A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole regularly shows up on list of the funniest books of all time and the best books of the 20th Century. If nothing else it has a great back story--author commits suicide in 1969, eleven years later his mother convinces someone to publish the book, the book wins a Pulitzer Prize. For me there were several arguments against reading it. Humor can be a tricky thing to pull off, the cover was unappealing, and "great books" are not necessarily good reads (I will never reread War and Peace but I will reread Valley of the Dolls). Then I saw that audible was offering the audio book version for free so I decided to give it a shot.
The book is set in New Orleans of the 1960's. There's a massive cast of characters who are generally either pathetic or unlikable (the exception being Jones, the poor black janitor with a unique view of things). The central character is Ignatius Riley, an overweight, lazy, pretentious bore who makes his mother's life a hell. What plot there is in the story involves his having to get a job to repay a debt incurred when his mother crashes their car. The book is more a journey than a destination. It's long with lots of tangents. You might like the characters, but it's interesting to see how everything interconnects. This is very much a book that you will probably either really like or really loathe.
This is a case where I do think an audio book is a better choice than a physical one. This version was narrated by Barrett Whitener. He reads the basic bits of the story in an almost robotic tone which I thought was an odd choice at first. Once I got into it, I realized this was a great tone to take since it contrasted nicely with the voices he used for the character's dialogue. There's a large cast of characters, and Whitener gives them all a unique voice that really suits each person. All in all, I found it an enjoyable experience.
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