![]() ![]() Not since reading Decline and Fall had I encountered such a perfectly realised comic world with similarly grotesque but hilarious characters, all crowned by one of literature’s most beguilingly horrible figures, Ignatius J Reilly: philosopher, glutton, hypochondriac and committed onanist. I read the book with glee and disbeliefĪ couple of weeks later, in the entirely unlikely surroundings of a music festival somewhere in Essex, I could be found making similar noises of hysterical merriment, to the consternation of those around me. Ignatius J Reilly: philosopher, glutton, hypochondriac and committed onanist. As he put it, with an entirely straight face, ‘When I read this book for the first time, I laughed so much that my girlfriend thought I was having a fit and called an ambulance.’ ![]() ![]() The literary editor one day handed me a copy of a book with a peculiar title – A Confederacy of Dunces – and told me, very solemnly, that it had life-changing properties. However, one sublime thing did come out of my brief stint in the Statesman’s confines. I would like to say that I found myself exposed to many brilliant authors and titles that I would not otherwise have encountered, but unfortunately I did not. ![]() Many years ago, I undertook an internship at the New Statesman on the books desk. ‘When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him’ ![]()
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