The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Neon Bible
Book Review: The Country Book
Summary: 4 Stars
There is no doubt in my mind that John Kennedy Toole was a colossal genius. "A Confederacy of Dunces" is one of my all-time favourite books (and steadily makes its way up the list each time I re-read it), a rambunctious, comic masterpiece on a par with "Tristram Shandy". While "Neon Bible" could not be more different from "A Confederacy of Dunces", it is for all that something of a treasure.
I think of it like this: "A Confederacy of Dunces" is a city novel (specifically, a New Orleans novel). "Neon Bible" is a country novel. The foot has been taken off the accelerator. The pace has gone slack. You get time to smell the coffee, look up at the birds in the trees, float downstream on Huck Finn's raft. All that.
The narrator of "Neon Bible" (like John Kennedy Toole at the time of writing, funnily enough) is a kid. He watches various lives fall apart. He attempts to become an adult (he attempts to reconcile himself to adult activity and develop adult understanding), and he fails and he runs away.
In lots of ways, "Neon Bible" is like a bird that settles, to your surprise, on your hand. Only you are clumsy (you are Lenny from "Of Mice and Men"). You crush the pretty bird and the end of the book is (quite remarkably, and out of nowhere) the bloody remnants of all those organs and bones crushed between your fingers.
You never see it coming. The book reads like a painting. It's so beautiful (and you ask yourself: how did a sixteen year old write this?) you want to touch it, only when you do, the paint gets all over your hands. Everything is ruined. By which I mean to say that it isn't until the end that you realise the peace that pervades the book is - like the little bird in your hand - fragile and easily lost.
Book Review: The Neon Bible
Summary: 5 Stars
A friend turned me onto The Confederacy of Dunces and I just had to read other works by this author.Book Review: The Neon Bible
Summary: 2 Stars
David is just a small boy when his mother's Aunt Mae come to live with him. He knows nothing about perfumes, nightclubs, or shiny, yellow hair. Aunt Mae is just the opposite, having just come from out of state where they have these things. Regardless, Aunt Mae and David quickly become fast friends and walk through town together just enjoying each other's company. Then David's father loses hisjob and the family is forced to move up into the hills. Money is tight and David starts to see the harsher things in life, but Aunt Mae is always there for him, helping to brighten his day. David thinks that talking to Aunt Mae can fix everything, but then a letter comes in the mail with news that even Aunt Mae can not fix. David then has to get a job in town, and him and Aunt Mae start growing apart. The, one day, Aunt Mae leaves and David's world comes crashing down around him.John Kennedy Toole uses David as the main character in his novel The Neon Bible. David narrates the story of his life growing up in a place called the valley in the 1940s. The vallet is a small town with a small town environment. Everybody makes it their priority to know and get into everybody else's business. This provides the story with a few major conflicts, like the one between David and the pastor, the one between David and Mrs. Watkins, and the one between he and the townspeople later in the book. David does not appreciate when people stick their noses where they do not belong, and this mentality leads David to do things he never though he would do before. Other conflicts also occur in this book, like the ones between him and the supporting characters of the book, Aunt Mae and David's mother. David does not seem to appreciate change too much and this leads to him starting to become wary of his mother and his friend, Aunt Mae.
Toole uses flashbacks, similes, and metaphors throughout the story. He also writes with a very descriptive style that can bring the reader into any scene he is describing. Toole uses these literary techniques and his own writing style to portray the theme of the book. The theme is that people should mind their own business unless they are asked to help because it will often lead to problems and may complicate situations. Toole also uses Aunt Mae to portray another theme in the book, and that is that sometimes too much help and support can be dangerous too. The Neon Bible is a good book for those who like surprising endings or stories about how people changes as they grow up. I personally thought the book was OK. I thought that is was not that great but it was not terrible either, however, I would not read it again.
Book Review: The Neon Bible
Summary: 4 Stars
After recieving a Pulitzer Prize for A Confederacy of Dunces, John Toole's The Neon Bible was published in 1989. At the age of 16 he was writing this book for a literary contest.In a small, southern town in Mississippi lived a boy named David. He spent most of his time taking walks and following around his Aunt Mae. He grew up relying on her thoughts and opinions which later conflicted when she wasn't around.
The town was so consumed with the politics of the church and they forgot the real meaning. As a boy, he was ridiculed for not being a part of the church because his Poppa didn't pay the dues. David could see the light of the neon bible shinning bright from his home. To him the bible was a symbol of God fearing neighbors. From page to page we learn his thoughts and feelings about life, love, and religous views. David's thoughts and feelings conflicted with his inner-self and surroundings.
As a young writter Toole wrote an easy to read, but yet descriptive novel. Throughout the book he uses flashbacks, similes, and metaphors. The book had a constant flow that made it enjoyable.
Book Review: The Overlooked Toole
Summary: 5 Stars
What is most remarkable, to me, about The Neon Bible is that John Kennedy Toole wrote such a well constructed novel at such an early age. Not only is the novel well constructed, but Toole's observations of society are especially profound. Two passages are quite memorable to me, "She didn't know she was the only thing I ever wanted to have that I thought I'd get," and "They always had some time left over from their life to bother about other people..." Toole was obviously born with deep insight and the gift of writing it on paper; it is amazing that he had to struggle so despairingly to get his Confederacy of Dunces published.
I read Confederacy some years ago. I enjoyed it, but I was fully unaware of Toole's back story at the time. After reading The Neon Bible (which I hadn't know about, and discovered quite by accident), I now know that we lost an important literary voice when Toole committed suicide in 1969.
Unlike others, I cannot compare The Neon Bible and To Kill a Mockingbird-To Kill a Mockingbird, for me, is a different book in a completely different voice. The themes of youthful innocence are similar, but where Harper Lee's novel reads with elegance and grace, Toole's is grittier and darker. Regardless, his message is important. Many of us of a certain age remember the South he describes, and as I read I had memories popping out that I, at his age, would never have had the prescience to write about.