A few days ago I finished my second John Fante book, Ask the Dust.  Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the next one in the Arturo Bandini series, The Road to Los Angeles. 

John Fante at work

To many Americans, to many literary Americans, Fante remains obscure.  It's too bad.  Hollywood found him in 2006, giving us a fine film with Colin Farrell, Selma Hayek, and Donald Sutherland.

 

 But Fante deserves more attention, much like some of the other writers who rode across the sky during the Great Depression and then were swept under the rug during the radical Sixties.  Some made their way during the post-World War II years, some during the Eisenhower administration, like Hamilton Basso, John O'Hara, John P. Marquand, Philip Wylie, and John Williams, just to name a few.  And I'm their undying devotee. 

Below are a few snippets of prime Fante from Ask the Dust.  There are more to come, I'm sure.

"Innocent little Evelyn went across the room and dragged poor little sister Vivian away from those lousy sailors and brought her to our table.  Hello Vivian, ...but what happened to your mouth, Vivian, who dug it out with a knife?  And what happened to your bloodshot eyes, and your sweet breath smelling like a sewer, poor kids, all the way from glorious Minnesota." 

"Poor little Vivian had worked down here for almost six months and not once had any of these bastards ever ordered her a bottle of champagne, and I, Bandini, I looked like such a swell guy, and wasn't Vivian cute, and wasn't it a shame, she so innocent, and would I buy her a bottle of champagne?"

"Dear Little Vivian, all the way from the clean fields of Minnesota, and not a Swede either, and almost a virgin, too, just a few men short of being a virgin.  Who could resist this tribute?  So bring on the champagne...Ah, Evelyn and Vivian, I love you both, I love you for your sad lives, the empty misery of your coming home at dawn.  You too are alone, but you are not like Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring.  So have your champagne, because I love you both, and you, too, Vivian, even if your mouth looks like it had been dug out with raw fingernails and your old child's eyes swim in blood written like mad sonnets."

A residence hotel in Los Angeles, much like the one in Ask the Dust.

Angel's Flight, mentioned frequently in Ask the Dust

"This is bad Arturo.  You have read Nietzsche, you have read Voltaire, you should know better.  But reasoning wouldn't help.  I could reason myself out of it, but that was not my blood.  It was my blood that kept me alive, it was my blood pouring through me, telling me it was wrong.  I sat there and gave myself over to my blood, let it carry me swimming back to the deep sea of my beginnings." 

John Fante

"There will be confusions, and there will be hunger; there will be loneliness with only my tears like wet consoling little birds, tumbling to sweeten my dry lips.  ...Then it will be night, and the sweet oils from the shores of my sea, poured upon my senses by the captains I deserted in the dreamy impetuousness of my youth.  But I shall be forgiven for that, and for other things, for Vera Rivken, and for the ceaseless flapping of the wings of Voltaire, for pausing to listen and watch that fascinating bird, for all things there shall be forgiveness when I return to my homeland by the sea."