I first read "Ask the Dust" in 1971 when I was doing research for "Chinatown". I was concerned about the way people really sounded when they talked, and I was dissatisfied with everything else I had read that was written during the '30s. I wanted the real thing, as Henry James would say. When I picked up Fante's "Ask the Dust," I just knew that was the way those kids talked to each other—the rhythms, cadences, racism.
Robert Towne on
adapting John Fante's novel
for the big screen. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Mar 4, 2006 -
17 comments
"Hubert Selby died often. But he always came back, smiling that beautiful smile of his, and those blue eyes of his... This time he will not be back. My saints have always come from hell, and now, with his passing, there are no more saints".
Selby is the author of
Last Exit to Brooklyn, (
tried for obscenity in England and supported by, among many others, Samuel Beckett and Anthony Burgess),
Requiem For a Dream,
Song of the Silent Snow. He is being
eulogized in the USA and UK, but also, massively (I've just watched a fantastic TV special) in France, where he is much more popular than in his native land (Selby's death was the cover story -- plus pages 2, 3 and 4 -- in the daily Libération today --
.pdf file):
Dernière sortie vers la rédemption,
L'extase de la dévastation. What makes all this kind of ironic -- in a very Selbyesque way -- is that Selby himself used to say,
"I started to die 36 hours before I was born..." (more inside)
posted by matteo
on Apr 28, 2004 -
16 comments
