Wait Until Spring, Bandini Paperback – 19 July 2007

The early days of Arturo Bandini and family as they battle poverty, religion, matrimonial problems and the unforgiving Colorado winter. WAIT UNTIL SPRING, BANDINI is a power, moving, lyrical example of how and what literature can be when it's handled by someone with all the right tools. Incredible.

An interesting foreward to this edition by the author's son, explaining how his father ended up a golf-playing screenwriter in LA, rather than a Nobel prize-winning author in a million.If you haven't had the pleasure of Fante or Bandini yet, then indulge yourself. This is a wonderful story of the confused and passionate lives of the two males Bandinis. It contains classy touches of humour, and is about human life in all its glory and squalor.The only problem with Fante's books is that once you've read one, there's one less to read.

John Fante (1909 -- 1983) remains one of the least appreciated American writers. Readers often come to Fante through Charles Bukowski, who admired his work intensely. There are many similarities in mood between the two.Fante wrote several novels and stories centering upon a character named Arturo Bandini of which "Ask the Dust" remains the best-known. Fante's first published novel, and chronologically the first about Bandini is this 1938 book, "Wait until Spring, Bandini" which tells the story of Bandini as an early adolescent and of his family. In Bukowski's novel, "Women", the primary character, Chianski, describes Fante as his "favorite writer" and says of both "Ask the Dust" and "Wait until Spring, Bandini" that they display "total emotion" and that Fante was "a very brave man".The story is set in a small fictitious Colorado town called Rocklin and describes a poor, struggling Italian family. The father, Svevo, is a bricklayer and an Italian immigrant who struggles largely unsuccessfully to pay the mortgage, buy groceries, and care for his family together with his passions for gambling and alcohol. His wife, Maria, is deeply Catholic. Maria's mother loathes Svevo and increases the tension in the marriage. There are three children, Arturo, the oldest, 14, August, and Federico. They fight and compete, as brothers do. Arturo loves baseball and dreams of playing in the major leagues.The book is written simply in a beautifully lyric, rhythmic prose. It reminds the reader, if a reminder is necessary, that a novel need not be ponderous and obscure to be moving and worthwhile. Fante stays within himself and his subject, with detailed scenes of the life of the Bandini family. The book is tough minded and, as Bukowski noted, painfully emotionally honest. It describes an immigrant family that lives on the edge of poverty. The Bandinis also are social outcasts. Svevo and Maria live in a state of tension and the boys are more than usually violent. Catholicism has a large role in the book, as the members of the family display varying attitudes towards their Church. The boys attend a parochial school taught by nuns and pay no fees as a result of the poverty of the family.Sexual tension gradually becomes the predominant theme of the book. Young Arturo has a crush on an Italian girl of a poor family, Rosa, but pursues her in the clumsiest of fashions. Svevo apparently becomes involved with a wealthy, educated widow, Effie Hildegarde. The novel works towards the resolution of the passions of both father and son."Wait until Spring, Bandini" is unsparing in its portrayals of immigrant life in the West.It is a coming-of-age novel for readers willing to go off the beaten path in exploring American literature.Robin Friedman

Wait Until Spring Bandini is the first of the Bandini Quartet novels and I loved it just as much as Ask The Dust. Fante can really write, it's a real page turner, I read it in 2 sittings.It makes economic sense to buy the Bandini novels as a single volume. I've been buying them separately and it's costing me much more.

A great book and a great writer. Fante was proclaimed by Time Out as one of America's "criminally neglected writers', and I would agree with this. One person who didn't neglect him was Bukowski, who found Fante a great inspiration. The only writer writing today that I can think of who can be compared to Fante is Morton Bain (Psychopath!). I recommend this and all Fante's books...

No matter how much or little you read, there's a time when you yearn for something new, fresh, rare. Something that none of your friends talk about. Something with no hype.John Fante is such name and 'Wait Until Spring, Bandini' is a book for you - Fante is hardly (undeservedly so)a household name, and you're in for a suprise in the magnitude of first time reading JD Salinger back in the high school.This is prose at it's most compact, yet as passionate as a rare kind of love song. And it is a love song for the time lost, love unfulfilled and opportunities missed.As with most Fante's characters, they are always two sided: happy/sad, tragic/comic, loving/hating, yet never indifferent.This is a book to devour in one sitting, breathlessly. But beware, you might get a sudden of blood to your head and heart.

This review is about the formatting for Kindle.As you can see from the "Look Inside" sample for the Kindle edition of this book, the whole text is printed in italics. Well, almost. Occasionally on my kindle part of a Chapter appears in a normal font, before reverting back to italics. And some pages are in italics and then seem normal and then go back to italics again.This is very distracting.It annoyed me so much that I couldn't read it all through and asked for and got a refund."Ask the Dust" is my favourite John Fante book and was a wondrous discovery.If Amazon can sort out the formatting, I'll look forward to an undistracted read of this one too.

not as good as ask the dust, but still a damn good read

This is the moving story of the Bandinis, a poor Italian immigrant family in depression-era Colorado.It’s winter, the snow is thick on the ground and the father, a bricklayer, will be out of work until spring. There is not enough money for food, decent clothing and sufficient coal.This is the Bandini family :the father, burdened with « his house that remained unpaid, his bills, the pressing monotony of marriage », impatient, short-tempered and occasionally violent but basically a good and honest man, proud of his skills and his heritage, yet who « never regarded himself as an Italian. No, he was an American »,the long-suffering, gentle and patient mother who feels that « nothing about her, nothing, gave her kinship with ‘the American women’ », who adores her husband but whose main solace is her deep and unshakable Catholic faith,the three sons : 12-year old Arturo, 10-year-old Augusto, who is coldly pious and wants to become a priest, and 8 year-old Federico.I found Arturo the most heart-rending character in the book. He is so torn and confused, terrified of committing mortal sins, tortured by the doctrine of purgatory and hell, full of pure but unrequited love for an Italian girl in his class, trying to escape from reality by dreaming of becoming a baseball star. He is ashamed of his pious, un-American mother, his poverty, his Italianness, his name, his freckles. He believes he hates everyone and everything around him, venting his anger and frustration on his brothers and helpless animals. Yet deep down he is the most decent member of the family, full of unselfish love and kindness, wanting desperately to be accepted and loved in return.

Another fantastic novel by Fante. He is a maser storyteller. Can't wait to read his other novels.

Good read

"Wait until spring, Bandini" est vraiment super! je devais lire un lire un livre en anglais, en devoir. Je m'attendais à lire en essayant bêtement et avec difficulté de/à lire le livre mais il s'avère facile pour la compréhension même si on n'est pas tout à fait anglophone. Le livre nous entraine et nous permet d'observer ses/ces 'contemporains' d'un regard pur.

The prose in Wait Until Spring is so beautiful and evocative, but most of all brutally honest. Told in alternating points of view we get the story of an Italian-American family struggling with poverty in the early 1930's. The book deals with many themes; Catholicism, racism (people didn't have much respect for Italians back then) sexuality, pride, and of course love.This is also a coming of age story: Arturo Bandini struggling with his conscience, his instincts as a fiery, bad-boy to cause trouble and a longing to do the right thing, constantly tortured by his Catholic beliefs and the dogma that has been fed to him."He wanted to be a good boy, but he was afraid to be a good boy because he was afraid his friends would call him a good boy."And the father, Svevo: "The house was not paid for. It was his enemy, that house. It had a voice, and it was always talking to him....It's amazing to think this book was written such a long time ago but feels so modern. I loved the beautiful, descriptive prose, and the clever sense of humor. There were many laugh out loud moments, mainly because when a writer nails the truth the way Fante does, it is both shocking and funny at the same time.I highly recommend this book to readers of any age. Personally, I think it IS a masterpiece and just as good as Ask The Dust.

I had not heard of John Fante until a good friend remarked that I might enjoy his books. She recommended 'Wait Until Spring, Bandini' which was his first book. Now, am committed to read the rest in order. How I missed him, I can't say, but am glad to discover him.The book took me directly back to my youth. It details the struggle, conflicts and lives of an Italian immigrant couple and their first generation American children. Although I am only half Italian and third generation at that, once I began reading it was very familiar to me.Powerfully written and richly detailed. Set in rural Colorado rather than the teeming eastern slums as most period writing such as this is made the story real to me.

John Fante (1909 -- 1983) remains one of the least appreciated American writers. Readers often come to Fante through Charles Bukowski, who admired his work intensely. There are many similarities in mood between the two.Fante wrote several novels and stories centering upon a character named Arturo Bandini of which "Ask the Dust" remains the best-known. Fante's first published novel, and chronologically the first about Bandini is this 1938 book, "Wait until Spring, Bandini" which tells the story of Bandini as an early adolescent and of his family. In Bukowski's novel, "Women", the primary character, Chianski, describes Fante as his "favorite writer" and says of both "Ask the Dust" and "Wait until Spring, Bandini" that they display "total emotion" and that Fante was "a very brave man".The story is set in a small fictitious Colorado town called Rocklin and describes a poor, struggling Italian family. The father, Svevo, is a bricklayer and an Italian immigrant who struggles largely unsuccessfully to pay the mortgage, buy groceries, and care for his family together with his passions for gambling and alcohol. His wife, Maria, is deeply Catholic. Maria's mother loathes Svevo and increases the tension in the marriage. There are three children, Arturo, the oldest, 14, August, and Federico. They fight and compete, as brothers do. Arturo loves baseball and dreams of playing in the major leagues.The book is written simply in a beautifully lyric, rhythmic prose. It reminds the reader, if a reminder is necessary, that a novel need not be ponderous and obscure to be moving and worthwhile. Fante stays within himself and his subject, with detailed scenes of the life of the Bandini family. The book is tough minded and, as Bukowski noted, painfully emotionally honest. It describes an immigrant family that lives on the edge of poverty. The Bandinis also are social outcasts. Svevo and Maria live in a state of tension and the boys are more than usually violent. Catholicism has a large role in the book, as the members of the family display varying attitudes towards their Church. The boys attend a parochial school taught by nuns and pay no fees as a result of the poverty of the family.Sexual tension gradually becomes the predominant theme of the book. Young Arturo has a crush on an Italian girl of a poor family, Rosa, but pursues her in the clumsiest of fashions. Svevo apparently becomes involved with a wealthy, educated widow, Effie Hildegarde. The novel works towards the resolution of the passions of both father and son."Wait until Spring, Bandini" is unsparing in its portrayals of immigrant life in the West.It is a coming-of-age novel for readers willing to go off the beaten path in exploring American literature.Robin Friedman

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.

In John Fante's book, "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" the reader is introduced to a millieu of poverty with which, few of us in America are truly familiar. Here is a family, a proud Italian American unit, that is hard working, religious, and proud of their heritage and themselves. Yet, they live with a day to day level of impovershment that is striking to most people in today's American society. It is difficult for one to imagine harder times in their own personal life, than what Fante has depicted in this work.In addition, Fante develops the interactions of his charcters with a true expertise, that allows the reader to quickly read his book and still get all the value and meaning contained therein. Fante's characters are believable and realistic. The manner in which they represent their positions is only too reminiscent of almost all family life in America. The lessons that he imparts are truly inspirational and timely for those who have been through some hard times and difficult life situations.While Fante deals with a serious marital transgression, he does so with great aplomb. His ability to portray the inner perspective of his characters from all sides of the issue is fabulous. And, in the end, even the transgressor sees himself with pride and honor, in the face of victimization by one who can easily manipulate him for her own self-indulgence.Fante's book is a truly wonderful piece of work. It is a great life lesson for all who may take the time to read it. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to be more in touch with the world around them, and with the way in which the world can change, in only a few minutes. A truly great piece of work.

Wish I had read this years ago. Waiting for Spring was my intro to Fante, after that I had to see more, followed this with Ask the Dust. This is a priceless little treasure that won't be loaned out to my friends no matter how close they are to me.

A book for anyone, anywhere , anytime now or past. I read Ask The Dust now this. Delicious, the stuff only great writers possess. I am so glad I bought it.

Charles Bukowski's first literary love -- the discovery of which was an epiphany for the poet (the poet I like the most). There's a lot in this author's work to admire.

too melodramatic for my taste. the writer is italian.

I enjoy Fante's style of writing. The character of Arturo Bandini changes through his novels, and they can't be considered a series of tales about the same person. That said, I rather liked this version of Bandini the person.

Glad I found this writer and plan to read more of his work.