#36 in Humour
A Confederacy of Dunces
- 389
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
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Our view
“A Confederacy of Dunces” lives on its voice and its impossible hero. Ignatius Reilly, a self-appointed genius convinced that everyone around him is a fool, is a type recognisable from life. Those who love the book say the picaresque plot hardly matters; the pleasure is in the sentences and in the chaos he leaves behind. Readers who want a story with direction may be less taken; lovers of dark, absurd comedy are its audience.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole. It was published in 1980, eleven years after Toole's death. Published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother, Thelma, the book became first a cult classic, then a mainstream success; it earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, and is now considered a canonical work of modern literature of the Southern United States.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 708 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 83% of the weight and the score stays at 7.8 — the Humour average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 88 | 12% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 620 | 88% |
Frequently asked
How long is A Confederacy of Dunces?
It has 389 pages — longer than 78% of the ranked books in Humour.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Humour — with scores between 7.7 and 7.9, closest to this book.
