Ask the Dust [Paperback]

John Fante (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 7, 2006

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 light of success is extinguished when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears . . . and Bandini forever rejects the writer's life he fought so hard to attain.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This book is another sterling recommendation from the Saltzman workshop. The under-appreciated Fante's second outing details the adventures of his alterego, Arturo Bandini, as the struggling young writer tackles Los Angeles in the late 1930s. And take it from personal experience, tackling L.A. as a destitute young scribe some decades later isn't much different. In other words: Fante gets it right and sets it down in his Chianti-steak-and-potatoes style, with prose both simple and rich. This Black Sparrow edition has a bonus: Charles Bukowski's great preface on how Fante stacks up against writers that were at once more famous--and far more anemic. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

John Fante began writing in 1929 and published his first short story in 1932. His first novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini, was published in 1938 and was the first of his Arturo Bandini series of novels, which also include The Road to Los Angeles and Ask the Dust. A prolific screenwriter, he was stricken with diabetes in 1955. Complications from the disease brought about his blindness in 1978 and, within two years, the amputation of both legs. He continued to write by dictation to his wife, Joyce, and published Dreams from Bunker Hill, the final installment of the Arturo Bandini series, in 1982. He died on May 8, 1983, at the age of seventy-four.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (February 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060822554
• ISBN-13: 978-0060822552
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,284 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A True American Classic March 3, 2003

By Terry A. Green

Format:Paperback

Twelve years ago I read an article in the Los Angeles Times in which America's most successful fiction writers were asked to name their top-ten favorite works of 20th Century American fiction. John Fante's "Ask the Dust" was the only title to appear on every author's top-ten list in that article. Since then, I've read "Ask the Dust" twice, as well as every other book by Mr. Fante. Ironically, "Ask the Dust" was published six years before J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and the similarities between Holden Caulfield and Arturo Bandini are uncanny. The difference is that Arturo is even more impulsive than Holden, if that's possible, and wholly American. You'll want to console Arturo and slap him silly at the same time! Unfortunately, John Fante didn't live to see the latest revival of his work, but Black Sparrow Press has made him a literary star. You will laugh outloud and embrace this book! I promise.

57 of 64 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than Chinaski December 25, 1999

By Michael Allison

Format:Paperback

Sorry, Charlie. This is the book bukowski was TRYING to write when he wrote FACTOTUM. I love Bukowski, but this is the real thing. It hangs in there. Fante turns the camera on the main character while the others are mere foils for deeper probing. Whereas Bukowski builds a picture of society around his characters, Fante here truly explores values and value through one man's eyes. If you pick this book up and hate it, read it anyway. If you don't understand it, struggle through. If the only other book you've read is the bible, read this. Feel free to be offended, feel rejection and dejection. If you love Bukowski, you'll really like this. If you don't love Buk, that's okay too because Fante keeps the story moving without taking us all the way into the gutter. -Mike

60 of 69 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fante's Absurd Ghosts of Downtown Los Angeles October 11, 2000

By TUCO H.

Format:Paperback

The first 13 chapters or so are absolutely fantastic, super-poetic, naturalistic writing; as good as most of Hemingway (king of the overrated writers) and post-Death-on-the-Installment-Plan Celine. The deep hatred that's the flipside of love is here in its most brutally tragic and truthful form in the scenes between Camilla and Bandini. Some people don't respond to these scenes because they've never bothered to examine these feelings in themselves (though they've definitely had them), they've just ignored and repressed them. Not Fante. No way! Fante's out to force readers to face these feelings in themselves, and it's so annoying, it hurts! But that's what good naturalistic writing is supposed to do: HURT. If you can't deal with it go read some moralistic, 'sympathetic,' nonsense; there are thousands of books of that type to choose from.

It should be obvious after reading the first chapter why Bukowski liked this book so much. Without Fante there would definitely never have been a Bukowski (whose stuff is distinctly original in subject matter, but much more commonplace in its writing style than this particular book by Fante anyway).

The smell and feel of Los Angeles in the '30s is damn near palpable. Things come alive in concise, economically crafted sentences, on an an almost "Day of the Locust" level.

Starting with the earthquake chapter things run out of steam for a while before picking up again towards the end.

For a simple 'little' book written in 1939 to still continue to affect readers in 2000 is no mean feat. "Ask the Dust" is like a cross between Nathaniel West, William Saroyan, and, yes, good old Bukowski (without the scatology, of course). And though I wouldn't put it on the same level as Hemingway's "Green Hills of Africa," or Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night," it's definitely one for the 'ages' (whatever the hell that means).