Kingsley Amis’s Roger Micheldene is a poor English cousin to Ignatius Reilly. Though both are supremely bloated on themselves, Roger is more self-aware (perhaps, older, owing to more time away from overprotective maternal influence), and unapologetically lacking in the consolation of philosophy. Some might appreciate One Fat Englishman for its charms, but for humor I’d say skip it in favor of rereads of Wodehouse, and for singular, hysterical experience John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces is supreme.
