Confederacies of Dunces

I'm doing research on the late author John Kennedy Toole, mostly concerning his novel A Confederacy of Dunces. There are tons of competing interpretations as to the meaning of this work. Before winning a Pulitzer, the novel was rejected by Bob Gotlieb of Simon & Schuster because it didn't have "meaning". After the death of the author, and the critical attention that follows winning a prize in fiction, meaning has been more than created. Interpretations of the rogue, comic, not quite anti-heroic protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly have quite a range. Some say he's a symbol for the struggling Roman Catholic Church in a modern world, others argue that he's inspired by acquaintances of Toole or Toole himself, and a strong case is made for Ignatius as a queer satire on hyper-masculinity. Regardless, meaning has been found if not created.

I talked with my class today about where meaning is found in a word, sentence, or work of art: the writer, the work, or the reader. Lil Wayne is constantly alluded to during class time so I suggested that an awareness of the likelihood of being 'misrepresented' by the written word informed Wayne's aversion to recording on paper (in more or less words). Back to Toole, he was certainly disappointed with Gotlieb's reading of his "masterpiece". Many relate Toole's suicide to this disappointment. However, I wonder how Toole would respond to the meaning of his novel thirty something years after its miraculous publication. Does it matter?