Ask the Dust - John Fante

Ask the Dust is the story of an LA writer in the 1930's. Surrounded by sleaze, Artruro Bandini is determined to make something of himself.

Artruro Bandini is a young writer in depression era LA. He is starting out, and dealing with everything that comes with being a young writer starting out. He's broke - starving, in fact - he has writers block, and he is full of self doubt. This book actually portrays a lack of confidence so accurately, it feels like Fante is just pouring his own experience into the pages. While Bandini struggles to find that great idea, he knows he will come to be recognised and respected, greatness is his destiny, he just can't get anything written down now, or at least anything anyone would want to publish. While he is dealing with all this, he falls in love with a barmaid, who brings nothing but trouble. Bandini is young and inexperienced with sex and relationships, and again Fante nails that experience exactly, though Bandini is maybe a bit more bitter about these things than most people.

I picked up Ask the Dust because of the endorsement from Bukowski. I'm not a huge Bukowski fan, but no one can deny his place in the 20th century canon. Bukowski has praised this book endlessly, calling Fante a god, and comparing finding Ask the Dust in a library to "finding gold in the city dump". Reading Ask the Dust after reading a couple of Bukowski's novels & poems, it's easy to see the pointers Bukowski picked up from Fante. It's a very simalar style, though Fante is maybe a bit more sensitive and has more if a direction in Ask the Dust than I have seen in Bukowski's work. For the record, I enjoyed Ask the Dust more than Post Office or Women. 

Fante was a gifted wordsmith, with some great lines in this one. Talking about ideas being little birds that he hammered on the keyboard, then they would die in his hand is a great little passage.

Turns out, Los Angeles named a street after Fante in 2009. I'm not sure I understand why - the city does not come across well in Ask The Dust. It's rife with drugs and prostitutes, and its citizens are starving. Ask the Dust is the second of a trilogy, so maybe the city is a much nicer place in books 1 & 3. It's pretty cool that the city honoured him like this, I'm sure there are many more famous writers from LA they could have picked. Good taste LA.

Anyway, if you're a fan of American 20th Century literature check this one out. Especially if you're into the Beat stuff; Ask the Dust is a precursor to all that. I liked it alot. It's odd, I've read a decent amount of "beat" novels, and so far the less famous ones are much better than the really big names. So if you want to get into the counterculture movement I would go for this or Richard Braughtigan's Trout Fishing in America over Bukowski or Borroughs.