I had never heard of John Fante until I saw an interview taped with poet Charles Bukowki in the 1970s. Bukowski had enough ego to support a planet, and when asked his favorite writers he spoke his own name three times. But he then thought about it for a moment before delivering energetic and obviously heartfelt praise for author John Fante. The man he said was his only influence.
Fante wrote about survival in the dark side of Los Angeles and his is still considered some of the best writing to come out during the Depression. His main protagonist, Arturo Bandini, is his thinly disguised alter ego. Arturo’s saga begins in pre WWII LA in Ask the Dust (1939) and ends not too long before Mr Fante himself ended in 1983.
Funny thing about writers, we either live very brief diseased riddled lives or forever. Hardly any of us stop at the usual life expectancy. Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen Crane, Orwell and many others succumbed early, usually to TB. Lupus placed Flannery O’Connor in her grave before forty and F. Scott Fitzgerald quit drinking at forty-four but keeled over dead after eating a Hershey bar. And although Fante did reach his seventies, he suffered horribly with diabetes and was blind during the second half of his career.
Moreover, Mr. Fante’s work has received a cautionary purgatorial existence as often appearing on the syllabus of many English classes. Young people often equate that sort of thing with “boring and out of touch” and at risk of becoming as relevant as a blank-eyed marble bust. But Fante is still alive and stunningly modern in his pages. I deeply recommend Ask the Dust, if nothing else. It features a naive but talented Bandini falling for a doomed soul named Camilla in a hard and stark environment that is light years from nearby Hollywood.
literally stories 
I hoped for immortality through my prose, but the publishers thereof may die before I do. If I had an expected life of more than a few years, I’d read more.
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Sorry, that should have been immorality.
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Doug
You are already immortal in the LS canon.
Leila
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If I’m in the canon, am I a big shot? Amazon Wurst spelir – you never sausage links.
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I read this with great interest. I’m afraid I’d never heard of John Fante (nor even Charles Bukowki). My reading has never been systematic, aside from Eng Lit at secondary school. I’ve profited greatly from the recommendations of friends. So I’ll definitely follow this one up.
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Hello Mick
I had never heard of either until maybe three years ago. Sometimes I wonder how much I have missed–but there is so much that it’s impossible to catch it all.
Thank you!
Leila
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Thanks for an interesting introduction to this auld fellow.
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Thank you David!
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Hank and John Fante… I can see that. Started reading Hank at the exact right moment: face down in a Seattle gutter. Fante came later. I did not know they were teaching Fante in schools. Cool! Beats the hell out of Silas Marner.
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Marco
Thank you. Ol’ Hank had a wild time. I still can’t grasp Micky Rourke playing Chianski. Maybe an older Ray Liotta would have been better.
Leila
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Hi Leila… If you keep a sharp eye out, you can see Hank as a ‘Barfly Extra’ in one of the pan shots. The camera works its way down the bar from stage left. And… there’s Hank.
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I didn’t know he was in it. I will have to check it out. Fay Dunaway was good in that one.
Thank you,
Leila
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I’m a big fan of Fante (through my love of Bukowski’s work) and you can see how Bukowski is influenced by him hugely (Arturo Bandini / Hank Chinaski). All his books are great, but the scene where he’s shooting crabs and envisioning himself as the ‘beast’ who’ll go down in annals of crab history as a great and evil bringer of genocide to the crab race is insane genius (I think it’s from The Road to Los Angeles).
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Paul
Thank you. It’s sad to think people probably can’t get away with that sort of lifestyle anymore without the wrath of social media. Whatever else the writers and their alter egos were absolutely human. And the type of people there used to be more of.
Leila
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Hi Leila,
Hopefully that will tweak interest.
I normally have a hatred for books that are taught in schools, probably Secondary more than Primary – I hated ‘1984’,’ Macbeth’, ‘Of Mice And Men’ – They bored the shit out of me.
But when I was younger, I was introduced to ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’, ‘Danny Champion Of The World’ and ‘The Owl Service.’
But a teacher did introduce me to Robert Bloch’s ‘Enoch’ which is a transference story that has now been done many times. I hope that ‘Enoch’ was the original.
In Secondary, I also read, ‘The Hobbit’ which was pretty good. I’m just happy that didn’t turn out to be a taster for an addiction to fantasy!!!! (I tried to read ‘Lord Of The Rings’ and I prolapsed with boredom. How the fuck does any writer think that it is acceptable to write thirty pages about a few fucking trees??
Good films though – Yep I know, I am a charlatan!!!!
Hugh
Oh – I also have to give a nod to wee Barbara who stood up and read a story from ‘Dandelion Clocks’ (Compilation – I think) at the age of fifteen which mentioned ‘Lightening speed ejaculation’
…The girls laughed….The guys worried!!!
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Hello Hugh
There’s much in what you say. I don’t understand who chooses books for students. Fante is used at some colleges–but selecting complex stuff for your basic fifteen year old is stupid. There are things I admire later that I absolutely hated when they were assigned reading.
Leila
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