"A Confederacy of Dunces" turns 40

Those of you who attended the discussion of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces I hosted at my place back in May 2019 (one of our fifth-Wednesday sessions) know how much I love that rollicking comic novel. I first read it in 1980 (hot off the press) during my senior year at Centenary College in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana--which is about as different from New Orleans as you can imagine despite being in the same state--and have reread it more often than any other book (with the possible exception of the Bible). Although it is not a "gay novel," its protagonist, Ignatius Reilly, certainly does not come across as heterosexual, and at least one supporting character in it is clearly gay. There is also reason to believe (though no proof) that Toole himself was homosexual, and that was a factor in his 1969 suicide. 

I bring this up because I just got my copy of a new book by Kent Carroll and Jodee Blanco, I, John Kennedy Toole, that is a work of fiction but sticks to the facts about the writer. It turns out, for example, that, notwithstanding the tale of repeated rejection Toole's mother promoted, Simon & Schuster was seriously interested in publishing A Confederacy of Dunces. But Toole's editor, Robert Gottlieb (who had edited Catch-22), wanted him to trim the story and sharpen the plot, which Toole attempted to do. Years went by before Gottlieb finally rejected the novel, saying "It really isn't about anything." (Shades of "Seinfeld!") 

On a related (and belated) note: Back in April, our friend Octavio Roca kindly shared with me a delightful essay in LitHub titled "Finding Permission to Fail in A Confederacy of Dunces." I encourage any of you who share my enthusiasm for the novel to check that out.

The ONE to remember

Octavio Roca was kind enough to point out the following article in the July 15 issue of JSTOR (short for Journal Storage), a digital library founded in 1995: "ONE: The First Gay Magazine in the United States." Founded in 1952, the magazine was published by ONE, the first gay rights organization in the United States. Some of you will recall Lillian Faderman's discussion of the group and the magazine in her magisterial The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, which we discussed in 2018 and 2019 (we read chapters from it on third Wednesdays). But the JSTOR article not only contains lots of details to supplement Faderman's account, but ends with a very helpful reading list.

A Saint from Texas (and maybe NYC?)

Today's New York Times features a warm profile of Edmund White, whose latest novel, A Saint from Texas, comes out on August 4. It's full of tasty quotes from White, such as this: "People are looking for a canon because they want the absolute limit of books they need to read to be cultured. But real readers always want new books to read." Quotes about him abound as well, such as this one from novelist Alexander Chee, whose Edinburgh we read back in 2005: "He has received major recognition. But I think we are still in the process of learning how important he has always been."

The Decameron, Old and New

Some of you may recall that back in March, I posted a "Coronavirus Reading List" to which several of you appended helpful recommendations. I just finished the book that headed that list, Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, and while I can't truthfully say I enjoyed every one of the 100 stories (any more than would be true of any fiction collection), I now understand why it's been a classic work of literature for nearly seven centuries.

If you don't have the leisure to read the whole Decameron, I encourage you at least to check out the story that concludes the first half (Day 5, Story 10). Let's just say it's quite gay, in every sense of the term!

For those of you who already know the work and are looking for a fresh approach, Synetic Theater's first show in the COVID-19 era is a "designed for digital" take on 35 of the tales, each produced by a different artist. The production has an interactive element, allowing viewers to watch the stories in whatever order they wish, though they can also opt for pre-selected playlists or watch them serially over any 10-day period between now and July 31. Tickets are "pay what you can" with a $10 minimum.

Last but certainly not least, the current New York Times Sunday Magazine offers "The Decameron Project," a collection of 29 short stories it commissioned "for this moment," along with an introductory essay about Boccaccio's work by Rivka Galchen. I haven't yet read the issue, but I see that Colm Toibin and Margaret Atwood are among the contributors, so I'm optimistic it will be worth the time.

Andy Warhol tells all (well, most...)

Writing in the June 30 issue of the New York Times, Sophie Atkinson tells how helpful she found rereading Andy Warhol's 1977 autobiography: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) during the pandemic lockdown. She quotes the book's editor, Steven M.L. Aronson, as saying: "Warhol told me that he felt the book could give people a way that they could think, too, and that they could use it to solve their own problems." And so it proved for her.

Those of you who read Olivia Laing's The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Living Alone, which we discussed last month, may be surprised to learn from Atkinson that Warhol, a partygoer who could rarely attend a happening without at least a six-person retinue, was an ardent disciple of puttering around his apartment solo. "If I only had time for one vacation every 10 years," he wrote, "I still don't think I'd want to go anywhere. I'd probably just go to my room, fluff up the pillow, turn on a couple of TVs, open a box of Ritz crackers."

Coincidentally, just a few days before Atkinson's essay appeared, the NYT featured Valerie Solanas, who shot Warhol (as Laing recounts), in its ongoing "Overlooked No More" obituary series. Bonnie Wertheim's profile of the "radical feminist" is not quite as detailed or sympathetic as Laing's, but she does usefully cites several works Solanas' sad life has inspired.