In the years since having read A Confederacy of Dunces I have tried to ferret out information about the novel and about John Kennedy Toole. The Internet, of course, is an invaluable tool for this sort of "search for truth," and I thought I had a fair understanding of the man and the novel.
Today I stumbled upon Mary Tutwiler's The Lafayette Confederacy (July 20) and have an entirely new perception of Toole and his wonderful character, Ignatius J. Reilly. What a remarkable essay! This may be the best article I have ever seen on Toole and his writing. The background information provided by Ms. Tutwiler and her skill in presenting it is delightful in its own right. Her choice of characters for the article ' Pat Rickels, Joel L. Fletcher, Maurice duQuesnay ' gives me more insight into the book's characters, especially, of course, the lovable Ignatius.
I now see Reilly much as Maurice duQuesnay ' cited in the article ' suggests, with Robert Byrne as a mold into which Toole "poured his own unacknowledged and unexpressed hostilities toward his parents and his hidden anarchic impulses toward modern civilization."