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Rating: The step is a determined one, the kind that brings the hand to the handle of the bar. It's a firm and powerful foot, touching the floor and sending the sharp sound of the heel bouncing among the four walls, like an echo hurled forcefully between the mountains. The gaze is a stone; steady and impassive, it doesn't yield, nor does it fear the pairs of irises trying to size it up in the world's oldest pastime. It feels superior watching the thirsty patrons: damned drunken Mexicans wasting time! That's what it thinks when a mirror placed at the back of the place catches its attention.
A stumbling, uncertain, and trembling step barely tries to make room between the chairs of the place. It chooses the table but gets up immediately as if it had found a rattlesnake coil on the seat. It's a tragicomic waltz, a bee wandering from table to table without ever landing on a flower. Those innocent empty chairs, like an endless tangle of wooden legs ready to block its path. And so it prays, swears, and even promises something important to that God it knows well to be able to get out of that surreal situation: an obvious punishment for some sin that currently eludes it. Eyes. It feels dozens of them on itself while its own seek shelter and refuge in the wrinkles of the dusty floor. Sweat and anxiety slide down inside its dress, its hair, and its pores like a geyser that no handkerchief can dry. The doorknob feels like liberation, the chance to finally escape. It then collides with a man to whom it doesn’t even apologize, so focused it is on running, framed by honking horns and insults.
The step that crosses the door and, after a slight pause, decides to enter the place exudes confidence. It doesn’t flaunt it with noise, nor does it shun it with a shyness and insecurity almost obsessive. It simply sits, and what spreads through the bar is the scent of success. Its manicured hands leaf through a book, and everyone, even those who can't read, knows those fingers must have written all those well-bound pages. It’s a man who has made it and arrived.
Arturo Bandini, alter ego of Fante (and not only, of course), is an irascible and arrogant man: racist and grumpy, he is not afraid to say what he thinks even if it's at the cost of hurting others' feelings and suffering the inevitable consequences of his behavior. Arturo Bandini is also a fearful and frightened young man unable to make a decision and who often regrets the path he has chosen. He stops at the first crossroads to take the map, search for a reference point, something, but the wind mockingly swells it like a sail and tears it from his hand. Lost and bewildered, he no longer knows where he is, worse, where he will end up: all that remains is to be carried away by the warm desert breeze. However, Arturo Bandini is aware of his talent, and it is for this reason that he has descended from the cold mountains of Colorado. In his seedy hotel room, there he is obsessively pressing keys, following the undulating rhythms of inspiration, eating oranges, not sleeping for days, straining his eyes, and getting completely in debt (cf. Martin Eden by Jack London). It's the price of success, because he knows for certain that sooner or later it will sweep him up and then everything will finally make sense. Perhaps.
Boastful ambitions, the harsh decadent reality of a dusty Los Angeles masterfully captured and sweet illusions clash with a cup of coffee with cream and the "huaracas" of Camilla Lopez for a seminal book: so dense and powerful that the ink on the pages seems like pure compressed air ready to explode. The multifaceted character of the protagonist is so real and overwhelming that it's almost impossible not to find at least a pinch of Arturo Bandini in which to see oneself for a sublime reading.
It's one of those rare cases where typing a rating seems as useful as recommending you, dear users, to fill your lungs with air over the course of this day. Possibly at regular and consistent intervals.
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