MM Book Club Discussion: "A Confederacy of Dunces" (August 2026)

Here's where to discuss this month's selection from the "Great American Novel" shelf

Welcome to the Discussion Page for Common Sense by Thomas Paine, one of our five options to read for August 2026. To learn more about the club, where to get your books and more, go to the official book club launch page. Learn about the rules for commenting, and how it all works on this month’s Book Club Hub.

Great American Novel (Fiction)
”A Confederacy of Dunces“ by John Kennedy Toole
One of my favorite books, and arguably one of the funniest novels ever written. Beneath the absurdity is a biting satire about American culture, ego, and the people who think they’re smarter than everyone else. You may also find yourself deeply craving a Lucky Dog hot dog.

My thoughts and discussion kickoff

Ignatius J. Reilly is over-educated, underemployed and lives with his mother in New Orleans’ downtrodden French Quarter in the 1960s. He’s lazy, despises modern society and completely convinced that everyone else is the problem.

As a literary character, he’s ridiculous, infuriating and impossible to forget or easily classify. Is he a misunderstood rebel? A world-class blowhard? Or simply what happens when intelligence, grievance, and a complete lack of self-awareness inhabit a single human?

If you skipped the forward of the book, I ask you to go back and read it. You’ll learn about the book’s author and his sad demise after failing to find a buyer for this extraordinary work. No one should win a posthumous Pulitzer at the age of 31.

The book’s title refers to a passage from a Jonathan Swift essay that reads, “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” (From: Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting.)

What’s your take on Ignatius and his misadventures? The other characters? Your thoughts on the book’s origin story?

MM

P.S. As a bonus, take a look at “Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting,” the Jonathan Swift work that inspired the book. It’s only six pages long and worth the minutes you’ll spend on it.

Published in 1706, it’s essentially a list of Swift’s views on various aspects of life, notably politics, religion and human behavior. As with all his satire, Swift’s goal was to provoke you to think. One of my favorite observations is the first line, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

Find links to discussion pages for the other books on this month’s Book Club Hub.

** In order to keep the comments free of trolls and hate — and because, if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, it’s that they would rather spend 18 hours assembling a complicated nine-drawer IKEA dresser with no instructions while listening to bagpipes playing “Baby Shark” on repeat than give me $5 — only paid subscribers can comment here. Everyone, however, is welcome to read the discussion.

And, not to worry, anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. I also read the comments here on Substack, as do my producers.