And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there was a sea! I tell you I was born on the seashore! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No, Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go on through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed. But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source.The glorious face of the greatest editor, J.C. Hackmuth, a God of magazine publishers, gazes benevolently on the castawayed writer. Arturo Bandini, writer of the greatest story told. The Little Dog Laughed. Not about a dog, what stunning prose. He will autograph it for you. Here, take two and three with love. Tear and hunger stained pages and his prostrate body in signed (a puppy love school girl wouldn't flourish the name combinations so well) IOUs. They'll sell, some day, one day bright blind. It hurt me when he peeled off two dollars, three and eight. Fifteen and fifty cents loaned to a man who was so not good for it. Remember the lean days, Arturo! Oranges for breakfast, lunch and no dinner. I liked about Fante how I felt sorry for the charitable Japanese fruit dealer when Arturo bypasses his stall to blow an unexpected windfall (weeell, a deadbeat returns fifteen cents so he can get it adds up later) on two dozen cookies. I hated Arturo as he hated himself, waiting for him. A hazy Japanese fruit seller with blunted edges of charity, waiting on him in unreality. He's also unreal in world goes on without you. I wanted to hold his hand blind leading the blindfolded. He hurts me because he is too damned dumb. He would give it all away just in case some other dumb asshole might be thinking about him what he's thinking about himself. If they are thinking about him, laughing at him. I bet he could get afraid of going out in public with a smile on his face lest some jerk sees him and decides to turn it upside down. I liked a whole lot how Fante held this self aware/unself awareness of Arturo like it was just the weather. He is always greatest writer in the world voice-over in the aftermath of the kicked dog tail under tow. In his blind spot he's a part time racist. Dear great Hackmuth, they called me all kinds of names when I was coming up. All the bad ones, you can't imagine. I hate him as he licks his wounded on her. The dancing Mexican, his Mayan princess. Camilla the poor waitress in the center of his virgin's fixation. Arturo is youngish, I guess, but the more he lied the longer he grew in the tooth. They don't allow your kind in my hotel. I guess there was an upper hand change somewhere in the fists and fits. It's too sad as she's covered in his useless writer's glamour. That's what stuck to me, how no good he was on her terms and his own terms were pity and hate. It could have been worse. He could have stayed in the writer's block motel with Barton Fink. His neighbor murders veal on a blood soaked binge. His neighbor lets it all hang out in a filthy bathrobe. No heads in boxes. Every cloud. It was funny when he's sunk to his knees in lowest moment prayers to God for blessing of stolen milk. It was buttermilk! The homesick "Memphis Kid" signs his I gotta get out of here and go home where friends are friends out of Fort Worth, Texas. Home becomes home when they had to leave it and Los Angeles (or wherever) picks up the same old wander lust bowl. Okay, I'm not so sure I buy the letting down of I'm the star of the movie and what can they do for me that settles on the two women he manages to bang (by not running out of the room). I wouldn't change anything about Ask the Dust, it's just this nagging wonder about what is going to happen if he writes a great book, anyway. There's a shut up silence in him for Vera and Camilla and I wish it had had nothing to do with him in my gut, though I know it wouldn't be Arturo Bandini if he didn't ruin it and start talking again. Of course he has to autograph his book, a gesture for the wind. Hackmuth is a mere man (I never met him. Maybe such a Godsend is out of my sights). Maybe he wanted to remember her where he liked himself, wild beach hair blowing ancient temptress. I was there and he couldn't get it up and it was to the ground and snarling echoes of cruel thoughts from where they are wherever people are before they are born. (Fante was pretty perfect in the phoenix ashes of shame and ego I could hardly stand it. )Wherever people go when they die, that's where Camilla is. I guess he loved her in between.... I liked that it felt real all this damned pretense. It is a lot of work to be Arturo every day. It was strangely kind of innocent, and I didn't mean it hurt. I wouldn't change a thing since the book about him didn't just read like some book about something....
- 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 urletto da parte della sottoscritta da far sconcertare persino le fangirl più fangirl. Prefazione di Bukowski, tutto il resto Fante, solo l'affezionato Fante. Doppio regalo. I libri sono sensitivi, sentono che sta per arrivare il mio compleanno e mi fanno felice. Forse non ne siete a conoscenza - spero di no, altrimenti non posso pavoneggiarmi - ma Fante è il dio di Bukowski, e probabilmente dobbiamo anche a lui l'opportunità di leggerlo oggi, altrimenti forse sarebbe passato inosservato. Reputava Fante il suo maestro, il vecchio ubriacone. Che dolce. Mio padre disprezza Charles, e io invece gli darei molto volentieri una bella pacca sulla spalla. Sì, magari non ha proprio un anima nobile e raffinata, ma è impossibile disprezzarlo. Se poi ama Fante, ragione in più per trovarsi impediti nel fargli una smorfia di disappunto.Sicuramente per me è stato un Fante diverso, molto più vigoroso, energico, all'inizio non mi sembrava di riconoscerlo nemmeno. Conosco il Fante affaticato dall'età, sempre scorbutico e adorabilmente antipatico, ma non conoscevo la sua versione giovane. Naturalmente mi è piaciuto, anche se per me il suo libro migliore rimarrà sempre Full of life, forse perché è stato il primo. Forse, però, mi sarà impossibile amarlo di più della sua versione da "uomo sposato, ormai in là con gli anni e con tanti bei rompiscatole come figli". Semplicemente perché a quanto pare a me queste figure letterarie paterne rassicurano un sacco. A dirla tutta questo Fante mi ha fatto persino tenerezza: perenne crisi spirituale, scontri su scontri con Dio che vanno a tirare fuori i momenti più dolci e poetici, questo avercela con il mondo troppo naturale per essere cacciato in un angolino, questo non riuscire mai a prendere le donne nel momento giusto, ma soprattutto a prendere se stesso con le donne nel momento giusto, questo vagare della mente in scenette comicamente autocelebrative. Naturalmente non dimentichiamo il dolore, che io considero il fondo di ogni opera di Fante. C'è sempre il dolore. Ci sono talmente tante proteste e lamenti che ti viene voglia di metterlo a tacere, ma sei quasi impedito dal..dolore di fondo. Un dolore a tratti esistenziale. Da quello non si sfugge mai. Come quando entri in cucina dove tuo padre è lì sulla poltrona a lamentarsi del camino, di sua moglie, delle bollette, dei suoi acciacchi, manda tutti a quel paese, e tu ti giri di scatto per metterlo a tacere, perché veramente non ne puoi più, e poi vedi..le rughe. E non ce la fai proprio. La sensazione è la stessa.E Camilla, che chiunque manderebbe a quel paese - forse non con la stessa cattiveria di Sammy -, ma che guarda caso va benissimo per Arturo, gli da filo da torcere. Peccato che Arturo non vada bene per Camilla. E questo non riuscire ad essere sullo stesso piano rende più amara la pillola che il nostro scrittore senza mai un soldo deve mandare giù. Camilla non è fatta per lui, e soprattutto Camilla insegue disperatamente un altro uomo. E' micidiale, se ci pensate. Tu sprechi energia ad amare una persona, e quella semplicemente è voltata verso qualcun'altro, ti è di spalle. E tu ti devi accontentare dell'ombra che la sua figura crea, perché i suoi occhi sono dall'altra parte, dalla parte del suo amato.Che frustrazione.A quanto pare hanno fatto anche un film tratto da Ask the Dust. Con Salma Hayek e il talentuoso Colin Farrell - ricordo perfettamente tutta l'ansia che ha saputo trasudare in Cassandra's Dream. Da vedere. (Ma si può avere sonno alle undici del Sabato sera? Ma sono proprio una sfigata.)Aggiunta dell'ultimo momento che metto vergognosamente qui: mi sono dimenticata di una cosa. I finali di Fante, santoddio. Per certi versi sono sempre le parti migliori, ti lasciano sempre senza parole tanto sono poetici.
What do You think about Ask The Dust (2006)?
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 recording of him berating an audience of college students at a reading, telling them something to the effect of, "John Fante has more soul in his little finger than all of you f***ers combined". Needless to say, I was intrigued, and soon after I was lucky enough to find a used copy of "Ask the Dust" in a bookstore near my apartment. That same night, in the dingy lamplight of my tiny Omaha apartment, after several hours of reading and several cans of Old Style, I finished the book. This book is what Bukowski longed to write, and tried desperately but failed to emulate. At face value you get Fante, thinly veiled as Arturo Bandini, with all his blood, sweat, tears and balls chewed up and spat upon the pages of this book. "Ask the Dust" may not be your thing, but it is brutal, honest, lovely, pitiful, touching, funny, sad and despicable, often all at once, and if you do not at least find it to be these things, you are either wrong, or I do not remember it correctly.
—Clinton
E mentre leggo le recensioni di chi ha abbandonato il romanzo perché Bandini è proprio troppo antipatico e di chi invece ama il libro nonostante Bandini sia proprio troppo antipatico, io mi ritrovo ad amare alla follia questo libro al quale, al momento dell’archiviazione su goodreads, diedi solo 3 stelle, perché lo lessi anni fa in Inglese, quando il mio Inglese non era ancora abbastanza buono. E mi ritrovo anche a pensare che Bandini, per me, non è affatto antipatico, non lo è come non lo è nemmeno lo specchio nel quale mi guardo ogni mattina prima del caffè e prima di iniziare a vivere. Se lo fosse, semplicemente, non avrebbe senso nemmeno il caffè, figuriamoci quello che viene dopo. Semplicemente, è uno di quei libri che potrei rileggere decine di volte senza annoiarmi mai. Un piccolo miracolo. Semplicemente, mi assomiglia così tanto e così bene che per me non è solo un bel libro, è un libro necessario (nel senso più filosofico del termine).
—Fewlas
Like with so many other books a review on Goodreads prompted me to buy this book with the enigmatic title. Sadly the reviewer hasn't written anything in months, and is greatly missed. The book was sitting on my Kindle for quite a while, gathering the proverbial dust, before I finally decided to read it. None other than Charles Bukowski wrote a short introduction. It states "Fante was my god[sic]" and Bukowski came to this conclusion after reading Ask The Dust. He, Bukowski, later became Fante's protégé of sorts, visiting him often in hospital prior to his death in 1983.Sometimes when I read a book I listen to some music that I think will fit the mood of the book. In this case, since the book is set in the late 1930s in Los Angeles, I thought maybe some West Coast Jazz from that era would be a good choice. This turned out to be a great idea. I actually found a piece that matches my feelings about the story almost exactly: Charles Mingus's "A Colloquial Dream" from the 1962 album "Tijuana Moods". If you want a 10 minute musical summary of this book, listen to this tune. It's most likely out there somewhere on the net.Another review, from the time the book was first published, compared Ask The Dust with J.W.Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther. Since I haven't read Werther yet, I can neither confirm, nor deny this, but from the blurb I think it's a reasonable statement. For me though, the protagonist, Arturo Brandini, shares not only a few character traits with Holden Caulfield from The Catcher In The Rye. I would go so far as to say both book are pretty much equivalent in terms of affection or rejection. That is, if you love the Catcher you must read Ask The Durst, and if you don't then stay away from this book.Arturo Brandini, of Italian ancestry, is a young writer who dreams about being famous. He moved from Colorado to Los Angeles, and is living there as a tenant in Bunker Hill. His only work published so far is a short story in some magazine, so he suffers permanent financial difficulties. This is also because he cannot handle money very well. As soon as he gets some he gives it away for "nothing". One day he meets a young Mexican woman, Camille, and is soon entangled in a kind of love & hate triangle with her and another man. Later, another woman, Vera, also plays an important part, so I guess it's more like a rectangle. Arturo is ambitious, but naive. He's talented (as a writer), but still unsteady (as a person). He wants to belong, but it seems he still has quite some way to go. I don't know how much of Fante is in Brandini. A lot, probably. For some reason that escapes me, the secondary characters have some funny sounding names that all begin with the letter H: Hellfrick (the neighbor), Hackmuth (the great editor), and Hargraves (the landlady). All of these characters are real as life (with the exception of Very maybe, with whom I couldn't find a real connection). The beauty of the prose I can not emphasize enough. It is poetic with but with some sharp edges, it's reflective and at the same time very direct. The author seamlessly switches back and forth between first person, third person, and second person narrative, and you don't even recognize it at first. Very impressive. The final character I like to mention is Los Angeles itself. To me parts of the story read like a kind of praise for this city and its people, from a time when smoking joints was still a big deal (even for the protagonist), and smoking cigarettes was not.(Los Angeles, Bunker Hill, 1939; Photo by William Reagh, used w/out permission)I gladly add this book to the list of great modern American literature, and will remember Arturo Bandini for a long time. Needless to say that I'm going to read the other three books of the so-called Brandini-Quartet by John Fante.PS: Interesting tidbit: The original publisher's (Stackpole) plans to back Ask The Dust heavily failed after loosing a copyright infringement case against Adolf Hitler! Apparently Hilter's "Mein Kampf" had been published by Stackpole in an unauthorized edition. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
—Matt
