“My dear bukowski,” “hello john fante”: preface to ask the dust

2020 ◽  
pp. 261-270
Keyword(s):  
John Fante

Where Spirituality Ebbs and Flows: Religion and Diasporic Alienation in Ask the Dust

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
Suzanne Manizza Roszak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
John Fante ◽  
White Majority ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Ebb And Flow

In recent scholarship on the work of John Fante, issues of spirituality and the sacred have not been a popular emphasis. Yet in Ask the Dust spirituality is intrinsically tied to representations of the Italian diasporic experience in the United States, including social alienation and selective accommodation, two key concepts in diaspora theory. Despite his self-professed Americanism, Fante’s protagonist Arturo Bandini faces alienation by members of Los Angeles’s white majority, and he hesitates to adopt entirely the social mores of this culture into which he has thrust himself. The ensuing ebb and flow of his spirituality becomes a barometer of both of these experiences. Bandini’s skepticism about organized religion and even the existence of God marks his attempts to shake off his Italian cultural inheritance and accommodate the norms of secular, consumerist America. At the same time, he exhibits almost violent bursts of investment and pride in Catholic doctrine and culture that indicate the depth of his alienation in 1930s Los Angeles. Tracing this ebb and flow of investment in the sacred allows us to reach a more nuanced understanding of both the novel and the Italian diasporic experience in the United States.

How Hitler Nearly Destroyed the Great American Novel

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-234
Author(s):  
Ryan Holiday
Keyword(s):  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Novel ◽  
American Novel ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Legal Case ◽  
John Fante ◽  
Archival Record ◽  
Second World

Investigative journalist Holiday scrutinizes the archival record to clarify the collision of historical forces that long haunted the trajectory of Ask the Dust. Informed by primary research into the John Fante papers at UCLA Library Special Collections and beyond, this essay explains how in falling victim to political pressures of the Second World War, the novel gains significance that remains relevant to our own age today. Before Mussolini’s fascist censors targeted Fante’s writings, agents of Adolf Hitler were hijacking the attention of Fante’s editor and draining the assets of his publisher for releasing an unauthorized, unexpurgated edition of the dictator’s notorious Mein Kampf in a legal case that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The issues involved in that case and their effects upon Ask the Dust teach us as much about Fante’s day and age as about our own era of alt-right provocateurship and #atnoplatform.

Prelude to “Prologue to Ask the Dust”

2020 ◽  
pp. 281-289
Author(s):  
Stephen Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
California State University ◽  
State University ◽  
Long Beach ◽  
75Th Anniversary ◽  
Italian American ◽  
John Fante ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time ◽  
Insight Into

In this talk, delivered at the 2014 California State University, Long Beach, symposium celebrating the 75th anniversary of the publication of Ask the Dust, Cooper recounts the story of how he came to discover a remarkable letter, to that point unknown, written by John Fante in 1933. Addressed to fellow Italian American writer Jo Pagano, who like Fante had ventured west from Colorado to seek writing success in Los Angeles, the letter provides insight into the crippling doubts and frustrations that burdened the young Fante even as it reveals his deep-seated confidence that he would one day write a great novel. Published here for the first time, this letter prefigures another remarkable Fante letter, the one written in 1938 that is now known as the Prologue to Ask the Dust.

John Fante: His Novels and Novellas

2001 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 644-645
Author(s):  
R. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
John Fante

scholarly journals Giovanni e Arturo: stranieri a L.A. Una lettura di Andrea De Carlo e John Fante

2005 ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Silvia La Regina
Keyword(s):  
John Fante

Este trabalho analisa a tetralogia de Arturo Bandini, escrita pelo ítalo-americano John Fante, em paralelo com o romance Treno di panna, de Andrea De Carlo, examinando a relação dos respectivos protagonista com o fato de serem estrangeiros, numa dialética modernidade/pós-modernidade.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document