.
Toole committed suicide at age 31, depressed by having failed to find a publisher for his book. His mother took up the cause after his death and literally forced her son’s manuscript upon Walker Percy, a Southern literary giant. Expecting the worst, when Percy finally dipped into the pages, he said he felt “a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity: surely it was not possible that it was so good.” He convinced LSU Press to publish the novel. It is now considered a canonical work of modern literature and has been translated into 35 languages.
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Address 819 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70112 | Tip There is supposedly a curse on filming an adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces. John Belushi, John Candy, and Chris Farley were all touted for the Ignatius role. All died at an early age before fulfilling it. John Waters had been interested in directing a screen adaptation starring Divine, but the actor and drag queen likewise died young. Ignoring the curse, Zach Galifianakis is the most recent actor to consider the role.
The novel centers on Ignatius J. Reilly, a well educated but utterly slothful 30-year-old man living with his mother in New Orleans, barely employable (he was fired as a hot-dog vendor for eating the inventory), and railing at the vulgarity of modern culture, up to and including canned peas. In the novel, Ignatius states, “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’s been called a modern-day Don Quixote—eccentric, idealistic, and overwhelmingly delusional.
A bronze statue of Ignatius J. Reilly, sculpted by William Ludwig, is located under the clock on the 800 block of Canal Street. The statue depicts Ignatius in the opening scene of the novel, as he waits for his mother under the clock, clutching a Werlein’s shopping bag, dressed in a hunting cap, flannel shirt, baggy pants, and scarf, “studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste.”
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