Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a well written book, but it’s just not my style. It’s a comic farce that probably has some deeper meaning about fat egotists, but at the surface it’s a maddening swirl of flat characters who affect the life of a certified asshole.

I have yet to figure out what the bird is.

I know the saying goes that if there’s something you really hate about a person, it’s probably what you hate the most about yourself. Let’s not forget the part where you work on what you hate in yourself, and you don’t have to forgive the other person for not addressing their own personal quirk.

Well, let’s just say that’s completely true for the seven chapters I dragged myself through, solely for the sake of earning the paper.

This book essentially revolves around Ignatius J Reilly, a well educated, but arguably immature fatso, and his various exploits around New Orleans. The characters he comes into contact with almost seem to be a vessel for a single trait, or simply an actor in the great Ignatius play.

To be perfectly honest, the only character I truly like is Jones, the black man who must find a job lest he be arrested for vagrancy (in 1960′s New Orleans, this is a very real threat. ) He looks at the world with the most realistic view of all of the characters, perhaps because he actually has to face consequences, unlike Ignatius, who can trapse along his merry way, without true fear of degredation.

(I do admire the fat lout for never letting anything get to him.)

Overall, this book would probably give me a mountain of material to write critical literary essays on, but I’d only do it for a large and neatly ruffled pile of money, or a grant, or a date with Gerard Butler (a la Gamer, please)  or something else obnoxiously big. As I’ve said before, it’s not a terrible read. It won a Pulitzer, for Pete’s sake! A lot of people like the book. I just don’t happen to be one of them.

I give this book 0 out of 5 bookmarks. I don’t intend to pick it up ever again. Perhaps in ten years when my world outlook has changed I’ll give it another go. But until then, this copy is going happily to the nearest Half-Price Bookstore.

Want a different look? Try these reviews on for size.

Southern Literary Review

Curled Up

If you’ve seen the movie, it’s actually pretty close to the book, except the massive amount of difference in late 19th century British culture and late 20th century American culture.

I was wildly struck by how unaffected everyone was until it was much too late. Understandably Britain(later) survived the bombings of the Blitzkreig and the milkmen still delivered, but, just in supposition, if a strange and grotesque creature fell from the sky and fried your best friend, I wouldn’t worry about lunch and the horse races. There are also a few loose ends, such as how he managed to get this information from his brother, and whether and why England seemed to be the only place affected. There’s also notably nothing much on the wife that the narrator so desperately longed to find, who seems to have survived the ordeal with no story to tell.

I digress, the book was actually a fun read, (though I wouldn’t have made it through without the footnotes!). I found myself flying through the chapters, rooting for the underdog human race, and cheering when a small step was made to make it through alive. I laughed as the narrator essentially made it through sheer luck and testicular fortitude. And though only the dead (Poor Quigley!) and useless(Cassey, a fictional scientist) have names, I grew particularly attached to the plucky artillery man, and the valiant medical student.

Overall, I give this book 3.5 out of 5 bookmarks. It is a quick, light read. Though it is a fun read sometimes, I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone who cannot handle gore, death, and violence.  If I ever get the chance, I’m sure I’ll read it again.