JOHN FANTE
"John Fante is one of the great unheralded voices in American fiction" (The Face). Too true, so I'll do a bit of heralding here. I read the "Bandini" books (Wait Until Spring, Bandini; Ask the Dust , and The Road to Los Angeles ) in quick succession, having stumbled upon them by chance. They were such a treat, I couldn't read them quickly enough. Fante evidently adheres to that singularly wise piece of advice to the budding writer - that is, to "write what you know". He was born in Colorado in 1909 to an immigrant Italian bricklayer father and an extremely religious mother, and his early years were spent in poverty
Perhaps he's not a Hemmingway or Faulkner, but his writing is so immediate, fresh and convincing. One could not accuse him of versatility though. His stories are always told from the perspective of a second-generation Italian-American teenager, living in poverty in the Great Depression, with dreams of escape dominating his life. This character is often naive and capable of taking things literally, but the first-person narrative really is his great strength - if you enjoy, or even if you just admire J D Salinger, then investigate John Fante, his work is better. 1933 Was a Bad Year (I've just finished it) is his most moving story. Here's a passage about the uselessness of prayer (Catholicism is another strong theme):
Her prayers - the peeling of thousands of rosary beeds through thousands of days on her knees in the locked bedroom. There were lumps on her kneecaps telling of it.
She eased quietly behind me and I felt her cold fingers through my hair, and ther her hands palming my mushroom ears.
'Don't', I said, squirming away.
'Wear the stocking. And keep praying.'
The remedy for protruding ears, as suggested by the Potenzese, was the wearing of a woman's stocking over your head at night. It worked fine until you removed the stocking. Then the ears sprang out again.
'I've learned to live with my ears, Mama. Will you please try to do the same?'
'But have you tried the Blessed Mother? Try her for a month. If she can make cripples walk, look how easy for her to..'
'Shut up!' I screamed. 'Leave me along, leave my ears alone!'
She stared, wounded, large-eyed, and without a word she turned and walked quietly back to the bedroom, her troubled spirit dragging after her like a tattered wedding veil.
I was sorry I had screamed at her, I hated myself, but the idea of praying to the mother of God to flatten my ears, since her son had made them stick out in the first place, seemed like plain madness. Prayer! What good was it? What had it done for her? My father beside her in bed every night, listening to the click of her rosary, finding her on her knees, shivering in the cold, what the hell are you doing down there, come to bed for Christ's sake before you freeze to death, her prayers a snapping whip at his ass, reminding him of his worthlessness, his wife like a child writing letters to Santa Claus, collapsing from life into the arms of God, of St Teresa, of the Virgin Mary. Oh, my mother was a good woman, a noble woman, she never cheated or lied or deceived or ever spoke an unkind word. She scrubbed floors and hung out huge bundles of laundry and ironed by the hour, she cooked and sewed and swept and smiled bravely at hard times. God's victim, my father's victim, her children's victim, she walked about with the wounds of Christ in her hands and feet, a crown of thorns about her head. Her suffering was unbearable to watch, so that I wished she'd say oh shit, or fuck it Peter, or piss on you Bettina. I longed for the day of revolt when she would break a wine jug over my father's head, smack Bettina in the mouth or beat us children with a stick. But she punished us instead with Our Fathers and Hail Marys, she strangled us with a string of rosary beads.
Prayer. Oh, prayers! Oh, the reaching out into nothingness for small favours like a pair of shoes, or miracles like adding six inches to my height so I could develop a really fast ball. Years of prayers - and what was the result? I had even stopped measuring myself against the bedroom wall. The futility of it! If St Francis of Assisi, one of the princes of the Chruch, was only five feet tall, then what chance had I of reaching six feet? Hell, it was a total waste of time, a gnashing of teeth in the wilderness.
"John Fante is one of the great unheralded voices in American fiction" (The Face). Too true, so I'll do a bit of heralding here. I read the "Bandini" books (Wait Until Spring, Bandini; Ask the Dust , and The Road to Los Angeles ) in quick succession, having stumbled upon them by chance. They were such a treat, I couldn't read them quickly enough. Fante evidently adheres to that singularly wise piece of advice to the budding writer - that is, to "write what you know". He was born in Colorado in 1909 to an immigrant Italian bricklayer father and an extremely religious mother, and his early years were spent in poverty
Perhaps he's not a Hemmingway or Faulkner, but his writing is so immediate, fresh and convincing. One could not accuse him of versatility though. His stories are always told from the perspective of a second-generation Italian-American teenager, living in poverty in the Great Depression, with dreams of escape dominating his life. This character is often naive and capable of taking things literally, but the first-person narrative really is his great strength - if you enjoy, or even if you just admire J D Salinger, then investigate John Fante, his work is better. 1933 Was a Bad Year (I've just finished it) is his most moving story. Here's a passage about the uselessness of prayer (Catholicism is another strong theme):
Her prayers - the peeling of thousands of rosary beeds through thousands of days on her knees in the locked bedroom. There were lumps on her kneecaps telling of it.
She eased quietly behind me and I felt her cold fingers through my hair, and ther her hands palming my mushroom ears.
'Don't', I said, squirming away.
'Wear the stocking. And keep praying.'
The remedy for protruding ears, as suggested by the Potenzese, was the wearing of a woman's stocking over your head at night. It worked fine until you removed the stocking. Then the ears sprang out again.
'I've learned to live with my ears, Mama. Will you please try to do the same?'
'But have you tried the Blessed Mother? Try her for a month. If she can make cripples walk, look how easy for her to..'
'Shut up!' I screamed. 'Leave me along, leave my ears alone!'
She stared, wounded, large-eyed, and without a word she turned and walked quietly back to the bedroom, her troubled spirit dragging after her like a tattered wedding veil.
I was sorry I had screamed at her, I hated myself, but the idea of praying to the mother of God to flatten my ears, since her son had made them stick out in the first place, seemed like plain madness. Prayer! What good was it? What had it done for her? My father beside her in bed every night, listening to the click of her rosary, finding her on her knees, shivering in the cold, what the hell are you doing down there, come to bed for Christ's sake before you freeze to death, her prayers a snapping whip at his ass, reminding him of his worthlessness, his wife like a child writing letters to Santa Claus, collapsing from life into the arms of God, of St Teresa, of the Virgin Mary. Oh, my mother was a good woman, a noble woman, she never cheated or lied or deceived or ever spoke an unkind word. She scrubbed floors and hung out huge bundles of laundry and ironed by the hour, she cooked and sewed and swept and smiled bravely at hard times. God's victim, my father's victim, her children's victim, she walked about with the wounds of Christ in her hands and feet, a crown of thorns about her head. Her suffering was unbearable to watch, so that I wished she'd say oh shit, or fuck it Peter, or piss on you Bettina. I longed for the day of revolt when she would break a wine jug over my father's head, smack Bettina in the mouth or beat us children with a stick. But she punished us instead with Our Fathers and Hail Marys, she strangled us with a string of rosary beads.
Prayer. Oh, prayers! Oh, the reaching out into nothingness for small favours like a pair of shoes, or miracles like adding six inches to my height so I could develop a really fast ball. Years of prayers - and what was the result? I had even stopped measuring myself against the bedroom wall. The futility of it! If St Francis of Assisi, one of the princes of the Chruch, was only five feet tall, then what chance had I of reaching six feet? Hell, it was a total waste of time, a gnashing of teeth in the wilderness.
