A Confederacy of Dunces

[SouthernMeerkat]

I am having to wade through this for my next book club book and am V close to abandoning it. Abandoning a book in the middle is one of my cardinal sins, but I really am struggling with it - please can someone explain why it's "the funniest book I've ever read", " a classic" etc and help to convince me to finish it without wanting to scream every time Ignatius opens his mouth?!

I read it 10 yrs ago, and I can't remember anything of this book. I remember it made me laugh - bits of it - but I wasn't particularly impressed.

Gets better towards the end I think. Read it a few years ago and found the first half hard work - then it seems to switch gear towards the end from memory.

I read this a couple of months ago, my sister left it with me having been unimpressed with it. I loved it though, and in the second half of the book the various strands seem to come together more.
I found it funny and almost touching how you actually came to like this grotesque character (well I did anyway).
Don't rake him too seriously, would be my advice

Take, even!

It also has a very neat ending, in which everyone gets their just desserts.
Right, I'll stop now.

I understand where you are coming from. I loved this book but my sister, who usually shares my taste, also hated it.
I think that either you find Ignatius's self delusion and world view inherently funny or plain irritating. He is very much an anti-hero, someone it is impossible to actually like, but I love the ridiculous situations he gets himself into.
It might help you soldier on to know that the plot does all come together at the end and tie up in a neat & cunning bow.
Good luck, and I hope you get to choose the next one!

I'm appalled by the fact that I don't remember anything . Oh dear me.

I've tried to read this twice over a span of 15 years, it wasn't so much that I didn't like it, more that I found other more gripping books to read. Sounds like I should give it another go ...

Thanks everyone - I will stick with it and hope that the redemption at the end makes it worthwhile! Sputnik - I'm not taking him at all seriously, but I am just finding his pomposity and verbose pronouncements TOO much to bear and am skimming a lot of it, although I do think that some of the language is wonderful - "platonically intense" being one of my favourite oxymorons of the moment.