For those who like their fiction rough-hewn

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	• Wait Until Spring, Bandini John Fante Harper Perennial, 2002 - 266 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sparse, Flat early work of Fante

Ask the Dust, a later novel, is a better representation of what Fante does well: 1st person honest narration that vacilllates between indifference and a consuming passion for the world. Not to say Wait 'till Spring is bad, it just never really comes together.

Wanted more from this

I think I wanted more from this after reading ASK THE DUST. I didnt get the same feeling of desperation and despair as in the other novel. I was feeling Fante as being a tragic writer and this family story has some moments but I canno say that i recommend this book that much.

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For those who like their fiction rough-hewn

Apparently this is Fante's first published book, but not the first book he wrote.

This was the second book by Fante that I read, the first being Ask the Dust. Wait Until Spring, Bandini, is a much different type of book than Ask the Dust. I bought it on Amazon expecting another book of adventures of a struggling writer, a bachelor, and ended up plunged into a very regional (Boulder, CO) very ethnic (Eyetalian), very Catholic novel.

All in all, it was a decent book, not earth-shaking, but charming. At times I felt hatred for Arturo's father and pity for poor Arturo. I don't know to what extent the books by Fante are autobiographical, but Wait Until Spring, Bandini certainly paints a pretty bleak portrait of the character's childhood. Growing up, an outsider, a little-man, wiser than his years.

At times the Italian connection grew annoying for me. "Rosa, I love you, Rosa. Rosa, you're my girl, Rosa." I can imagine the Godfather talking this way, hard to imagine the little Italian boy.

I would particularly recommend the book to anyone living in Boulder, CO. It would be interesting to contrast the story with whatever it is like in modern days.

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Don't wait until spring, get it now.

If you are into Bukowski, or Chuck Buk, as I like to call him, chances are you'll probably get into Fante very easily. Even if you don't like Bukowski, you should read this. Fante's style is incredibly descriptive yet not real "wordy" like for instance Pynchon, whom I also like, but rarely read. Wait Until Spring, Bandini is a look into the lives of Svevo Bandini, his wife, Maria and their three boys, Arturo, a hot-head in love, also the oldest, August, the "middle child", a devout Catholic aspiring to someday be a priest, and Federico, the token youngest brother. In every aspect this book is damn-near perfect. Emotions run wild, hearts are broken, feelings trampled, yet come the last page, you can't help but feel alive. I don't cry when I read books, and I didn't cry when I read Wait, but the important thing was I was totally comfortable with the fact that I might burst into tears at any moment. The rooster part is a perfect example, something otherwise mundane and almost useless in the long run, had me on the verge of tears. That's coming from someone who's been through war-torn Europe in The Painted Bird, by Kosinski, or as I call it, A Series of Horrifying Events, without batting an eyelash. This book really reminded me that I love the way a tale is told, not what it tells. Do yourself a favor and enjoy Wait Until Spring, Bandini, but don't wait until spring, get it now.

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Fante-stic!!!

A poignant book, wonderfully written. In my opinion, this was his first and best novel. Even better than "Ask the dust", regarded as his masterpiece... A brilliant beginning for such a writer!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Fiction. John Fante recalls his first novel, recently republished by Black Sparrow Press: "Now that I am an old man I cannot look back upon WAIT UNTIL SPRING, BANDINI without losing its trail in the past. Sometimes, lying in bed at night, a phrase or a paragraph or a character from an early work will mesmerize me and in a half dream I will entwine it with phrases and draw from it a kind of melodious memory of an old bedroom in Colorado, or my mother, or my father, or my brothers and sister...of this I am sure: all of the people of my writing life, all of my characters are to be found in this early work. Nothing of myself is there any more, only the memory of old bedrooms, and the sound of my mother's slippers walking to the kitchen" (from the Preface). Other Fante works again available from Black Sparrow Press and SPD are ASK THE DUST and THE ROAD TO LOS ANGELES.

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