It's considered bad manners to write about a book before you are finished reading it. But there's a but: Due to coincidence I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra at the same time.
They seem to share quite a deal.
And since I've laughed out loud three time before reaching page 6 in Toole's weird tale of Ignatius J. Reilly, I need to quote one of his lines (he's thirty, living with his mother):
"I dust a bit," Ignatius told the policeman. "In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
I am very sure that I'm going to enjoy this book.
Don Quixote was lost to me for many years. A clear victim of German class - where they seem to have taught most people NOT to read. We read the first page of the first chapter. I still remember the words - the translation, compared to the English one by John Ormsby I'm reading now must've been lousy. We had to write a content summary. I didn't only consider Don Quixote boring crap for years - I disliked content summaries for as long as I was a student as well. What a waste!
The tale of the Spanish knight (remember: bad manners - I've hardly started reading) seems to be miraculously funny, witty, strange and deep.
Thanks to Kevin Dorney for tipping me into his direction again. And thanks to Daniel Wouters for sending A Confederacy of Dunces by mail from Spain or Switzerland or wherever it were...
