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.

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.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 96 reviews)

ask to the dust- Who is your Bandini.

There are many more kinds of novel writers and books in the market. This one is a classic of it's kind and a real novel for people who seek reality in their life. I can't describe this novel, but I can describe how I felt after I read it as well as what I feel about it right now. Am I really a Bandini, a selfish caring person shouts to the world 'I am here, listen to me!'. What ever I felt, it was simple and unique in my point of view. People live a life, struggle but never give up saying 'I am here', never say I am wrong, alone while never want to be, resist to others, think simple as much as they are, smart but can not proof in a single chance, selfish but always care others more, can not be assimilated. These what I felt about Bandini(main character).

You should read the book to see what I am trying to say. Some people don't like this book. I believe they don't want their reality to be
written and open public. Some don't try to read it at all, I believe those do prefer not to think much.
December 22, 2008

Ask The Dust - John Fante

Ask The Dust By John Fante provided an enjoyable escape from life in the 21st century to the romantic, meanderings of a writer living in Los Angeles during the 1930s.
Really, I was attracted to the book because of Bukowski's energetic intro and I was not disappointed.

Ask the Dust (P.S.)
October 02, 2008

I'm ambivalent

Narrators with a touch of bipolarity give this reader trouble. On one page, they are superior, dismissive, and smug; on the next, they are hysterically dependent, remorseful, and wretched. As a reading experience, such narrators seem like artificial constructs where the voices are inconsistent and never quite come together. For this reason, I had trouble with A FAN'S NOTES, HUNGER, and ASK THE DUST. These books give the feeling the author never quite mastered the material.

In AtD, this bipolarity undermines the engine that powers the book--the strange romantic relationship that Fante establishes between Arturo and Camilla. Here, Arturo, the narrator, is infatuated with Camilla. He yearns for her when he is alone. But in her presence, he is cruel and condescending. Basically, this dynamic--he's in love; he's a monster--moves the story forward. But this dynamic constantly raises a question: Why doesn't Camilla just drop this obnoxious oaf? What I'm saying is that, on the level of character, this odd romance is improbable, as well as annoying.

The ambivalence in this relationship, however, does make better sense on an abstract level. Here, Arturo is a young writer who comes to LA with dreams of literary success. In this striver's adventure, Fante makes Camilla represent LA and Southern California, both in her beauty and her indominability. When viewed this way, Arturo's battling infatuation with Camilla makes sense, since he is accommodating himself to, well, life in California--something that's beautiful but difficult and that he wants to conquer. Still, this is an element in the book--to be puzzled out by a conscientious reader--that lacks emotional impact.

Maybe it's a SPOILER. But I recklessly disclose that the ambitious Arturo does have some success late in AtD. But once this happens, the push and pull of story disappears and Fante has to force an ending. Regrettably, this is melodramatic with the young Fante apparently writing about something--hopheads--that is beyond his experiece. Here, clueless is an apt word.

Final Note: In my edition, Charles Bukowski wrote the introduction and it's terrific.

August 23, 2008

Great writing, decent story

Fante was a predecessor of the beats, a major big influence on Charles Buchowski and Jack Kerouac. Although his writing is not as energized as Kerouac's, that they are of the same literary lineage is apparent.

ASK THE DUST is a semi-autobiographical book, the first of four in which Fante uses Arturo Bandini as his alter-ego stand-in. It's set in 1930s Los Angeles, and could be called a prototypical L.A. story, populated with lost souls, big dreams and a scenery that is fantastic and haunted. A writer attempting to get a foothold, the main character struggles so much with the dichotomy of the writer he is and the celebrity author he wants to be that he at times seems literally schizophrenic. Then he meets a woman, a waitress, and his mental instability pales in comparison.

ASK THE DUST is a great piece of writing, although I found the story only moderately interesting and the main character difficult to like. It's probably more interesting read in the context of other L.A. literature, and some Fante fans have expressed that it's over-hyped because of the praise Buchowski gave it (he wrote the foreword of the edition I read). Although this story didn't captivate me, I'll probably check out another of Fante's books.

August 16, 2008

Hell with Hitler

An excerpt that explains it all directly from the text,

"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 it to the day you die, you'll lie there breathing your last, and you'll smile as you remember the book. The story of Vera Rivken, a slice out of life."
May 25, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Wait Until Spring, Bandini
by John Fante

The Road to Los Angeles
by John Fante

Hunger
by Knut Hamsun

Journey to the End of the Night (New Directions Paperbook)
by Louis-ferdinand Céline
by William T. Vollmann, Ralph Manheim

post office: A Novel
by Charles Bukowski