A Book Every Week: John Fante's "Ask The Dust"

           

It might be a bit long to read. You might need to wait. But, if you have a free weekend, or whenever you have enough time to breathe and relax (at Christmas? In summer?), I recommend that you read this amusing book. To me, this is one of the best novels ever written. And you can find it here! But I will remain silent this time and let somebody else talk about the novel. Did you know that Charles Bukowski was a huge fan of John Fante? He wrote an introduction to Ask The Dust that is worth reading before you swallow the book:

I was a young man, starving and drinking and trying to be a writer. I did most of my reading at the downtown L.A. Public Library, and nothing that I read related to me or to the streets or to the people about me. It seemed as if everybody was playing word-tricks, that those who said almost nothing at all were considered excellent writers. [...] I pulled book after book from the shelves. Why didn't anybody say something? Why didn't anybody scream out? [...]

Then one day I pulled a book down and opened it, and there it was. I stood for a moment, reading. Then like a man who had found gold in the city dump, I carried the book to a table. The lines rolled easily across the page, there was a flow. Each line had its own energy and was followed by another like it. The very substance of each line gave the page a form, a feeling of something carved into it. And here, at last, was a man who was not afraid of emotion. The humour and the pain were intermixed with a superb simplicity. The beginning of that book was a wild and enormous miracle to me.
I had a library card. I checked the book out, took it to my room, climbed into my bed and read it, and I knew long before I had finished that here was a man who had evolved a distinct way of writing. The book was Ask the Dust and the author was John Fante. He was to be a lifetime influence on my writing. [...] 

There is much more to the story of John Fante. It is a story of terrible luck and a terrible fate and of a rare and natural courage. Some day it will be told but I feel that he doesn't want me to tell it here. But let me say that the way of his words and the way of his way are the same: strong and good and warm.
That's enough. Now this book is yours.

There is a film adaptation too, but I don't think this is as good as the book:

I hope you enjoy...

Click and read!!!!!!!