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Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arthur Bandini #3)

by John Fante, Charles Bukowski (Introduction)

4.15 · rating details · 5,162 ratings · 523 reviews

"Ask the Dust" is a virtuoso performance by an influential master of the twentieth-century American novel. It is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to survive, he perseveres until, at last, his first novel is published. But the bright ligh

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Paperback, 165 pages

Published February 1st 2006 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1939)

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Sep 13, 2007

Eleanor rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: poets, Bukowski lovers, Los Angelinos

John Fante was Bukowski's god, and "either you adore him or you've never heard of him." Writing that's raw, swolen, true, and moving from a macro view of paragraph by paragraph, tectonic plates, words that are so organic, you never think about the words, they're tendons and muscles and joins that are by themselves ordinary yet Fante's voice is bold, heroic, cowardly, greedy, broken, blindingly joyful, I would follow him anywhere. It's rare that I buy a copy of a book I've already rea...more

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Sep 28, 2007

E. rated it

I'm giving it three but it really deserves 3.5.

I started off tearing into this book with the momentum I tore through Bukowski, which isn't to say that I love Bukowski, I don't, but I tore through his works. It's easy shit to tear through.

So I read the overwhelmingly positive Bukowski introduction and I'm off and running. I have a strange fasination with early 20th century LA. I couldn't say why. I have lived in San Francisco the majority of my life and been to LA 3-...more

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Sep 25, 2007

Matt Eckel rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: angelenos

I remember when I was fourteen, reading Catcher in the Rye. I went downstairs and told my mom, "it's the weirdest thing, this guy is, like, reading my mind!"

She said, "Matt, everyone thinks they're Holden Caulfield." God, adults can be so stupid sometimes. Obviously she didn't understand that this was something meaningful -- mystical, really -- that was happening to me. Or, to quote another influential poet of my youth, "parents just don't understand."
...more

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Apr 08, 2011

Altair2610 rated it

· review of another edition

Poco fa ho finito di leggere "Chiedi alla polvere" di Fante.
Confesso di aver ritardato la fine di quest'avventura letteraria, limitandomi a leggere solo poche pagine al giorno, quando avrei voluto passar la notte sveglia divorando capitoli su capitoli.
Questo romanzo mi ha scelto all'inizio dell'autonno in libreria, l'ho acquistato quasi alla cieca e due settimane fa ho seguito una voce interiore che continuava a ripetermi incessantemente "Smetti di leggere quello che s...morePoco fa ho finito di leggere "Chiedi alla polvere" di Fante.
Confesso di aver ritardato la fine di quest'avventura letteraria, limitandomi a leggere solo poche pagine al giorno, quando avrei voluto passar la notte sveglia divorando capitoli su capitoli.
Questo romanzo mi ha scelto all'inizio dell'autonno in libreria, l'ho acquistato quasi alla cieca e due settimane fa ho seguito una voce interiore che continuava a ripetermi incessantemente "Smetti di leggere quello che stai leggendo, ti stai facendo del male...Prendi me, è il tempo giusto, guarirò le tue ferite e te ne aprirò di nuove e amerai il sapore metallico del sangue sulla tua lingua quando te le leccherai per disinfettarle!".
Ne sono uscita devastata. E' come se Arturo Bandini/John Fante mi avesse squarciato come un animale al macello, avesse rivoltato la mia vita, i miei sogni, le mie emozioni.
Ho passato l'ultima ora, ho letto le ultime 30 pagine che mi separavano dalla fine piangendo copiosamente, singhiozzando senza ritegno. Mi era accaduto solo diversi anni fa con "Marianna Sirca" di commuovermi per un romanzo, ma stavolta ho raggiunto vette di pathos mai provate. E' stato come un orgasmo triste e rivelatore di quello che amo leggere e quello che voglio essere.
Se è vero che "Firmino" di Sam Savage è il romanzo che tutti gli amanti della lettura dovrebbero leggere, perché parla della lettura stessa, "Chiedi alla polvere" è il libro che chiunque aspiri a scrivere dovrebbe avere sul comodino accanto al proprio letto o nella propria borsa. Ma solo chi ha l'esatta consapevolezza di cosa significa scrivere una storia e come si scriva per poter essere considerato uno scrittore, solo chi sa fare feroce autocritica, solo chi non scrive per pura vanità di imporsi sul mercato alla ricerca di una effimera immortalità, solo chi si affaccia a questo mondo con umiltà estrema può capire di cosa Bandini parla e cosa Fante ha riversato in questo romanzo che è come una crepa nel terreno delle coscienze.
Fante, in queste 230 pagine (come scrivere un capolavoro assoluto senza dover imbrattare tanta carta), ha segnato costantemente, capitolo dopo capitolo, il mio Nord e ritengo continuerà a farlo per molti anni a venire.
Credo che non sarò in grado di leggere nient'altro per settimane. Voglio continuare ad aggirarmi come uno spettro fra le strade di Los Angeles e nella stanza di Bunker Hill, come in trance, come sotto l'effetto di una droga o i fumi dell'alcool, scossa, tremante, allucinata. Voglio coltivare il ricordo di "Chiedi alla polvere" come fosse un tesoro la cui bellezza è impossibile da condividere con parole che sarebbero unghie sulla lavagna a confrontarle con quelle vive come fiamme nella notte del deserto polveroso del Mojave che solo John Fante è in grado di scrivere.(less)

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Mar 22, 2009

Jimmy rated it

· review of another edition

I picked this up for a buck last week. Fante's such an easy read that I should have been finished that night, but I can't even seem to feign an interest in fiction lately. Well, maybe that's not entirely true. Maybe brain is still convalescing from all the Texas, drugs, and alcohol that I consumed last weekend. I'm astonished that I'm even capable of reading my e-mails lately.

An example of Fante's ostensible solipsism. "War in Europe, a spee...moreI picked this up for a buck last week. Fante's such an easy read that I should have been finished that night, but I can't even seem to feign an interest in fiction lately. Well, maybe that's not entirely true. Maybe brain is still convalescing from all the Texas, drugs, and alcohol that I consumed last weekend. I'm astonished that I'm even capable of reading my e-mails lately.

An example of Fante's ostensible solipsism. "War in Europe, a speech by Hitler, trouble in Poland, these were the topics of the day. What piffle! You warmongers, you old folks in the lobby of the Alta Loma Hotel, here is the news, here: this little paper with all the fancy legal writing, my book! To hell with that Hitler, this is more important than Hitler, this is about my book. It won't shake the world, it won't kill a soul, it won't fire a gun, ah, but you'll remember the book. The story of Vera Rivken, a slice out of life." Indeed, he makes such a charming argument. World War II, bah! Bandini's aimless adventures; far more important.

Books such as Ask the Dust seem to fall into the "hey, listen-to-me-becoming-a-great-writer" category. I've never really understood how any of these guys were published. I chalk it up to the historical period. Maybe the idea of the struggling writer trying to make a name for himself in Los Angeles appealed to the sympathies of the difficult times in which these books were written. Honestly, I see nothing more than a nuanced journal kept by someone who thinks that they are becoming a great writer. There isn't really anything more to Ask the Dust than a few banal observations about the human condition, a masochistic relationship with a bar waitress, and an appalling amount of exclamation points.

I've often heard Bukowski compared to Fante. Fante's influence on Bukowski is chronologically accurate, but it's unfair to Bukowski to say that Fante is superior in some way. They're both awful writers. They're both assholes too. The only difference is that Fante paints a portrait of his alter-ego as this altruistic, Catholic saint, whereas Bukowski drowns himself in booze-soaked, self deprecation. At least Bukowski was honest, and funny. Anyway, I don't even know why I really care that much. Maybe I just can't stand needless arguments about which piece of crap is better.

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Dec 16, 2011

RandomAnthony rated it

Someone recently mentioned Ask the Dust on Goodreads. I don't remember who. But, uh, thank you, whoever you are. I appreciate the recommendation and I'm surprised, even with its flaws, that the novel isn't revered by the Bukowski Fan Club crowd.

Ask the Dust functions as Arturo Bandini's (fictional) first person account of his rising and falling and rising (etc.) as a young Colorado writer new to California. Arturo wanders around Los Angeles, writes in his spartan hotel room,...moreSomeone recently mentioned Ask the Dust on Goodreads. I don't remember who. But, uh, thank you, whoever you are. I appreciate the recommendation and I'm surprised, even with its flaws, that the novel isn't revered by the Bukowski Fan Club crowd.

Ask the Dust functions as Arturo Bandini's (fictional) first person account of his rising and falling and rising (etc.) as a young Colorado writer new to California. Arturo wanders around Los Angeles, writes in his spartan hotel room, and makes a shitload of bad decisions. Fante excels in his ability to track Bandini's thought process from feverish creativity to mild paranoia to lust and self-loathing to sincere but halfhearted stabs at returning to his childhood Catholicism. On any day Arturio lurches from puffed-up arrogance to stomach-acid despair. He spends too much time alone. His relationship with Camilla, a local waitress, becomes a case study in how two messed up people can both lift each other up and drag each other down. More of the latter. Fante writes with a muscular, lyrical style; his Los Angeles is both movie set and dusty, hopeless slum. He's more heady than Bukowski, crossing over into near-poetry especially when describing the city and desert.

Bukowski readers will recognize Fante's influence within the first 100 words. Mr. Bukowski (in the edition I read, anyway) schools introduction-writers with his brief, direct articulation of his Fante admiration. If you can find an edition with the Bukowski introduction, get that one. Not the other one.

The novel's last 20%, however, blunders into an almost Reefer Madnessesque portrayal of marijuana addiction. It's hilarious. Fante blow his momentum with an anti-drug cautionary tale complete with “cans” of pot, users who conventionally put towels under doors because apparently you can't smoke pot in an open room, and what can only be described as a crackhouse for pot smokers. A pothouse? Maybe pot was stronger in the thirties. I don't know. But until the last couple pages, when Arturo walks out into the desert alone (I don't think I'm spoiling anything, don't worry), the gritty, compelling monologue becomes a cardboard addict story. I couldn't help but consider if Fante, like Bandini, was sabotaging himself.

That said, Ask the Dust is required reading for people into that whole drunk crazy writer thing. I very much liked the bulk of the book but I can't go beyond three stars because of the novel's disappointing swerve toward the end. I don't know much about the controversy Ms. Sanchez references below but I know Ms. Sanchez well enough to trust said controversy exists. This book was probably innovative for its time and deserves shelf-space next to the writers Fante influenced. I just wish the excellent Ask the Dust hadn't faltered near the finish line.(less)

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Oct 14, 2007

Alex V. rated it

Ask the Dust is about as good a book as has ever been written. I say book, instead of novel because I'm not sure it is a novel. Same with story, not sure there is much of a story here either. Instead, it is a hotwired connection to the mind of Arturo Bandini, the manic writer manifested in this and two other books Fante wrote. It might be a shambles of a story, a bust as a novel, but it's a motherfucker of a book.

It's been said that Joyce's Finnegan's Wake is a collection of all t...moreAsk the Dust is about as good a book as has ever been written. I say book, instead of novel because I'm not sure it is a novel. Same with story, not sure there is much of a story here either. Instead, it is a hotwired connection to the mind of Arturo Bandini, the manic writer manifested in this and two other books Fante wrote. It might be a shambles of a story, a bust as a novel, but it's a motherfucker of a book.

It's been said that Joyce's Finnegan's Wake is a collection of all things in the world at that moment, half of them in Ireland, half of those in Dublin, half of those on Joyce's street, half of those in his house and so on and so forth until you reach either infinity or negation, depending on which way you traverse the graph.

In Ask the Dust, Bandini feels everything whether in proximity or imagined but it all channels through this one man in a frightening rush, and this man, ill equipped to survive even without the encumbering of being the universe's conduit, is ravaged by the unending spurt of life. Bandini possibly experiences nothing, no one - they are figments in his narrative. I've considered the possibility that this book actually takes place with a catatonic Bandini sitting in that dour Bunker Hill apartment, his synapses sparking out like burnt fuses, manufacturing this wild life of devastating failures punctuated by successes. I've also considered that Bandini is Fante, a juvenile, but often dead-on assumption among writers who only write a few books all about writers.

None of it matters though. Arturo Bandini is the greatest. Muhammad Ali took ego lessons from Bandini. He is a shrieking lunatic mostly because it is possible that he is the only living person all earth, that the rest of us are either dull shades or occasional fellow lost souls. Reading Ask the Dust makes you want to go raving mad for just a while, so you can get the taste of blood in your mouth, so you can hear what it sounds like when you howl like a wolf. I think its the third time I've read this over the past decade, but the first time as a writer myself, and Bandini's anguish and longing to be read and to be loved and whatever pathetic impulses and personality defects that compel a person to Make Things of Spiritual Value only serve to underscore and expose the frightening longing we all have to exist. (less)

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Sep 25, 2007

Núria rated it

Shelves: 2007, 5-favoritos, prestados, literatura-en-ingles, siglo-xx

Siempre había querido leer 'Pregúntale al polvo', porque el título me parece precioso. Pero era uno de aquellos libros que siempre dejas para otro día. Cuando por fin lo cogí de la biblioteca (después de haberlo considerado ya muchas veces antes) ni siquiera sabía de que iba, pero cuando en casa leí la contraportada que contaba que Charles Bukowski era superfan del libro y mencionaba que había influenciado su obra de una manera constante, me temí lo peor, porque para mí Bukowski ya se agota con ...moreSiempre había querido leer 'Pregúntale al polvo', porque el título me parece precioso. Pero era uno de aquellos libros que siempre dejas para otro día. Cuando por fin lo cogí de la biblioteca (después de haberlo considerado ya muchas veces antes) ni siquiera sabía de que iba, pero cuando en casa leí la contraportada que contaba que Charles Bukowski era superfan del libro y mencionaba que había influenciado su obra de una manera constante, me temí lo peor, porque para mí Bukowski ya se agota con cuatro páginas, ni más ni menos, pero decidí intentarlo de todos modos. Y no se puede negar que el libro se lee muy bien, que John Fante tiene un estilo fresco, directo y fluido, pero para mí un libro tiene que hacer algo más que engancharte. Tiene sentido del humor y esto es muy importante para mí, pero tampoco suficiente. Pero, ¿qué es lo que hace que me enamore o no de un libro? Ya lo he dicho mil veces, pero lo voy a repetir: los personajes.

Sin embargo, os tengo que advertir que si sois de los que una obra no os gusta si os cae antipático el protagonista, mejor será que no os acerquéis a ella, porque Arturo Bandini es un pringado inmaduro que juega a ser un gran hombre, un inseguro arrogante lleno de contradicciones que se cree muy especial, un indeciso que a veces ni sabe lo que quiere y otras veces sólo quiere algo cuando ya no lo tiene. Arturo Bandini es un hijo de inmigrantes italianos que deja su Colorado natal para irse a Los Angeles y convertirse en escritor. Quiere ser escritor no por amor al arte o para expresar algo, sino para ganar dinero y demostrar a los tipos que lo menospreciaban en Colorado que Arturo Bandini es alguien mucho mejor que ellos. Arturo Bandini vaga por la calles y no tiene ni un mendrugo de pan que llevarse a la boca, sobrevive a base de naranjas que esconde bajo la cama de su habitación de motel destartalada. Arturo Bandini es católico y a la vez ateo, le gustaría no creer nunca en Dios pero no deja de temerlo y de rezar cuando las cosas se ponen feas. Un día Arturo Bandini conoce a Camila López, una camarera mejicana con la que mantendrá una relación de amor-odio, y después de esto ya nada será lo mismo.

Reconozco que hacia la segunda parte hay un momento en que se desinfla un poco y se vuelve algo repetitiva, pero consigue remontar. Divertida y amarga, esta novela es pura tragicomedia. Ambientada en la gran depresión, es una novela de fracasados, de carreteras y caminos polvorientos. Nos cuenta que la obsesión de escribir es una fuente constante de frustración, y unas muy pocas alegrías que pronto se desvanecen, tan rápido como se agota el dinero que proporciona publicar. Del mismo modo, la vida es también una acumulación de decepciones, una serie de humillaciones que tú mismo te buscas. Aún así, Arturo Bandini no deja nunca de ser un soñador que no se rinde, muy fanfarrón eso sí. Arturo Bandini vive para escribirlo: cuando le está sucediendo algo, ya piensa cómo lo pondrá por escrito después. Arturo Bandini es contradictorio y voluble, alguien demasiado afectado por una estricta educación católica, que a veces se odia a sí mismo y otras veces se cree tremendamente especial. Pero lo bueno es que, aunque Arturo Bandini es claramente un alter ego de John Fante, éste lo mira siempre desde la distancia y con cierta ironía, y así queda claro que Arturo Bandini no es nada más que un pringado fracasado y frustrado, ridículo en sus pretensiones y bravuconerías, pero aún así, ¡qué grande que es Arturo Bandini!
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Nov 26, 2011

Anastasia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: biblioteca-civica, moderni

- Ho voglia di Fanta, ma', comprami la Fanta! -
- Eh beh, dopo aver letto Fante giustamente la signorina ha voglia di Fanta. -
- Ahah. -

E poi feci una faccia da "questa era pessima".
Ma non ho nulla da rimproverare all'autore di questa battuta, nonché mio amico. Io faccio battute da far cadere le braccia tanto sono pessime.
Sorvoliamo sulla brutta copertina della Marcos y Marcos e parliamo del contenuto.
La lettura di questo libro si è aperta con urlett...more

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Apr 18, 2009

Alexis rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: littérature-américaine

Etrange découverte que celle de ce livre. Je l'ai reçu par la poste d'un expéditeur inconnu, mais qui lui devait bien me connaître. La lecture du 4ème de couverture m'a emballé, chose assez rare. La lecture quant à elle m'a enchanté.
Il m'a été difficile de mettre une note sur cette histoire. Le principe de note ne me plait pas vraiment. Je serais plus tenté de lui mettre 3 étoiles et demi mais ce n'est pas possible. Qu'importe.

Ce livre presque autobiographique suit les vagabon...more

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Nov 06, 2009

Oscar rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: mainstream, propios

Mientras leía este libro, se me pasó por la cabeza varias veces la frase "Esta novela de Fante no es como las otras que he leído. No me gusta". Arturo Bandini es un personaje que no me caía bien, lo encontraba demasiado alocado e inmaduro para mi gusto. Al igual que la relación amor/odio que mantiene al principio con Camila, que me sacaba de quicio. Pero el último cuarto de novela, concretamente desde el capítulo 14 hasta el final, la historia remonta, va a más, y termina de una manera...more

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Jul 13, 2008

Henrik rated it

Recommends it for: anyone enjoying realistic tales about egoistic authors and love relations

Shelves: realism

With an almost stream-of-consciousness-like style, the story started in a manner I found rather confusing. But truth be told, it worked great in setting the mood and the basics of how the narrator, Arturo Bandini, feels, experiences and thinks. So while it could have put me off as too annoying, instead it worked like a spell, pulling me into this period of this odd character's life during the 1930s.

Although a somewhat gritty, realist tale, the narrator's romanticism, ups & downs, ego...more

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Feb 13, 2007

Jane rated it

My california friend Amelia told me to read this; I took it from her house, and she'd made little notes in it so anyone who borrows it would get the L.A. insider references.

I enjoyed reading it; it is a very fast read and fun - and you can tell that he was one of Bukowski's big influences (aside from the fact that Bukowski wrote the intro to the version i read). As a warning it is a book about writing - kind of autobiographical - but its approach has a sweetness to it - or maybe I j...more

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Feb 08, 2012

Sasha rated it

This is a great story about Arturo Bandini, a young writer living in Los Angeles in the 1930s, struggling to survive both physically and artistically, while entwined in a volatile love/hate relationship with a Mexican waitress.

One of the first things that caught my attention was the fact that Arturo Bandini jumps between first and third person, as if he had an alter-ego in the ongoing story in his head. It paralleled the contradictions of his personality, which didn't always make him ...moreThis is a great story about Arturo Bandini, a young writer living in Los Angeles in the 1930s, struggling to survive both physically and artistically, while entwined in a volatile love/hate relationship with a Mexican waitress.

One of the first things that caught my attention was the fact that Arturo Bandini jumps between first and third person, as if he had an alter-ego in the ongoing story in his head. It paralleled the contradictions of his personality, which didn't always make him likeable, but made him human. I thought the author (Fante) did a great job of detailing the interplay between innocence/kindness and violence/cruelty, such as Bandini's abysmal behavior toward Camilla and his generosity with money to those in need of it. There is so much light and dark imagery going on, as when Bandini describes the dance-hall girl he is drinking with as having "the sweet eyes of a baby and the soul of a thief" (76), and says "your mouth looks like it had been dug out with raw fingernails and your old child's eyes swim in blood written like mad sonnets" (77). There is such visceral and fantastic imagery in the way Fante writes.

And despite the sadness that pervades the story at times, it was so full of humor. I liked the cocky attitude of the immature Bandini, a kid playing an adult, mapping things out in his head with confidence and then doing the exact opposite out of insecurity, or building himself up and conveniently disregarding anything that might lower his idea of himself. I found myself laughing at passages such as when Bandini tells himself he is "frightened of no man, but scared of the Third Street Tunnel, scared to walk through it--claustrophobia. Scared of high places too, and of blood, and of earthquakes; otherwise, quite fearless, excepting death, except the fear I'll scream in a crowd, except the fear of appendicitis, except the fear of heart trouble...Otherwise, quite fearless" (20). I was both entertained and horrified by Bandini, and in awe of the beautiful way Fante wrote lines like "The room was eloquent with her departure" (95) and "This was her home, her ruin, her scattered dream" (142). The way Fante used the inconsistencies between experience and expectation, beauty and ugliness, ideas and reality, made this an incredibly intriguing story.(less)

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Oct 25, 2011

Raffaella Foresti rated it

· review of another edition

Ricorderete il giovane Holden, il compagno letterario della nostra adolescenza che tutti prima o poi, lungo la trama del racconto e anche oltre, abbiamo finito col detestare. Non siate ipocriti: se non a tutti, è successo certamente a molti di voi. Per via di quell’assurda fissazione per il suo berretto rosso da cacciatore, tanto per cominciare. E che dire dell’esasperante ripetizione di parole e frasi del tipo mi lascia secco o vattelapesca? Ma ciò che personalmente non posso proprio perdonargl...more

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Oct 08, 2011

Tony rated it

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

ASK THE DUST. (1939). John Fante. ****.
I hadn’t heard of this author before, but a friend recommended this book and I gave it a try. I was almost put off when I saw that this edition had a preface by Charles Bukowski, a writer I usually can’t abide, who praised the author to high heaven. In spite of this, I read the book and was pleasantly surprised, though I can’t tell you why – exactly. It’s the story of a young man, an Italian-American from Boulder, CO, now living in LA. He went...more

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Sep 28, 2011

Patrick McCoy rated it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

I've heard a lot of good things about John Fante's Ask The Dust, and finally got around to reading it. He was a favorite of a friend of mine, and not to mention, a favorite of Charles Bukowski, who wrote the introduction to the Harper Perennial edition I read. It has that sort of unbridled emotion of a Russian novel, but the context is more like that of a 30's gumshoe detective novel from Chandler or Hammett, which exposes the seedy underbelly of LA. It is a bildungstrom of sorts as it chronicle...more

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May 18, 2011

Steven rated it

Ask the Dust delivers the jolt in the pit of the stomach only a great writer can manage.
The protagonist, Arturo Bandini, swings between outrageous black-hearted evil and pure righteous goodness. Bandini lives out each extreme state of mind he experiences by acting on it without thinking, often to his immediate regret. He hurts those he loves because he can’t help himself.
Camilla Lopez is lost in the world and wants what she can't have. She is the woman any young man would work hard...more

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Mar 07, 2011

Jim Ament rated it

Shelves: fiction

Review can be found at http://www.jamesrament.com/book-review�... or below:

On John Fante's official website, it says,

Born in Denver, Colorado, Fante's early years were spent in relative poverty. The son of an Italian father, Nicola Fante, and an Italian-American mother, Mary Capolungo, Fante was educated in various Catholic schools in Boulder, Colorado and briefly attended the University of Colorado.

In 1929, he dropped out of college and moved to Southern California ...more

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Feb 17, 2011

Clinton rated it

I haven't read this book in almost a decade. However, every time I see the beaten-up, dusty volume on my shelf, almost hidden in its slenderness, nestled alphabetically against Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying", I look back fondly on it and the time of my life when I read it and adored it. When I was around 19, I, as most inebriated 19 year old boys who fancy themselves bohemians do, discovered Charles Bukowsi. I forget the exact quote, but not long after my discovery of Bukowsi, I heard a r...more

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Sep 11, 2010

Andrew added it

Shelves: american-fiction, pre-wwii-american-fiction

It's hard to talk about Fante without speaking about Bukowski. The literary-minded like to speak about Bukowksi's "discovery" of Fante in terms analogous to Bob Dylan's "discovering" a dying Woody Guthrie in a Brooklyn hospital. But the only Bukowski I've read has been "Post Office," and I didn't much care for it, so i can't really speak to the connection. And I'm generally pretty disparaging of Great Artist mythology like that, so I both can't and don't want to ...more

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Apr 28, 2010

Melissa Chadburn rated it

Fante, John (1939), Ask The Dust , Harper Collins, NY, NY

A quick and crazy fun read. It’s mind-blowing how much story and detail could be packed in so few pages. It reminds me of an essay on the use of stillness in literature. Fante does this: stays still and reports every detail the reader never feels harried or missing out but it’s all there in only 165 pages. For example:
“She was gone when I woke up. The room was eloquent with her departure. A window open, curtain...moreFante, John (1939), Ask The Dust , Harper Collins, NY, NY

A quick and crazy fun read. It’s mind-blowing how much story and detail could be packed in so few pages. It reminds me of an essay on the use of stillness in literature. Fante does this: stays still and reports every detail the reader never feels harried or missing out but it’s all there in only 165 pages. For example:
“She was gone when I woke up. The room was eloquent with her departure. A window open, curtains blowing gently. A closet door ajar, a coat hanger on the knob. The half empty glass of milk where I had left it on the arm of the chair. Little things accusing Arturo Bandini, but my eyes felt cool after sleep and I was anxious to go and never come back. Down in the street there was music from a merry-go-round. I stood at the window. Below two women passed and I looked down upon their heads.”-95
I thought to myself Is the secret that not much happens? but on looking back a good deal happens and Fante tackles some very tough political topics for the time, race and class and drugs.
“But I am poor, and my name ends with a soft vowel, and they hate me and my father, and my father’s father, and they would have my blood and put me down, but they are old now, dying in the sun and in the hot dust of the road, and I am young and full of hope and love for my country and my times, and when I say greaser to you it is not my heart that speaks, but the quivering of an old wound, and I am ashamed of the terrible thing I have done.”-47
There were only two things that nagged me:
1) The protagonist Arturo Bandini a loser and gifted writer that produced and published work whenever he felt like it. Writing that somehow often made him temporarily wealthy. I guess this was supposed to be satirical or possibly breath hope into the futility of a writer’s life but at times it just pissed me off. Because as you all know I am in direct competition with Arturo Bandini.
2) I wonder if the weed back then was stronger or if perhaps John Fante was actually really straight and didn’t do his research or If this was again some sort of fictional slant on marijuana, as the antagonist would go out and smoke weed in what sounded much more like a crack den and eventually lost her mind and I have yet to know of any cases like that.

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Jan 28, 2011

Robert rated it

I bought this book because Bukowski had written that it was a life changing book for him (he wrote introducion of the Harpers Perrenial edition I was reading)

I think I could see the appeal the book would have for CB - it's not a long book but is wonderful at painting the scene of Los Angeles in the late 1930's - not the Hollywood glamorous rendition but the gritty downtown version with stark honesty about racial and gender atttitudes and the seedy side of life in the taxi dance halls...more

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May 10, 2010

Matthew W rated it

Charles Bukowski described "Ask the Dust" author John Fante as "Mencken's Catholic Bad Boy" in his poetic tribute to the Italian-American novelist. I don't think a better honor could have been bestowed upon Mr. Fante.

My interest in "Ask the Dust" came about when I saw the somewhat recent film based on the book starring black Irishman Colin Farrell. Of course, the film butchers the book, but that is what one comes to expect from culturally-hollow Hollyw...more

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Feb 20, 2008

Bri Ana rated it

Please accept my humble apologies for the insensitivity of the human race to anyone who's first exposure to Fante's work was stumbling across the Hollywood adaptation of this novel on HBO some dreary post bar evening.

Read it if only for the crisp, if not painfully delicate honesty of his writing, the portrait of downtown Los Angeles in the 1930's and possibly the most perfect ending to any novel in the last century. Yes, that's right. Read it for the last few paragraphs alone.

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Oct 05, 2011

Bastet rated it

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La empecé en 2009 y la abandoné en un pasaje de un realismo tan sucio que pudo conmigo. Como en Espera a la primavera, Bandini, en Pregúntale al polvo los perdedores se ven abandonados a su suerte en un mundo inhumano que no les deja levantar cabeza, y apenas la levantan reciben un zarpazo. Esta novela me ha provocado reacciones encontradas, igual que la relación de amor-odio que se traen el joven escritor Arturo Bandini y Camila, la camarera mexicana que trabaja en un café cerca de la pensión c...more

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May 21, 2010

Abailart rated it

Shelves: fiction

Sometimes an idea floated harmlessly through the room. It was like a small white bird. It meant no ill-will. It only wanted to help me, dear little bird. But I would strike at it, hammer it out across the keyboard, and it would die on my hands.

Thus, poor Arturo Bandini, hapless young want-to-be writer at his typewriter. The semi-autobiographical novel of the struggling writer is a genre unto itself, and can be done badly. But clearly, when Fante writes "overwhelmed with grief fo...moreSometimes an idea floated harmlessly through the room. It was like a small white bird. It meant no ill-will. It only wanted to help me, dear little bird. But I would strike at it, hammer it out across the keyboard, and it would die on my hands.

Thus, poor Arturo Bandini, hapless young want-to-be writer at his typewriter. The semi-autobiographical novel of the struggling writer is a genre unto itself, and can be done badly. But clearly, when Fante writes "overwhelmed with grief for Arturo Bandini", he is seeing ironically and from a distance. It would be wrong to see the book as 'about' a writer: it is not 'about' anything, not representing some fixed time and place and reality (other than its formal vehicular shaping which requires a content to proceed); rather, it is a direct impressionism of writing itself, the words do what the words can do, the attentive reader is given the experience of writing, reading, and that same distanced irony that evaporates the heavy weight of registers which may be assumed serious, literal. It is 'playful' (and not in the connotative sense of the dominant literal discourse) and light and true to the sadness of living. The small extract here contrasts that very possible lightness , the generosity of a benevolent world, with being squashed by the hammer blows of literalism. It is like offering love and being punched in return by a fearful thug.

Arturo can be very nasty, very spiteful, swinging between the rectitude hardwired by believing the Catholic mythos, violent and vile ill will, oceanic grandiosity, lust, obsession, self-disgust, guilt, and the chronic awareness of death and decay: the young man is made of humanbeingness, and the writer catches it superbly so that this is not a story with a consistent narrative author-ity in the classical sense, but the voice of a particularly honest author. Almost every sentence contains a sensuous image. While Arturo is in dread of the udt, desert, ghostly emptiness of everything, of time's indifference, his eye for a face, a touch of skin, an ankle is immanent all the time; his own innards, gases in the stomach, acids in the gut; his sensitivity to the disgusting all around, in him too, attest to a realism that is not contrary to but completive of the metaphysical impulses, the Voltairian, the Nietzscian, the mathematical and formal.

What if, he, Los Angeles, California, the World do not exist? What if all the stories are just stories made of words, words that we believe are Truth, absolutes, totems to live by? The novel's its own Ulysses in which every thing is tried in the tyranny of syntax, thoughts until a breakthrough, a clarity and cleanliness if not realised, promised: And then like a dream it came. Out of my desperation it came - an idea, my first sound idea, the first in my entire life, full-bodied and clean and strong... But it was not thinking, not cogitation. It simply moved of its own accord, spurted out like blood. He is writing here about writing, the novel is a torture chamber of words to come to the words that matter at last.

There is much creft in the novel. The delicate metonyms of Los Angeles as place and culture culminate in the book's final cinemascope desert vision wherein a life that was has dilsappeared broken and sick. References to palm trees, city plants and foliage resonate with the bleak desert outgrowths and haphazard scrubs. A sex scene, one that may indeed be a rape, coded ("he removed his fist from her mouth"), standing for the violence inherent in this literary vision, not an uncommon one in American literature; this is a violence qua violence but stands too for something like Will, vitality against the odds, the desert, the dust where the answer to the question, if you care to ask it, is to be found.(less)

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Jun 22, 2011

Joao rated it

Being on page 0 (ie I'm planning to start reading this tonight), but having already read one other book from this author and from this series, all I can say is that methinks this is THE book to kick-start the silly season as far as reading books are concerned. I hope this short book will encapsulate all that a white-out burning summer weather is all about, what with the nostalgia for things that never were, the letting-go, the carelessness, etc
---
Finished.
Of course, american write...more

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Sep 04, 2010

Mike Puma rated it

Shelves: 2010

An unreliable narrator, Arturo Bandini, relates his highest accomplishments (writing short stories and a novel) and his deepest failures (finding love). His piques of racism and misogyny are followed by moments of tenderness and compassion for the same woman. He’s a man hard to admire, yet equally hard to forget or not care about. For this reader, at least, he’s one who will have to be revisited, re-evaluated, through the pages of the author’s other volumes in the The Saga of Arturo Bandini seq...more

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Oct 26, 2011

Kaloyana rated it

Всъщност давам три звездички и половина. Малко преди четири. Хубава книга. Интересна история, написана много добре - чудесен стил. Някак си увлича с точния си ритъм и хубавите изречения - кратки, ясни, непретенциозни, но в същото време те кара да не спреш да четеш. Някакво страхотно майсторство проличава от всяка фраза, от всеки абзац. Динамиката не се губи. Никъде няма неясноти и отплесване. Много искрено и човешки написана история, само й липсва онова нещо, което стяга за гърлото, но пък не мо...more

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About John Fante

Fante's early years were spent in relative poverty. The son of an Italian born father, Nicola Fante, and an Italian-American mother, Mary Capolungo, Fante was educated in various Catholic schools in Boulder, Colorado and briefly attended the University of Colorado.

In 1929, he dropped out of college and moved to Southern California to concentrate on his writing. He lived and worked in W...more

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Books by John Fante

Wait Until Spring, Bandini Wait Until Spring, Bandini

The Road to Los Angeles the Road to Los Angeles

Dreams from Bunker Hill Dreams from Bunker Hill

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Quotes from Ask the Dust

“You are nobody, and I might have been somebody, and the road to each of us is love.” — 16 people liked it

“We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered, it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it. She had made it plain by her coming.” — 14 people liked it

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