Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
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Book Reviews of Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Book Review: A Pullitzer Prize Winner, and It Shows
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is the memoir of a young boy who was born in the US during the Great Depression who moved back to Limerick with his parents and brothers at the age of 4. It's a story about starvation and death and loss. But, it's also a story full of humor and strong family ties and hope.
I admit it. I frequently eschew books that I perceive as being sad or brutal. This book was both, but I am sooo thankful I've finally read it. This book could easily have been emotionally exhausting to the point that people would have trouble finishing it. However, the author very skillfully gives the reader a bit of a cushion from the raw emotion of life in Limerick in the 30's and 40's by making the narrative voice a tough, laconic kid (his younger self.) Frankie talks about these terrible life events in a very matter-of-fact way. He just accepts these sorts of things as part of his life. He recounts it to us so firmly, it gives the reader the license to be sad without being overwhelmed by the horror of it. Being a champion book blubberer, I appreciated that.
This memoir was a Pullitzer Prize winner and it shows.
Book Review: Loved it, loved it, loved it.
Summary: 5 Stars
McCourt's child protagonist and his over-riding optimism, his natural-born inclination to make the best of things, makes an otherwise grim tale not only bearable but uplifting and heroic. Despite the daily, brutal grind of poverty, this child still manages to experience, wallow in, simple joys. Due to McCourt's honest voice, I felt every one of this kid's untidy, conflicted emotions. I LOVED this kid.
But after reading some of the criticism here, I think some people forget that this is first and foremost a MEMOIR. Memoirs are subjective by nature. So if McCourt's personal experience shows prejudice toward the Catholic Church, or if he seems to present a "stereotype" of the drunken, morose, Irish----that's HIS viewpoint----naturally. If you want a more balanced view don't read memoirs! Read academia! (It's like reading an autobiography of a politician and complaining that it's too political).
I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who loves to read. The naysayers included. It's not a pretty story, but it IS heroic.
Book Review: Stock your mind with an Irish childhood
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the distinctive signs of a really, really good book, one that you can call a masterpiece, is that it leaves you something, it leaves you enriched with a little treasure of memories and imagination thaa remains with you forever. As one of Frank's teacher says in this book, talking about studying in general, it "stocks your mind". What this book does, beside being a pleasant and charming read, is exactly that: enrich your mind with all the emotions, thoughts, experiences, fears, hopes and sensations of an irish child living his desparate but passionate childhood in the slums of a little irish town. Along the way, it gives you the chance to reflect on the many aspects and consequences of war, poverty, family life,alcoholism, on the hypocrisy and damage that a religious education is often responsible for...but the real heart of this book is really in the many emotions and memoirs that bacome a little part of you.
A friend recommended this beautiful book to me, I recommend it to you.
Book Review: 'Tis magnificent!
Summary: 5 Stars
Frank McCourt has a way with words! His memoir of growing up poor in Ireland, with a drunk for a father and lazy, shiftless mother is written without malice. He and his brothers are left to their own devices to keep themselves fed, warm and clothed when Frank, the oldest is not even four years old. They live in a house where the main floor floods every year and they have to wade through the sewage to live in the remaining room upstairs until the water recedes. They grow so cold that they resort to tearing the walls apart for firewood. And yet his mother needs her cigarettes and his father needs his drink.
Frank's tenacity and humor in the midst of such misery is his salvation. And it is what makes this memoir so poignant. His own parents and grandparents, neighbors and the Catholic church leave Frank and his brothers to their own devices for survival. And they survive! And go to America. And it's a true story.
Book Review: A Child's View of his Impoverished Family
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an incredible, wonderfully written memoir. It is
about Frank McCourt's childhood in Limerick, Ireland. He
captures the poverty, abuse, alcoholism and dysfunction in
his family. However, he also captures his family's love,
acceptance and forgiveness.
One scene is unforgettable to me. The basement floods with
sewage and the family is forced to deal with the smell,
grossness and the overall disgust. Frank's mother tells
her children that since they are not living in the basement
that they are in a castle and thus are royalty. What a
wonderful metaphor for these children!
The depiction of poverty is vivid and accurate. That this
book is written from a child's vantage point only proves
to make it more miraculous. This book is truly brilliant.