Particularize Books Conducive To Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3)
Original Title: | Ask the Dust |
ISBN: | 0060822554 (ISBN13: 9780060822552) |
Edition Language: | English |
Series: | The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3 |
Characters: | Arturo Bandini, Camilla Lopez |
Setting: | Los Angeles, California(United States) |

John Fante
Paperback | Pages: 165 pages Rating: 4.12 | 26411 Users | 1812 Reviews
Identify Containing Books Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3)
Title | : | Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3) |
Author | : | John Fante |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 165 pages |
Published | : | February 7th 2006 by Ecco (first published 1939) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Novels. Literature. American |
Chronicle Concering Books Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3)
Ask the Dust is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young Italian-American 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.Rating Containing Books Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3)
Ratings: 4.12 From 26411 Users | 1812 ReviewsJudge Containing Books Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini #3)
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 recordingI started reading this book knowing little more about it than that it was one of Bukowski's favourites. And I can certainly see how Hank's own style might have fed off of certain elements of Fante's prose. But boy oh boy, I didn't know I was diving into a love story; what's more, one that would pull at my guts, my blood, my hair, my teeth and - yes -, by the very end, also my heartstrings. That ending was superb.The protagonist, Arturo Bandini, is a lot of fun to ready about. A young and
found Ask the Dust through Neil Strauss, who considers it one of his favorite books. I read it in one day, LOVED it and ordered all the others. I read each of these in one day as well. Bandini, the subject of the series, is a wonderful example of someone whose actual life is ruined by the fantasies in his head-every second he spends stuck up there is one he wastes and spoils in real life. He's too caught up and delusional to see that his problems are his fault, that he's vicious because he

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."Flash forward another fourteen years, the
I think there should be a "gave up" option. I am currently sick of this book and the overwrought narrator. I think I can guess why a maudlin alcoholic might find the pendulum swings between lust and disgust compelling but I don't know - I'm not in my 20s anymore. Did this particular down and out LA hack create a blueprint for the tortured artist type that I loath? Thank god for the weary and reserved language of Chandler. Bukowski loves this book and this writer - he apparently stumbled across
***KINDLE EDITION $1.99 TODAY, 23 JUNE 2014I rated this 4 stars because, when I first read it in the early 1980s, it riveted me. I've taken a star off because after 30-plus years the chances are it's not going to get close to 5 stars, since I've read so very much more by now.Well, we shall see. I've Kindled it up, it's a short book (under 200pp), and I feel daring.
Arturo Bandini is by no means the most admirable of heroes: All he seems to want out of life is (1) to have bragging rights as a "great" American author and (2) to have messy affairs with women with whom he has a love/hate relationship. John Fante's Ask the Dust is still one of the best Los Angeles novels ever written. Its scenes in the now-demolished Bunker Hill neighborhood and its description of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake are priceless pictures of a bygone Southern California. One of the
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