Seeing Chris in literary characters

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Bouquet

Bouquet

kiwifarms.net
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Mar 31, 2013
I've just finished A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and as I read it, I kept thinking, 'My god, this is Chris!'
Granted, it's Chris if he were highly educated and if Barb were very codependent, but the fundamentals are still there. Here is a brief paragraph from Wikipedia about the novel's main character, Ignatius:

'Ignatius is of the mindset that he does not belong in the world and that his numerous failings are the work of some higher power. He continually refers to the goddess Fortuna as having spun him downwards on her wheel of fortune. Ignatius loves to eat, and his masturbatory fantasies lead in strange directions. His mockery of obscene images is portrayed as a defensive posture to hide their titillating effect on him. Although considering himself to have an expansive and learned worldview, Ignatius has an aversion to ever leaving the town of his birth, and frequently bores friends and strangers with the story of his sole, abortive journey from New Orleans, a trip to Baton Rouge on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bus, which Ignatius recounts as a traumatic ordeal of extreme horror.'

Sounds quite familiar doesn't it? Has anyone else read this and made the same connection or have I gone mad?
Or have you found literary versions of Chris elsewhere?


(Hello, by the way. I'm Bouquet.)
 
I read A Confederacy of Dunces this january. Ignatius did remind me of CWC quite a bit. Delusional, arrogant, failing at every job... Yet I couldn't hate him.
 
Tubular Monkey said:
Ralph Wiggum. A very angry Ralph Wiggum.

If we're going strictly literary, maybe Holden Caulfield.
Click to expand...
You'll have to elaborate on that one for me. I'd argue that, at the very least, Holden is far more self aware than Chris.

And no, I guess this doesn't have to be strictly literary.
 
This Confederacy of Dunces is going on my reading list.
 
How about Zoyd Wheeler from "Vineland" by Thomas Pynchon?

Like Chris, he lives on a tugboat ("schizo cheques"), is rather crazy (although in his case it could be argued that he merely simulates madness) and doesn't go anywhere in his life. But unlike OPL he's street smart.
 
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