Written by an unrecognized young man who committed suicide in 1969 because he considered himself a failed writer, this picaresque
book relates the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a gargantuan character living in New Orleans. Ignatius J. Reilly, 32 years old, is someone of incredible intelligence, endowed with a stock of extraordinary university knowledge. But he lives in his own world, which he places well above that of his contemporaries. Misanthropic, paranoid, “a victim of great bursts of flatulence,” he is incapable of finding his place in the American consumer society of the 1960’s. This he is
constantly reminded of by his widowed mother, whom he lives with in a slum in the suburbs of New Orleans, and who constantly reproaches him for not working. He resolves to find a job. However, each of his experiences, during which he meets colorful characters, which the author describes with vividness, turns into complete disaster. In fact, feeling invested with a sacred mission in the manner of a modern day Don Quixote, he accumulates catastrophe upon catastrophe. He is, however, full of the conviction that he is a genius in his own right and continues in such a way. Difficult to classify, this book reveals itself to be a profoundly humanistic “Serio-Comedy.” A must read.
*This abstract is a translation by Jennifer Lamari of the original abstract "La
conjuration des imbéciles" written in French by Bradovski which can be found at http://fr.shvoong.com/books/novel/240310-la-conjuration-des-imbéciles/