ask the dust
by John Fante
ask the dust
John Fante |
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Read in February, 2007
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...more
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Read in October, 2007
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...more
It's been said that Joyce's Finnegan's Wake is a collection of...more
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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 3-4 times. I coul...more
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 3-4 times. I coul...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone enjoying realistic tales about egoistic authors and love relations
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, egotism...more
Although a somewhat gritty, realist tale, the narrator's romanticism, ups & downs, egotism...more
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Read in February, 2007
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 just felt...more
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 just felt...more
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Read in September, 2007
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
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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Read in March, 2006
I have been meaning to read this for some time and I thought the release of the film adaptation would be a wonderful time to do so. I can’t remember how I first heard about John Fante and it is my impression that he is not widely read but perhaps this Hollywood movie will change that.
This novel, and his others, are semi-autobiographical and the reading of it makes this pretty clear. The voice of this book is the voice of the young struggling writer and it is captured perfectly. One dose of...more
This novel, and his others, are semi-autobiographical and the reading of it makes this pretty clear. The voice of this book is the voice of the young struggling writer and it is captured perfectly. One dose of...more
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Read in May, 2007
recommended to Devora by:
Skylight Bookstore employee pick
This is my first John Fante novel and I'm hooked like Charles Bukowski was obsessed with John Fante. Picked it up at Skylights Bookstore in Los Feliz. I loved this novel because it's a "historical fiction" of sorts of Los Angeles. The novel revolves around a starving writer who lives in a hotel in Bunker Hill around the 1930's. He falls in love with a Mexican waitress and they have this very strange love affair. The writing is brutally honest and at times very un-PC. I'm now on t...more
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Read in January, 2008
Arturo Bandini. Wreckless, tortured by his love, extreme, sensitive, and later disillusioned. A dreamer. An Italian Holden Caulfield roaming around Los Angeles looking for some sort of meaning in this crazy life, for a truth, for love, for redemption, for something greater than everyday existence.
A story of madness. A story of searching for identity. A story of the way we treat each other -- of unrequited love, abusive love, and unconditional love.
It took me awhile to get into the story ...more
A story of madness. A story of searching for identity. A story of the way we treat each other -- of unrequited love, abusive love, and unconditional love.
It took me awhile to get into the story ...more
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great, but only in the context of the other bandini novels, though i have to admit the other ones weren't as good.
plus, this novel made bukowski write... and i'm not a die hard bukowski fan, but here's the deal: i started reading an edition with bukowski's introduction while in the downtown la library, and this intro was about how he was down on his luck, read everything he could think to read in the downtown library, found ask the dust, went back to his apartment on angel's flight an...more
plus, this novel made bukowski write... and i'm not a die hard bukowski fan, but here's the deal: i started reading an edition with bukowski's introduction while in the downtown la library, and this intro was about how he was down on his luck, read everything he could think to read in the downtown library, found ask the dust, went back to his apartment on angel's flight an...more
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Read in August, 2007
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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Read in March, 2008
One hazy Saturday afternoon I wandered into Skylight bookstore in Los Feliz and felt like buying something atmospheric. It was a beautiful Los Angeles day and I wanted to get lost in the sunshine. Fante's "Ask the Dust" tore me out of the 21st century and planted me squarely in Bunker Hill, late 30s. The book featured milkmen, trolleys, Oliveras Street, Long Beach, Sunset Blvd, and harachi sandels. The protangonist Arturo Bandini is hungry for fame, food and sex.....Bukowski wrote ...more
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Read in April, 2008
don't know why, but this book cracked me up.
The way the character, arturo bandini (perfect name for him too!) writes all those weird letters to his editor, & the way he just seems like he's looney (well, he is!) but still all along he is a good writer.
I watched the movie too, and I guess it was what I expected, not as good as the book. The characters were much better looking than I imagined--
anyway-- this was a really good read.
I bought it after reading just the first page.
...more
The way the character, arturo bandini (perfect name for him too!) writes all those weird letters to his editor, & the way he just seems like he's looney (well, he is!) but still all along he is a good writer.
I watched the movie too, and I guess it was what I expected, not as good as the book. The characters were much better looking than I imagined--
anyway-- this was a really good read.
I bought it after reading just the first page.
...more
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Read in February, 2007
John Fante is more popular in Europe than in the US where many have never heard of him. His writing is intense, is autobiographical, raw, brutally honest about his own worst qualities, the epitome of noir fiction, and at times totally repugnant (as was the author in all I have read about him). It follows a young man who struggles to live, work, write, mature in Los Angeles. Unfortunately he follows in the footsteps of his much loathed father. The city is a character in the novel. I think i...more
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Read in July, 2006
So I have to give Mo credit for this one. Her recommendation. Apparently John Fante was the inspiration for Bukowski (which could be erither a good thing or terrible thing, depending on your persepective), a fellow Los Angeles writer working in the 20's (I think). I think the appeal is the honesty that seems to come from the characters.
The book is a genuinely twisted love story, or obsession story that was bound for failure. I read another Fante, "Wait Until Spring, Bandini". ...more
The book is a genuinely twisted love story, or obsession story that was bound for failure. I read another Fante, "Wait Until Spring, Bandini". ...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to Susan by:
staff at Comix Revolution in Evanston
I bought this book for my son (18) for Christmas, along with several books by Charles Bukowski (Fante was the mentor for Bukowski, who called Fante "My God"). My son and I both just finished reading - short, easy, yet noteworthy read. Written with a stream-of-consciousness writing style, the story is about Arturo Bandini, who flees his childhood home for the glitter of Los Angeles, where he lives in squalor as a struggling writer. Arturo is a dark and yet humorous character, and thi...more
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(Yeap, this was made into an awful Hollywood movie.) Dust has to be one of my favorite novels on so many levels: writing that comes from the gut. People talk about Dust and say it's prose/poetic; whatever, I assume what people are picking up on is the mood of Los Angeles (the setting), and the brooding Arturo Bandini (the protagonist.)
Why read Dust: Read about the "nice-guy-finishes-last." Also, if you're a fan of Charles Bukowski, read Dust. The story goes, Buk found Fante putzing ...more
Why read Dust: Read about the "nice-guy-finishes-last." Also, if you're a fan of Charles Bukowski, read Dust. The story goes, Buk found Fante putzing ...more
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recommends it for:
those who think Hollywood is so damn glamorous
I did really like it though for some reason it made me squishy inside sometimes and I can't really figure out how he managed to get the Southern Cali dirt on me so appropriately because it kind of happened without me realizing it. It's rare that you find a Southern California early American writer that's not super Hollywood so I appreciate Fante for that. And I also like that there's nothing super neat about his story telling. Do I need to devour all of his stuff? Not really. I am sad that they ...more
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
usually i don't care for anachronistic fiction regardless of when it's set, but good lord! i am so missing out! i know that now! 1930s los angeles, angel's flight ... these places are still here, and now when i walk through little tokyo i can visualize the characters in this thinly disguised autobiography, it's actually a trilogy and i cannot wait to read the others. after i get off my eastern european lit binge. which will be sometime after i return from eastern europe. ~ e.e. cummings wannabe
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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.
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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