Summer Reading - Honors Humanities

For honors humanities I was recommended A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Tooler, from Neil Baffert, now a senior here at High Tech High Media Arts. I asked Neil a few questions about his  reasoning behind his book choice and the impression it left upon him, through an e-mail he sent me.

Here is Neil's response to my questions:

Why did you read this book?

I read A Confederacy of Dunces because it was a recommendation from my father to me. Actually it was a Christmas gift. He told me that it was one of those books that everybody needs to read at some point in their life, a classic, but isn’t often read by schools. He said it would teach me a lot regarding the value of life, what things are worth, how to live life, and show a little bit of scenic detail from New Orleans.

Why do you value this book?

I value A Confederacy of Dunces because, while it did teach me things, it actually was a very good read as well, stylistically. I normally do not like reading books, it has nothing to do with my reading capabilities, for I am good at reading. The only problem is it is challenging for me to find a good book that I don’t speed through. This book was perfect for that, not only was it something I could actually enjoy, but it was long enough and slowly paced enough for me to read it over a decent amount of time.

How has this book impacted your life?

This book has impacted my life by showing me the life of somebody who didn’t try. Who got to ahead of themselves. It showed me that no matter how highly you think of yourself, at some point you are going to have to do things you don’t want to do in order to make it to the top.

Neil's E-mail