Hot on the heels of the FREE Ringworld download from yesterday comes another FREE classic novel of a very different and wonderful kind of fantastik. A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole would never have been published had the author’s mother not found a smeared carbon copy of the manuscript after her son’s 1969 suicide at age 31. She took it to Loyola University in New Orleans and demanded someone read it. Reluctantly, Walker Percy (himself an author), began to read through the manuscript. He became more and more captivated with each page. When the book was eventually published in 1980 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction!
A Confederacy of Dunces: Free Version
By John Kennedy Toole; Read by Barrett Whitener
FREE Audible Download – Approx. 13 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2005
Provider: Audible.com
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.
So enters one of the most memorable characters in recent American fiction: Ignatius J. Reilly, an obese, self-absorbed, hapless Don Quixote of the French Quarter, whose half-hearted attempts at employment lead to a series of wacky adventures among the denizens of New Orleans’ lower depths.
This offer expires December 15, 2009.
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Posted by Jesse Willis
This is a GREAT book! I read it more than 15 years ago, and Ignatius Reilly is still a vivid character in my mind. Looking forward to hearing this.
How Science Fictiony is it? Not very is my guess. The wikipedia entry mentions Jonathan Swift, which made me think I should post it here.