Ignatius J Reilly is thirty-years-old, considers himself a genius, writes constantly and lives with his mother. He can't live outside of New Orleans â he got deathly ill the one time he left for an overnight trip.
One day while waiting for his widowed mother to finish some shopping, he has an altercation with a local police officer who is sure that he is some sort of communist or other unsavory character. His green hunting cap and flannel shirt and tweed pants didn't do much to make him look savory.
His mother manages to get him released without charges, but as she's attempting to take him home, she runs into a building which causes significant damage to the building. Charges will not be brought if the Reillys pay for the damage. Mrs. Reilly decides that Ignatius must get a paying job to cover the cost. Of course, Ignatius feels that his mother should cover the cost â but is opposed to any of her means of getting the money (such as a mortgaged on the home) and she cannot come up with the money on her fixed retirement income.
Ignatius reluctantly gets a job at a pants manufacturer doing clerical work. He feels he is way over-qualified for this job and his boss and the company's owner doesn't pay much attention to him â mostly because he doesn't really want the company and spends most of his time fighting with his wife. His only co-worker is an elderly and pretty-much senile woman who desperately wants to retire, but for some reason, the owner's wife has decided that keeping this woman employed is what is keeping her alive.
Ignatius and his mother's encounters with the other people in the New Orleans area seem completely unrelated but eventually they all come together with absurd and hilarious results.
I really enjoyed this book. It's very different â especially since I found myself actually strongly disliking â I'd even be willing to say hating â the protagonist. I will say, that I tended to skip through the sections that were Ignatius' writings â which are really more like ranting. Finding out where the story was going to go was the most fun.
One day while waiting for his widowed mother to finish some shopping, he has an altercation with a local police officer who is sure that he is some sort of communist or other unsavory character. His green hunting cap and flannel shirt and tweed pants didn't do much to make him look savory.
His mother manages to get him released without charges, but as she's attempting to take him home, she runs into a building which causes significant damage to the building. Charges will not be brought if the Reillys pay for the damage. Mrs. Reilly decides that Ignatius must get a paying job to cover the cost. Of course, Ignatius feels that his mother should cover the cost â but is opposed to any of her means of getting the money (such as a mortgaged on the home) and she cannot come up with the money on her fixed retirement income.
Ignatius reluctantly gets a job at a pants manufacturer doing clerical work. He feels he is way over-qualified for this job and his boss and the company's owner doesn't pay much attention to him â mostly because he doesn't really want the company and spends most of his time fighting with his wife. His only co-worker is an elderly and pretty-much senile woman who desperately wants to retire, but for some reason, the owner's wife has decided that keeping this woman employed is what is keeping her alive.
Ignatius and his mother's encounters with the other people in the New Orleans area seem completely unrelated but eventually they all come together with absurd and hilarious results.
I really enjoyed this book. It's very different â especially since I found myself actually strongly disliking â I'd even be willing to say hating â the protagonist. I will say, that I tended to skip through the sections that were Ignatius' writings â which are really more like ranting. Finding out where the story was going to go was the most fun.
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