A Confederacy of Dunces

I have finally finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces.  I looked up Southern Gothic and Wikipedia told me that John Kennedy Toole belongs in that category.  But this is no Wise Blood.  William Faulkner is also in the category.  I tried reading The Sound and the Fury, but I didn't get it.  A Confederacy of Dunces sometimes reads like a 90's sitcom, like Family Matters with Chief Karl Wigum and Steve Urquel.  There is similar hijinks and Funny Situations.  But they aren't that funny, they are kind of tedious.

The main character is Reilly, who is highly educated, but unemployed.  He worries constantly about the state of his Pyloric Valve, which has the tendency to close in stressful situations and cause bloating.  He lives with his Ma, Irene in New Orleans.  Most of the characters are Crackers.   Eventually Reilly finds work in a pants factory, and then as a weenie vendor.  He writes a journal on Big Chief Tablets, which are strewn across his room.  One day he will put all his writings together and it will be a verifiable masterpiece.  One aspect of Southern Gothic literature, is the very odd characters getting into absurd situations.  I have a feeling Toole liked the idea of S. Gothic, or liked the novels, but he took the idea too literally.  For example, he makes references to the medieval philosopher Boethius, and to Gothic Architecture.  As though the literature is Gothic in the South.  Which it should be, but isn't.  It doesn't make sense, I know, but a lot of those terms don't.  Like Romanticism in Art.  It's not very romantic.  Or Picturesque.  That's not about pictures, it's about not throwing yourself off the bridge, or drowning yourself in the man made lake.