A Confederacy of Dunces is an absolute joy. I had an enormous, goofy grin on my face the entire time. This is the funniest book I've read since The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life- it may, in fact, be the funniest book I've ever read. I kept turning to whoever was around me at the time (even strangers on the bus, like) and saying: "Oh, oh, this is a good bit, you've gotta hear this!" and then reading them a passage. God, what a gem.
It's the story of one Ignatius J. Reilly, an enormous, erudite thirty-year-old who lives with his mother in New Orleans, circa 1950. Ignatius is at once staggeringly smart and astoundingly stupid. He's got book-smarts, indeed everything he says is eminently quotable, but he applies his philosophies to life so rigorously that he is barely functional, and offends every person he meets with his bizarre outlook.
"I socialize with either my peers or no-one. Since I have no peers, I socialize with no-one."
Ignatius is a real creation. Awful, hilarious, repulsive, not actually malign, but somehow bringing destruction to all those around him. But he'd just be plain annoying if not for the fact that nearly everything he says is pure genius, particularly his frequent "Big Chief" rants which he writes in little notebooks scattered around his room, and his wonderful correspondence with "That Minx" Myrna Minkhoff, a friend he met in College, and perhaps his only friend outside his long-suffering and much-abused mother.
To give you an idea of Ignatius' personality, his favourite hobby is to go to movies (which, like all society, he loves to despise) and loudly point out all the flaws. "Oh, my God! What degenerate produced this abortion?" he cries.
I've got this habit that is by turns both helpful and annoying, in that my brain often 'picks up the pattern' of whatever book I happen to be reading at the time. So when I read Bill Hicks, I find I'm extremely funny, when I read Haruki Murakami I find myself slightly disconnected from the world, when I read a non-fiction book I'm very matter-of-fact, and so on. Unfortunately, whilst reading A Confederacy of Dunces I was very pompous and arrogant (aside: I'm now reading Hunter S. Thompson so am looking forward to being drunk and witty).
The book occasionally drifts to other subplots with other characters, the greatest of which is Burma Jones, a man who can't get through a sentence without exclaiming: "Whoa!" which I found highly amusing for reasons I really can't explain.
Like all great comedy, Dunces is laced with tragedy, at one point quite depressing me (even while remaining depressingly funny) because everyone's case seems so hopeless. But like five episodes of Seinfeld mashed together, all the various threads come together to solve everyone else's problems, and ends on a great high note that to be honest I wasn't expecting.
It's a great work. Read it- It'll be one of the best things you've read. Read it. I demand it! My copy is yours, should you wish it.
This is a 
So it's a bit like he has a blog then.
Oh yeah, he'd totally be an awesome blogger.
I read this last year, and I thought I'd reviewed it but can't find the post. Anyway, I found it to be a bit like car-crash reading; I didn't like it, but couldn't put it down. Rationally, I can see that it's a beautifully written book, and Ignatius is, as you say, fascinatingly repulsive. I didn't warm to him or to the book, though.
I never got to the end because I found it too sad - but glad you read it and reported on the happy ending, maybe I'll give it another try.
What are you like when reading sci-fi then?
Well the last Sci-Fi I read was The Player of Games, so I was probably something of a pompous ass who thoinks he's smarter than he actually is....so not much change from the norm, then.
When reading Alastair Reynolds, however, I do find myself looking at things in a different way, exploring all the bizarre possibilities of a situation in my imagination. It's loads of fun.