I moved from Boston to New Orleans on a fabulous hunch in the summer of 2005. As a Bostonian, I’ve gotten used to being asked why I chose to leave the Red Sox, wicked good classic rock stations and a population of characters that spawned the development of Family Guy to come to Louisiana.
Since I first descended I have grappled with an answer to this question. I’ve served up a variety of responses from the standard “thirst for something new,” to the attraction to New Orleans’ cultural richness. I guess I did come here for a guy. But all that pushed aside, after all is said, done, devoured and recycled, there is only one true reason why I came to New Orleans, and it can be summed up in four simple words: “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The book is … I wish I knew all the words to describe it.
The history of this piece of literary genius is based right here on the campus of Loyola University, where Walker Percy, a Loyola professor, was first approached in 1976 by the mother of a dead novelist, John Kennedy Toole. Toole’s mother insisted that Percy read the thick, barely legible manuscript of her late son. To his shock and delight, the manuscript was not a stack of garbage, but a hunk of pure comedic and cultural gold.
Most students judge their prospective colleges on their programs, the prestige of the professors and the opportunity for internships. I came to Loyola for the history. I can see the disheveled mother of John Kennedy Toole, shuffling through the peace quad with a stack of fly away papers and an oversized cardigan. And Walker Percy, leaning back in his chair in his fourth floor office of Bobet, chewing on a pencil and taking in the words like a sponge. An impressed sponge.
Yes, I picked Loyola for Ignatius J. Reilly, and when I hear the name Ignatius I just assume it refers to him.
Us New Orleanians that know Ignatius has a real understanding of the environment we live in. We know the language of theatrics and drama and the all-year-round carnival folks. We get the humor, and we drink with the characters at the bar. We’ve all found ourselves wishing for hunting caps with earflaps you can let down when some drunk lady in the Quarter won’t stop talking to you. That is, based on the understood fact that all of us would like to have a hunting cap like Ignatius.
Ignatius of Loyola may have been responsible for founding the organization upon which this entire university is based, but his legend is no match for the one Ignatius J. Reilly. If there is one piece of advice I can offer you, it is this: Read this book. The freshman welcoming committee has indeed failed each of us in not supplying a copy of this masterpiece upon our arrival and strictly enforcing that each of us complete it. But, fellow students, the power is in your hands now, and it’s never too early or too late to become a New Orleanian.
