Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
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Book Reviews of Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Book Review: Well written, just be cautious about who you give the book to.
Summary: 4 Stars
Angela's Ashes gave me a new appreciation for how good we have it here in America. Even though my husband is looking for a job, we still have a safe, warm, comfortable place to live with plenty of food for our family. I found myself thanking God for how blessed we are, even when it seems like life is tough. It could be so much worse.
Angela's Ashes is well written and gives the "I'm right there" feeling. The details give an excellent portrayal of life during the depression era...in Ireland.
My caution...I would not give this book to teens or younger. Some of the sexual details are a little much...too much information! I didn't need to know who was getting off and how they were getting off. Beyond that excellent!
Book Review: You'll keep reading to see what happens next
Summary: 4 Stars
the book is well written. The language changes as Frank grows up in the novel. Some parts a bit slow but packed with experience. Then other parts fire story at you quickly for effect. I hope this doesn't give too much away but at points I kept reading just to find out who survives.Book Review: Beg, Borrow, or Steal
Summary: 3 Stars
With the recurring theme of begging, starving, and deprivation, Frank McCourt tells of his childhood through mini vignettes in his memoir, Angela's Ashes, first published in 1996. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood," (11). Despite the sadness, Humor keeps Frank alive and vibrant. After he was born in New York, where his parents met and married, his family soon moved back to Ireland where they were originally from. The book starts off setting the gloomy tone with an alcoholic father of five kids providing no income to support the family. Being the oldest, Francis, also referred to as Frank, looks out for his younger siblings. However, even before the family moves back to Ireland, their youngest child and only daughter, Margaret, dies due to the family's harsh living condition. The children continue to beg, barrow, and steal food in order to survive, as their mother falls into a state of depression and continues to experience more hardships. McCourt shares his experiences in life through humorous tone while describing his depressing way of life. Francis tells the reader through the first-person narrative about his adventures and stories. Although his father repeatedly wastes his few earnings in the pubs, Francis and his brothers look up to their father and look forward to hearing his stories of heroic Irishmen. Within the memoir, McCourt's writing has the feel of a young boy and as he grows up his opinions on life develop to be more mature, giving you the feel that you are growing up along with Francis and are experiencing a similar lifestyle. Much lighthearted wit is found within Francis's school experiences, where he learns about his religion and common sense when dealing with the other boys at school. Francis comes down with a serious case of typhoid, requiring him to remain in the hospital for months where he develops a passion for Shakespeare. His interest in Shakespeare's work brings him to strive in school. Francis continues to carry on and preserver through life as he grows up...With the continuing cycle of lacking earnings brought home from Francis's father, Francis soon finds a job to support his family as World War I begins and his father is off in England looking for work. Even with the witty writing of McCourt, the strong depressing subject matter of McCourt's childhood brings an overall heartbreaking and distressing mood upon the reader, "When my mother sees Paddy on the street she says, Wisha, look at that poor child. He's a skeleton with rags and if they were making a film about the famine he'd sure be put in the middle of it," (120). After many family losses, home evictions, cold Irish nights, and foodless stomachs, Francis serves the family as a father figure and dreams of earning enough money to provide his family with food and clothing.Book Review: An Unusual Story
Summary: 3 Stars
This is not a happy story, yet it was very well written. Like most Irish authors, he writes with great sincerity. He makes you feel at home in his narrative. Although his family is very dysfunctional, there is a sense of love, warmth and unity that is undeniable. The only thing I didn't really like about this story was his resignation to their life of debauchery and deprivation. His attitude was:"This is the way we are and we are not going to change. Deal with it." This is not a positive attitude. He never showed any hope for a positive change in his life, and it didn't end with a lot of hope for the future. I think this story was a little overrated.Book Review: ASHES ONLY ASHES
Summary: 2 Stars
ASHES ONLY ASHES
REVIEW: McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes. New York: Scribner, 1996.
Angela's Ashes is the recitation of a life of poverty suffered by an Irish boy in the middle decades of the 20th century.
The book is repellant. There is no other way to describe it. No other response is possible when a reader is presented with such anguish, and repressed anguish, emotionless anguish.
I am uncertain why readers are interested in a story of such unredeeming misery. There must be a masochistic element in the readership of the book. Or, there must remain in our society many persons of repressive Catholic background who remember their miserable Catholicism while coming of age.
But then I do know the interest the story elicits. There is such guilt in our society because of our materialism and hedonism that the book performs a catharsis in its readers. (A corollary of this perception is that white folk like to hear about other white folk in extremity, as it relieves them about the misery they may be inflicting on those who are not white.) The members of this society seek to punish themselves, as evidenced elsewhere by the horrible, frightful and vulgar behavior in our entertainment media and our personal relations. The book is part of that milieu, culturally perverted, the "dumbed-down" of every value and decency. Even though the author may not have intended such an effect, once the book was published it became part of it.
The book is not a triumph of the human spirit. Rather, it is the ravings of a simple ego seeking to survive as does any dog, though a literate one in this case. It plumbs the depths of our dysfunctional society, and resonates there in our psychic malaise. I will demonstrate how the author accomplished it, whether by craft or chance and in his understated manner. Immediately at the beginning (page 11), the author writes: "It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while." Do you understand how perverted is this statement? The bad childhood is thus the standard for life and art. It casts us immediately into a hopeless existence. Then (on page 145), the author's mother tells us that she is in hell (as are all of us who read the book): "Bridey laughs. Oh, Angela, you could go to hell for that, and Mam says, aren't I there already, Bridey?" It is hell, a special hell created just for the Irish because they believe in it so fervently. It is made of the Damp, the Drink and the Dump, otherwise known as the Church. The author goes on to claim (on page 202): "It's lovely to know that the world can't interfere with the inside of your head." Oh, no, this is disingenuous. The world does nothing except interfere with the inside of your head. That's what the Damp, the Drink and the Dump do. It is the everlasting struggle for your mind, a battle you must fight tenaciously and without rest forever. The author furthers this point (on page 247) by having the young boy think: "It's a mystery. That's what the priests and the masters tell you, everything is a mystery and you have to believe what you're told." Thus life is stupidity compounded with the refusal to use the rationality that the universe endowed you with. The novel culminates with the wisdom distilled from his life that Mr. Sliney (on page 353) imparts to the young Frank: "What I want to tell you is, Never smoke another man's pipe." That's what the entire miserable life of the boy is: smoking another man's pipe.
So there you have it: miserable hopelessness, hell, messy inside of your head, life as mystery, and smoking someone else's pipe. Nothing could be more dysfunctional, and thus a reflection (writ small) of our times. The popularity of the book is the indicator of our malaise.
The book made me feel unclean and violated in mind and in emotion. The grossness of the father sucking the snot out of his infant son's nostrils unfortunately will stay with me forever. It is an ugly book despite the superficial charm of its language. The relentlessness of that language deceives its readers about its repellant nature. It is thus evil, and profoundly depressing. It is a memoir of identity with a vengeance. The book is a symbol of the catastrophe of our civilization, or even of our species. The ashes are those of Angela's poor, hopeless fire, and those dead, sour, caked and soggy ashes encrusted on another man's pipe.
I am happy the author survived his childhood, if indeed he has, and made as an artist a minor masterpiece of a major misery. And in America (on page 363) there is the statement, "...a great country altogether?" Hummmmm. (TRC 03-05-01)
(TRC Final Revision 08-17-09)