Reading in the Time of Monsters 004: Toole, "A Confederacy of Dunces"

Reading in the Time of Monsters

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Reading in the Time of Monsters 004: Toole, "A Confederacy of Dunces"

Peter Berard

Mar 12, 2023

I thought I would break things up a little and talk about a book I like. More than — or maybe just along with — being a really funny novel that everyone from high schoolers on up read and enjoy, “A Confederacy of Dunces” says more about more “serious” matters than a lot of your supposedly serious literature, and more elegantly as well. While for the most part people either love the book or just ignore it, every now and again tiresome establishment literature hacks try to take Toole down a few pegs, posthumously. One such was cokehead litterateur Tom Bissell. You can find my YouTube video rebuking Tom Bissell’s lousy hack job on “A Confederacy of Dunces” here. But here, I’m going to “accentuate the positive,” as they say.

The audio quality is bad. Sorry. I might look into getting a better mic and/or not recording on Substack’s little recording modality.

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Reading in the Time of Monsters

The old world is dying; the new one cannot be born; now is the time of monsters. What better time to read, and read seriously? Every pedant on the internet thinks they're a critic because they have cultural preferences and their various streaming and social media services encourage them to state these preferences in little boxes. But some of us think criticism is something more. We know that criticism implies a way of being- a rejection of complacence, a dedication to searching high, low, and in between for insight and perspective, a constant development of the critical toolkit. Not only does that way of being point towards a better existence, but it also makes for criticism that's more fun to read. That's the gambit of this podcast- that there's an audience for something other than same-same mediocrity and parasocial agreement-clubs.

There should be one free episode a month. There will be another for people who become Citizens by subscribing at the Citizen (or Chieftain!) level at Melendy Avenue Review. MAR includes numerous text reviews a month, various life updates and guest posts, cute cat pictures, etc.

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