Saturday, January 15, 2005

A Confederacy of Dunces


Again, why did I try to read a work of fiction? I plodded through this book for five chapters before realizing --yet again-- that a made-up world just isn't worth my time, even if it puts forth a valid commentary on social relations.

The main character is an arrogant fat farter who mistreats his mother and doesn't utilize his education for his own good or anyone else's.

This book was first recommended to me at a Worms Society meeting. (Ah, yes, the Worms Society ... meeting weekly in a dingy room in a dorm basement of Scotland's oldest university, to discuss books and music and philosophy and life. Named for a line in Dead Poets Society. I miss nerdy shit like that.) Then I recently came across it on some post-election discussion board, which I now can't find. At any rate, I though it might deserve a chance. Wrong! I don't care if the intricately-crafted characters and scenarios illustrate the irrationality of a pluralistic society. In the back of my mind the whole time, I'm thinking of everything worthwhile I could be doing, of the other magazines and books I could be reading, of the movies I could be seeing this three-day weekend.

That's it. No more forays into fiction for me, unless it's to re-read a classic I already know is well-written.

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