For November, our book club read Ask The Dust by John Fante.
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.
Apparently, there is a movie that none of us have seen yet, starring Colin Ferrell and Salma Hayek, with a plot that appears noticeably different than the novel.
Mostly serious comments about the book:
Ask The Dust by John Fante
I will say that I completely recognize why this is a good book.
I mostly fantasized about killing Arturo Bandini; I had such rage for him.
It is really well-written. Any book that can make me that angry, not because it’s badly written, has to be good.
I started out thinking I would hate it. I ended up kind of liking it, I had to recognize that it was not just about him.
He was so young, so inexperienced.
The plot was sort of pointless.
The writing was really beautiful, but the character . . . guys I dated in college. I did not want to revisit.
I liked the description of the creative process. Bit s and pieces, I liked.
I was with this man for 7 years. It was not until I left him I realized what an asshole he was. I alternated hating him and feeling sorry for him. For a moment, I sympathized, then he does something. . . So autobiographical.
I would not read those other 3 books.
I didn’t hate him as much as the rest of you. I hated him at times, so vile at times.
I really wanted to understand his bizarre, compulsive behavior and why he treated Camilla like that.
It was masterfully written. I just wish he had used his skills for good.
I despised Arturo Bandini. He was an asshole of the very first water. At first, I was giving him slack cause he was 23, then I realized they just get more assholery as they get older.
I really liked the portrait f LA at that time. It was fascinating timeframe.
None of the characters were well-rounded; everyone had just one facet.
He was living the bohemian lifestyle, but judging everyone.
It was all the “Arturo Bandini show” in his head, monotonous.
He felt like a washed-up has-been to me not just starting out.
It felt very much like Jack Kerouac.
And he reminded me of Hemingway.
And this book made me think of East of Eden.
An exaggerated version of the characteristics that we all have. This isn’t like a realistic painting, it’s like an abstract painting.
When I saw that Charles Bukowski like it, I thought–it’ll be all drinking and hating women.
And now some random not-so-much book related comments:
We saw a horse with his schlong on the ground.
She looks like a shrunken kid.
