Rating: 
Summary: A Novel Feast whose Pages are Carved in Quivering Meat
Review: Bukowski was right that he had found True Magic in Fante's 'Ask The Dust'. For, a novel who's pages are carved in quivering Meat is a miracle to a starving young writer. It was the same revelation for me as it has been a Godsend for others, as it shall no doubt be 'Alchemical Gold in Prose' for many more to come.
One dusty Summer on Alcazar NorthEast, in the 'Land of Entrapment' me & a small group of friends all in turn read John Fante's 'Ask The Dust' upon each other's admonishment that it could very well be the greatest 20th century American novel ever written from the perspective of a poor white boy trying to make it as a Writer and a Lover in the Big City; in particular, The City of Angels, but most any SouthWestern Desert City with a predominantly Latino culture is described with a sensational genius. That is, one can smell the dry air wafting over the Mountains, feel the sun in the hot sand between one's toes, taste the green Chile pepper numbness, hear the shouts and whistles of the busy avenues, and see a million beautiful dark-haired women strutting down some Central ave with something like a nostalgic ... stirring the expectant butterflies deep down in the Gut...
Never had I come across in tough literary American youth a Book as Honest as Fante's own. A Roman Catholic Italian child from a poor Colorado home who went in search of Angels in the city designated as their own. 'Ask The Dust' is part two of that Bandini Saga, 'The Road To Los Angeles' being the first...
A German Shepard, a young handsome fellow of new Mexican extract made himself a welcome member of our castle and we Christened him 'Bandini', after Fante's autobiographical Hero; we named the Pup we took in of Bandini's fathering, the largest of the litter: 'Arturo', in tribute to the Saga of Arturo Bandini, who shall forever live for us somewhere in the vicinity of that street, in that magical summer that is the greatest season of a young man's life.
Every young American male should know of this book, for the world would be a much more sincere & honest place were it so. Fante's courage is a beacon in the hurricane, read as if in the eye of that storm that is a young man's insatiable passion. My God, what can one say? the Title 'Ask the Dust' already says it all.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book
Review: I first read this book when I was taking an English class. This book is definitely good. It provides a concentrated example of the trials that generations of immigrants experience as they merge into mainstream American culture. Arturo Bandini struggles with poverty, writing, and love. He wants to be considered as a WASP. His final success in writing symbolizes that he crosses the border and merge into the mainstream american culture
Rating:
Summary: Sparkling dust
Review: This book was a real discovery. I had never even heard of John Fante until I read about him in a book about Los Angeles literature. His (alter ego) character Arturo Bandini may come across as a narcissistic fool, but who cares when his story is conveyed in such achingly gorgeous--yet never wordy--prose? Fante evokes his character's surroundings with a lyrical concision that is admirable--and in a couple places nothing short of heart-stopping. "Then she was gone, and I sat with my teeth gritted, looking at a room like ten million California rooms, a bit of wood here and a bit of rag there, the furniture, with cobwebs in the ceiling and dust in the corners, her room, and everybody's room, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, a few boards of plaster and stucco to keep the sun out." And: "My feet were cut when I put on my shoes and walked out of that apartment and into the bright astonishment of the night."
Rating:
Summary: What Beauty Reads Like
Review: WOW! What can be said of this wonderful book, this subtle style of expression that punches you in your gut yet leaves you wondering how it got past your defenses? This book is really meant for the intelligent reader: you've seen all the literary tricks that aim at masterful expression. Now suddenly, just when you learned to anticipate every style and reading has become boring, Fante steps in and delivers a whirlwind of literary blows to your head!This is the serious alternative to Fante's sadly funny Dreams From Bunker Hill. Here we explore the mind of a stuggling writier as he tries to destroy and yet love his beautiful yet cluelless Camilla. Is Camilla the public? Her love Sammy, the bad writier stricken with TB, is he the sorry trash the public usually falls for? Is Vera Fante's muse? Is his steak-hungry neighbor the publishers that use up artists? Who knows, but if you want literary beauty depicting genuine humanity READ THIS BOOK! The closing scene is easily the most beautiful I have ever read, and haunts me like the flickering of a small candle...
Rating:
Summary: a finely-crafted work of a natural wordsmith
Review: There is an immediacy, a simple directness in Fante's writing, a childlike lack of artifice that grabs the reader and doesn't let go. It's hard to define, but writer Charles Bukowski waxes eloquent over it in the introduction. It may not be for everyone, but it had me in its spell. This is a tragi-comedy love story, and the emotions are so real that you feel you are reading an autobiography, not a novel, and not in hindsight, but as it happens - you live each moment as it unfolds. It's also a nice period piece on L.A. in the 1930's, Bunker Hill in decline, the hop-heads and alcoholics, the starving artists & writers, the earthquakes, the prejudice against immigrants, against Catholics. Against this backdrop, a proud, opinionated, rash young Italian, Arturo Bandini, with a runaway imagination and a burning desire to become a writer, seeks to find himself, his true calling, and true love. Fante does not polish or improve his protagonist in the telling of the tale - he gives him to us in all the coarseness and foolishness and brashness of youth as it often is - wild and impulsive. I think you'll either love or hate this book. Like Raymond Chandler, a writer in the same town, same era, Fante is a stylist, an acquired taste, a writer's writer.
Rating: 
Summary: down and out
Review: I bought this book because Bukowski always mentioned him as his influence. I wanted to know why. I found out. The gutter of reality. The back alley way of feelings. Fante' work is clear as the influence. A good read. I like Bukowski better. I think Bukowski knew that he had an audience at some point. Fante didnt really I think.
Rating:
Summary: Another ring of the chain
Review: I was astonished to find another ring of the chain linking my favorite (Jack Kerouac) to the earlier writes: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc.. This must have been something really NEW for the times. Great !
Rating:
Summary: I was moved by Fante
Review: I Just finished this deeply emotional novel and was so moved by the ending that I almost cried a river of tears. Now that's writing. I'm sure other reviewers can fill you in better than this bare bones review. But I felt I just had to say something after reading and occasionally re-reading this heartfelt story of the life of a young would be writer who moves to L.A. to realize his dream. I doff my cap to you Mr. Fante!
Rating: 
Summary: Bandini's return
Review: Fante's rebel anti-hero, Arturo Bandini, a writer with the honour of having had one short story published in a magazine, strolls into a cafe, in which he meets a Mexican waitress, Camilla Lopez, and they embark on a bizarre and stormy love-hate relationship, eventually descending into the realms of madness. John Fante, one of the greatest of, though unsung, geniuses of American fiction presents here one of the most marvellous of coming-of-age novels. Though the prose is spare, economical and concise, Fante manages to evoke effects of the most opulent splendour and most lyrical subtlety. He also manages to explore, with a great measure of success, the psychological dimension probed by Dostoevsky and Hamsun, in his recording the caprices and the most perverse quirks of his characters' behaviour. Bandini is an endearing creation, conceited, megalomaniacal and sensitive in a sometimes comic, sometimes sympathetic way. Some of the encounters in this book and the satirical banter of the characters is immensely humorous.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Over-rated
Review: I know it's very hip and "alternative" to love this guy's work, and believe me I'm all for buying ANYTHING published by Black Sparrow, if only for the great paper they use, but I found this book to be trite and tired. Now, I love Bukowski.. "Post Office" is one of my all time favorite books, and maybe I came to "Ask The Dust" after too many hours with my dear friend Chinaski, but I could find no sympathy for Arturo. I had the same problem with Hamsun's "Hunger" - I just couldn't find any sympathy for a such a pathetic, limp, impotent loser. There are beautiful, heroic, raging losers (Chinaski, Raskolnikov, Henry Miller, Ahab) that make a reader pissed at the injustice of it all and then there are the Bandinis. How can one care about or relate to such an absolute, obvious failure of character? I found myself screaming at the book.. "Come on, Loser, what the hell are you doing? She LIKES you, just say HI and tell her she's pretty!!!" At least Chinaski has some damn balls!! You'd never see Chinaski walk out of that cafe without a date. I don't buy this as some poem to Fante's alter-ego or a study in the frailties of the writer's life - Hemingway put that crap to shame in "The Moveable Feast" with his little essay on discipline. It just sounds like an ode to a whiner and I'm not interested in whiners, I'm interested in fighters.. Bukowski's characters were fighters, even if they chose to fight unwinnable battles, like Ahab going up against the cold, white, all-encompassing indifference of the whale. Unfortunately I couldn't get past my contempt and straight out dislike for Arturo and I didn't finish the book. I've only failed to finish about four books in my 31 years of life, so I think that says a lot. Of course, I could be wrong.
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