Elements of Fante's writing that Bukowski left out of his own (1 Viewer)

[Hannah S.]

Just to let you all know, I've only read Ham on Rye, Post Office, and a few of Bukowski's short stories. I've started reading Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by Fante, and I see a lot of adverbs and other 'unnecessary' words in use. Despite calling Fante his 'god,' Bukowski obviously ignored this trait.

What else has he ignored that I haven't seen?

 

[Black Swan]

Says Charles Bukowski, in the preface to ASK THE DUST, of his first encounter with Fante's work, "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 ... that book was a wild and enormous miracle to me."

 

[Erik]

I've started reading Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by Fante, and I see a lot of adverbs and other 'unnecessary' words in use. Despite calling Fante his 'god,' Bukowski obviously ignored this trait.

Would you mind giving us an example of Fante's unnecessary words? Perhaps a paragraph?
Would be interesting...

 

[Hannah S.]

Sure. These are just sentences I found whilst skimming.

"Swinging the buckets gingerly, he walked down the accurately cut path to the coal shed."
"They staggered sleepily into the moon-sodden yard and gaped hungrily at the boy as he stooped in the doorway of the shed."

 

[Erik]

Hmmm, that almost read as a martinization.... :rolleyes:
Nice observation.

 

[roni]

Hmmm, that almost read as a martinization....

I was thinking the same.

 

[Johannes]

It's the adverbs. They suck ass. Almost always and by anybody.

Adverbs and descriptions like these are the blueprint of shitty writing, I tell you emphatically out of my moon-sodden yard.

Bukowski simply embraced the humor and feeling in Fantes writing and left out the crap. Instinctively. Most do it the other way round.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

I think a good writer takes what he needs from his influences and leaves the chaff behind. I don't think Bukowski was special in that regard. Hemingway took what he needed from Sherwood Anderson, Paul Auster took what he needed from Samuel Beckett, etc.

and while those 2 Fante sentences are definitely overwritten, I think you could take any influential writer and find 10 sentences or more of crap.

 

[mjp]

Yeah, I wouldn't be so quick to blame Martinization. Read some old, pre-BSP Fante. All the language is there. That's just how he wrote sometimes. He wrote some brilliant books, but he wrote an equal amount of crap.

 

[Bruno Dante]

I've just re-read Wait Until The Spring... as I've only read the Bandini Quartet once (about 6 or 7 years ago) so felt like going over them again. I must say it felt a little 'forced' at times and Hannah here may well have outlined exactly why I got that impression. It's a good book but it's not his best by any means. I still enjoyed it 2nd time round and there are some particularly honest passages about how certain people feel about the people they know and love etc. I think this honesty in both their writing is where the parallels between Bukowski and John Fante can most obviously be drawn (for me at least).

 

[roni]

[...] I wouldn't be so quick to blame Martinization. [...]

Oh, I wasn't meaning, this would be the case here. Only the sort of language used sounded like some changes we've seen in the first ed of 'Women'.

 

[Erik]

Ditto.

 

[WALTER]

I've started reading Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by Fante, and I see a lot of adverbs and other 'unnecessary' words in use. Despite calling Fante his 'god,' Bukowski obviously ignored this trait.

i think bukowski admired fante for something more than fante's writing but yeah i noticed that too..

bukowski wrote a few crappy lines himself

 

[Black Swan]

Fante was a screen writer, so there are a lot of descriptive scenes in his novels. It could nearly be read aloud for the visually impaired. But I love reading Fante. He makes me laugh aloud.

 

[Black Swan]

Yesterday, I just re-read Ask The Dust. I think that Bukowski identified with Bandini's endurance. There are a lot of over descriptive lines for sure. They add flavor to Fante's writing. Beautiful book.
I am re-reading Road to Los Angeles.

 

[mjp]

I think The Road to Los Angeles is one of his books that benefits from the over the top language. It's funny stuff when he puts it in the mouth of the delusional young character. The whole book is funny. Of course I think Hollywood is funny too, so what do I know.

 

[Bruno Dante]

Just re-reading it and I have to agree. It's very funny and the verbose OTT stuff in it is what makes it amusing. It's the language of a cocky teenager trying to rise above the dull existence he's leading by making himself out to be an intellectual. It works on that level.

 

[roni]

[...] a cocky teenager trying to rise above the dull existence he's leading by making himself out to be an intellectual. [...]

a guy with that attitude arriving here on buknet would get a hard time.

 

[mjp]

I disagree. There's a difference between cocky and condescending. Between braggadocio and delusion. And I think we're very good at that sort of differentiation.

Bring something to the table with attitude = Welcome!
Bring nothing to the table with attitude = Say goodnight, Gracie.

 

[Rob.]

I left The Road to Los Angeles out on the table once and my brother picked it up. He flipped to a section that included Bandini's writing. He declared that this was the worst book he had ever read.

I explained to him how that meant that Fante was successful.

 

[Billville]

Just re-reading it and I have to agree. It's very funny and the verbose OTT stuff in it is what makes it amusing. It's the language of a cocky teenager trying to rise above the dull existence he's leading by making himself out to be an intellectual. It works on that level.

I think this is the main difference. Ask the Dust sorta comes across as a YA novel. (except without vampires. :aerb:) Bukowski's work seems way more mature.

 

[the stone]

well 'Ask' was about a young guy finding his way. it's bound to sound immature.

i love Buk, but he wrote the way he did because he couldn't write any other way, really. he wasn't terribly educated and did not have the 50 cent words in his repertoire. it's true that his style was partially a rebellion against what he thought of as excessively wordy prose, but mainly it was the way it was because he was a limited writer.

i love the clipped, laconic sentences he uses just as much as the next Buk fan, but in his longer books it gets a little tedious. to me anyway, the writing can become flat and lifeless. it works best in smaller pieces.

anyway, what's wrong with adverbs?:aerb: what's wrong w/adjectives? Hemingway wrote simply but wrote loads of descriptive passages. Fante's 'Ask The Dust' is ALIVE, flowing, dynamic. there's 3 adjectives right there! i couldn't describe the book without them!:) the irony here is that 'Ask The Dust' is so highly regarded partially because of its "simple" prose.

it's when it gets overdone..that's when it become annoying. someone like David Foster Wallace, with his endless digressions and verbal masturbation. someone like memoirist David Rakoff. someone needs to slap these pretentious motherfuckers. well, Wallace is dead so that won't work. but i think you get the point.

 

[mjp]

he couldn't write any other way, really. he wasn't terribly educated and did not have the 50 cent words in his repertoire.

A common misconception, but a misconception just the same. Unless you consider college degrees the only path to education. Albert Einstein might disagree, since he said that the "spirit of learning and creative thought [is] lost in strict rote learning."

anyway, what's wrong with adverbs?:aerb: what's wrong w/adjectives?

When they are frequently and unnecessarily used, everything is wrong with them. They make writing sound amateurish.

 

[Stavrogin]

Oh, goodie gumdrops, the stone posts again. This asshole should have been banned long ago. I don't get this forum at times. Fuck you, the stone. Seriously, fuck you.

 

[mjp]

I don't get this forum at times.

It isn't as easy to get yourself banned as most people seem to think. If it was, there would be about a dozen users here. Even Roni asked for the stone to be ousted, which is saying something. But he disappeared on his own, so there was no need.

Now that I look at his old posts, he is quite useless and boring, isn't he. More of the same, more of the same.

 

[bospress.net]

I for one, find it very difficult to disagree with mjp now that he has such a precious avatar. I would put a nice Opie Cunningham photo of myself as a young boy, but I was a horribly disturbing looking little kid...

I was more Clint Howard than Ron Howard.

Bill

 

[mjp]

I for one, find it very difficult to disagree with mjp now that he has such a precious avatar.

My plan is working!

 

[jd mcnugent]

It isn't as easy to get yourself banned as most people seem to think. If it was, there would be about a dozen users here. Even Roni asked for the stone to be ousted, which is saying something. But he disappeared on his own, so there was no need.

Now that I look at his old posts, he is quite useless and boring, isn't he. More of the same, more of the same.

pretty easy, apparently. you're quite quick w/the censorship hammer there, Chairman Mao. cute little autocracy you've got here. of course, the sheeple here will fall right in line: Bukowski.Net - No Honest Criticism Allowed!

i didn't exactly disappear last time i was here. i actually thought i was banned. turns out, it was only the thread that was censored. you guys will have to forgive me; i'm not too forum savvy. i don't spend too much time on these sites to be honest. you know, being a grown man and all...

stavrogin, glad you remember me! you're still here! wow. you guys ever work some shitty job as a teen and return years later only to see the same shitty people doing the same shitty things. depressing. nice post though! clean, tight sentences and only 1 adjective. well done m'boy!

true story: i was peeking around before i re-signed up (mjpiss-ant just banned me, for all those who might be interested. yes(sigh), i am 'the stone') and i read the site intro and some of mjp's posts and so forth. and i swear on everything that's holy, i thought to myself: this guy's got 'failed writer' written all over him. i was amused beyond words when i later found it to be true.

anyway, i suppose i could be civil if you keep me around, mjp. otherwise i'll just keep re-signing up. not because i really wanna be a member, but because i think you're a little shook at the moment. do i make you nervous, old son?

 

[jd mcnugent]

p.s. yes, when adverbs and adjectives are unneccesarily used, the writing sounds shitty. that's exactly what i said in the last paragraph of my 1rst post. you either didn't read it or you're some sort of fucking parakeet.

 

[pig ear press]

When me and my brothers were young boys we used to do all kinds of things to try and get our dad to pay attention to us. We would poke him with sticks, drink his home brewed beer, sneak into the garage and mess with his tools. Eventually he would rise to it and lose his rag, shouting at us and chasing us round the house with arm raised, threatening to hit us. He never did of course, but that threat made our mundane little lives exciting; it also made us feel wanted, we had a purpose. As we grew up we stopped trying to get our dad's attention and started trying to get attention from girls. We each got ourselves a girl and then finally, we got ourselves some kids. And then, of course, we got to see our kids pulling the same old tricks we had used to get our dad's attention.

So that's my, er, allegory for, um, why John Fante wrote the way he did?

 

[Bruno Dante]

pretty easy, apparently. you're quite quick w/the censorship hammer there, Chairman Mao. cute little autocracy you've got here. of course, the sheeple here will fall right in line: Bukowski.Net - No Honest Criticism Allowed!

Assuming the people (sheeple ffs :D) on here are as sad as you say, what does that make you, exactly?

 

[D. Ebenezar]

Hannah, never thought about the adverb thing with Fante, before. And some of us have to remember that Fante wrote Ask the Dust and Wait for Spring before he got into writing screenplays, but that style obvioulsy lent itself to screenplays, since a lot of directors and actors need adverbs like "gingerly" and "sleepily" to tell them how to do it. I haven't read Fante's mature fiction, I am guessing the stuff he dictated to his wife? But the early stuff, I kind of took it as a young man's peception and romantic flair, the character's perception more than an emphatic stylistic imprint of Fante's. Like if Bandini was 30, I feel those adverbs would probably not be there.