Oh, Fortuna what have you done?

So I just finished reading a book called A Confederacy of Dunces. It has only taken me about six months. I wish I could say I liked the book but I still haven't decided. It won the Pulitzer Prize but the author committed suicide before it was even published. So that should give you some perspective about the content. The main character is Ignatius J. Reilly. Possibly the biggest cluster fuck Louisiana has ever seen. Aside from being a complete bum that totally sponges off his mom, he has a Masters in medieval history. Or something like that, he's constantly chattering on about Fortuna's spin and Boethius. Anyway- complete idiot savant, so for the first couple of chapters I had to keep a dictionary next to me while I was reading. (well, I do have a limited vocabulary, sue me) It's kind of written in the Pulp Fiction/Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels style. For the most part you meet everybody separately before you find out how the hell they fit in the big picture. So you don't find out until the last chapter that everything works out in ultimate irony. I guess that would have been more impressive if I actually read the book back in the 70's. I was just too busy being a toddler. I wasn't lying when I said I had no problem putting a book down after reading half of it. I can't explain why I kept reading this time. It just always seemed like it was about to get good. And then I was finished. This feeling was partly fueled by several people who knew about the book and said it was supposed to be hilarious or they compared the main character to Jesus. (yea some of it was painfully funny but JESUS? Please!) I thought surely if the book was still this popular that it must be good. I'll just say, that I do not have the feeling I get when I read a book I really liked. But I do love a happy ending. And I have to admit that this book had one hell of a happy ending.