Really enjoyable read, he’s a seanachai, Irish for a traveling storyteller of sorts, in the best sense of the word.

Some favorite quotes of mine speak for themselves of the beauty and laughter and story that this book is thick with:

Ch. 33:

• “Sometimes she’s invited to cocktail parties. And I’m confused how people stand nose to nose chatting, & eating little things & bits of stale bread & crackers. No one’s singing or telling a story the way they did in Limerick, till they start looking at their watches & start saying ‘Are you hungry, wanna go eat something?,’ & off they drift. And that’s what they call a ‘party.’ “

• “Of course she says, No, thanks, though you can see she’s flattered and I often wonder if she’d like to go with Mr. Lawyer in the Suit rather than stay with me, a man from a slum who never went to high school and gawks at the world with two eyes like piss holes in the snow. Surely she’d like to marry someone with clear blue eyes and spotless white teeth who would take her to cocktail parties and move to Westchester where they’d join the country club, play golf and drink martinis, and frolic in the night in the grip of the gin.”

• “Paddy and the old man talked to me only to remind me that thousands of men and women died for Ireland who’d hardly be happy with my behavior the way I run around with Episcopalians betraying the cause…From time to time the old man leaned around Paddy to tell me, Stick to your own, stick to your own. I’m in New York, land of the free and home of the brave, but I’m supposed to behave as if I were still in Limerick, Irish at all times. I’m expected to go out only with Irish girls who frighten me with the way they’re always in a state of grace saying no to everything and everyone unless it’s a Paddy Muck who wants to settle on a farm of land in Roscommon and bring up seven children, three cows, five sheep and a pig. I don’t know why I returned to America if I have to listen to the sad stories of Ireland’s sufferings and dance with country girls, Mullingar heifers, beef to the heels…There was a darkness in my head from the whiskey and I was ready to tell Paddy and the old man, I’m weary of Ireland’s sufferings and I can’t live in two countries at the same time.”

Ch. 35
• “He says, Look at what they do in the academic world. You corner a half-acre of human knowledge, Chaucer’s phallic imagery in “The Wife of Bath,” or Swift’s devotion to shit, and you build a fence around it. Decorate the fence with footnotes and bibliographies. Post a sign, Keep Off, Trespassers Will Lose Their Tenure. I’m engaged myself in a noble search for a Mongolian philosopher. I thought of cornering the market on an Irish philosopher but all I could find was Berkeley and they’ve got their claws into him already…I’ll get my Ph.D., write a few articles on my Mongolian in obscure scholarly journals. I’ll deliver learned lectures to drunken Orientalists at MLA conventions and wait for the job offers to pour in from the Ivy League and its cousins.”

Ch. 41

• “Oh, Christ. I could easily whimper like a kicked dog. My belly is cold and there’s nothing in the world but dark clouds with Alberta in the middle all blonde, blue-eyed, lavender-scarved, ready to leave me forever for her new man and it’s worse than having doors shut in my face, worse than dying itself.

Then she kisses my cheek. Good night, she says. She doesn’t say good-bye. Does that mean she’s leaving a door open? Surely if she’s finished with me forever she should be saying good-bye.

It doesn’t matter. She’s gone. Out the door. Up the steps with every man in the bar looking at her. It’s the end of the world. I might as well be dead. I might as well jump into the Hudson River and let it carry my corpse past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty across the Atlantic and up the River Shannon where at least I’d be among my own people and not rejected by Rhode Island Protestants.

The bartender is about fifty and I’d like to ask him if he’s ever suffered the way I’m suffering now and what did he do about it? Is there a cure? He might even be able to tell me what it means when a woman who’s leaving you forever says good night instead of good-bye.

But this man has a great bald head and massive black eyebrows and I have a feeling he has his own troubles and there’s nothing for it but to get off the bar stool and leave.“

Ch. 42

• “Of course neither one of us is going to talk like this in the middle of our reconciliation especially since I have a nagging feeling she’s right and I might be just a drifter like my father. Even though I’ve been a teacher for a year I still envy people who can sit in coffee shops and pubs and go to parties where there are artists and models and a jazz combo in the corner blowing cool and lowdown.

No use telling her anything of my freedom dreams. She’d say, You’re a teacher. You never dreamed when you got off the boat you’d come this far. Get on with it.”

Ch. 43:

• “When they emerge from the customs shed there’s a piece of broken leather flapping from Mam’s right shoe so that you can see the small toe of a foot that was always swollen. Does it ever end? Is this the family of the broken shoe? We embrace and Alphie smiles with broken blackened teeth.

The family of broken shoes and teeth destroyed. Will this be our coat of arms?”

• “She returns to the table, rests her hands in her lap and tells us, I’d give me two eyes for a decent cup of tea, and Linda tells her she’ll go out today and get a teapot and loose tea, right, Malachy?

He says, Right, because he knows in his heart there’s nothing like tea made in a pot which you rinse with water boiling madly, where there’s a heaping spoon for each cup, where you pour in the madly boiling water, keeping the pot warm with a tea cosy while the tea brews for six minutes exactly.”

Ch. 44:

• “After my classes at Brooklyn College I would sometimes leave the train at Bergen Street to visit my mother. If she knew I was coming she’d make soda bread so warm and delicious it melted in the mouth as fast as the butter she slathered on it. She made tea in a teapot and couldn’t help sniffing at the idea of tea bags. I told her tea bags were just a convenience for people with busy lives and she said no one is so busy they can’t take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don’t deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?”

The full quote for the rich context:

“After my classes at Brooklyn College I would sometimes leave the train at Bergen Street to visit my mother. If she knew I was coming she’d make soda bread so warm and delicious it melted in the mouth as fast as the butter she slathered on it. She made tea in a teapot and couldn’t help sniffing at the idea of tea bags. I told her tea bags were just a convenience for people with busy lives and she said no one is so busy they can’t take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don’t deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?”

Ch. 48:

• “I know it wasn’t the dinner wine that had me against the wall in a fit of remorse. It was the thought of my mother being so lonesome she had to sit on a street bench, so lonesome she missed the company of a homeless shopping bag woman. Even in the bad days in Limerick she always had an open hand and an open door and why couldn’t I be like that to her?”

Ch. 53:

• “It was too much for me. I didn’t know how to be a husband, a father, a house owner with two tenants, a certified member of the middle class. I didn’t know how to proceed, how to dress, how to chatter of the stockmarket at parties, how to play squash or golf, how to give a testosteronic handshake and look my man in the eye with a, Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

• “Slum-reared Irish Catholics have nothing in common with nice girls from New England who had little curtains at their bedroom windows, who wore white gloves right up to their elbows and went to proms with nice boys, who studied etiquette with French nuns and were told, Girls, your virtue is like a dropped vase. You may repair the break but the crack will always be there. Slum-reared Irish Catholic might have recalled what their father said, ‘After a full belly, all is poetry.’ “

Ch. 55:
• “When your mother is dead you can’t be sitting around looking mournful, recalling her virtues, receiving the condolences of friends and neighbors. You have to stand before the coffin with your brothers Malachy and Alphie and Malachy’s sons, Malachy, Conor, Cormac, link arms and sing the songs your mother loved and the songs your mother hated because that’s the only way you can be sure she’s dead, and we sang

A mother’s love is a blessing

No matter where you roam,

Keep her while she’s living,

You’ll miss her when she’s gone.

  and

Goodbye, Johnny dear, when you’re far away,

Don’t forget you dear old mother

Far across the sea.

Write a letter now and then

And send her all you can

And don’t forget where’er you roam

That you’re an Irishman.”

Ch. 56:
• “I flew to my father’s funeral in Belfast in the hope I might discover why I was flying to my father’s funeral in Belfast.”

• Re: Belfast: “Someday it would end and they’d all saunter out for the pound of butter or even the saunter for its own sake.”

I really enjoyed Frank McCourt's second memoir after finishing "Angela's Ashes," and I'll be reading his third, "Teacher Man," next. I love his voice and style, the way he weaves words with humor, the way he does dialogue and uses repetition so uniquely. So much to learn from him, both about writing and life.

Tras ese maravilloso libro que es Las cenizas de Angela, va el autor y perpetra este pestiño aburrido hasta decir basta. Lo antirecomiendo.

Довольно позорно порыдала в самолёте, испугав простодушных грузинских тётушек.
Две великие книги про загадочную ирландскую душу.
A must read.

I have a sentimental spot in my heart for Frank ever since I read Angela's Ashes. Giving 4 stars but will not be everyone's 'decent cup of tea' (sly wink for those who know understand the reference).

Frank İrlanda'dan Amerika'ya gemi ile göç etmiştir. Gemide tanıştığı rahip New York'a indiğinde ona yardım etmek ister, ona kalacak yer ayarlar, çalışması için bir iş ayarlar. Ancak rahip çok içtiği bir günün sonunda kendisinden beklenmedik bir biçime Frank'a cinsel tacizde bulunacaktır. Frank derhal kaldığı yerden kaçacaktır. Amerika'da ilk günleri böyle tatsız bir olayla başlar.

Rahibin vesilesi ile bulduğu işte hotel lobisinde temizlikçilik yaparak çalışma hayatına başlayacaktır. Kazanacağı paranın bir kısmını İrlanda'ya annesine gönderecektir. Sonrasında bir arkadaşı ile ortak ev tutar ve ani bir kararla oteldeki işinden ayrılır ve orduya yazılır.
Orduda sırasıyla köpek eğitmenliği, yazıcılık ve çamaşır taşımacılığı görevlerinde çalışır. Ordudan ayrıldıktan sonra 2 haftalığına İrlanda'ya ailesini ziyarete gider. İrlanda'yı hem çok özlemiştir, hemde yaşadığı yeni hayattan dolayı İrlanda'da artık kalmak istemez. Ordudan ayrılınca kız arkadaşı Emer'in yanına gider ama bir süre sonra Emer, Frank''ın düzenli bir hayat kuramayacağını düşündüğünden onu terk eder. Frank sürekli babasının içkiye düşkünlüğünden ailesini ihmal etmesine sürekli kızgın olsa da zaman geçtikçe kendiside babası gibi, içkiye belli zamanlarda zaaf duyacaktır.

Emer'den ayrıldıktan sonra, Frank değişmek isteyecektir, limandaki işini değiştirmek daha saygın bir işe başlamak istemektedir. Bir süre sigortacılık yapar.
Ama asıl arzusu ne olursa olsun eğitimli olmak ve üniversiteye gitmektir. Ama daha lise diploması bile yoktur. Kitaplara düşkündür ve sürekli okur.
Bu duygularla şansını denemek için bir üniversiteye gider ve kayıt olmak istediğini açık açık söyler, hazırlık derslerine girmek kaydı ile ona bir şans verirler.

Üniversiteyi bitirecek ve istediği gibi öğretmen olarak çalışmaya başlayacaktır. Üniversite yıllarında aşık olduğu Alberta ile çıkacak, daha sonrada evlenecektir.

Bu arada kardeşlerinden Malachy, Michael de New york"a gelmişlerdir, durumları da iyidir, daha sonraki dönemde annesi Angela ile küçük kardeşi Alphie de onları ziyarete gelir ve onlarda New York'ta kalırlar. Frank'ın Maggie isimli bir kız çocuğu olur.
Annesi Angela hastalanmıştır ve fazla yaşamayacaktır, aynı şekilde babasının cenazesi içinde Kuzey İrlanda Belfast'a gidecektir.

"Tam ağzımı açıp birine bir laf edecek oluyorum, hemen herkes İrlandalı oluyor."
"Trajik bir yatak öyküsü"

I did not like this book as well as McCourt's earlier memoir, Angela's Ashes, which related the family's struggles in Ireland in the 1940's and 1950's. 'Tis relates Frank McCourt's life in New York from the 1950's until his Mother's death in New York and his father's death and burial in Belfast in 1985. Frank McCourt himself read the audio-book edition of 'Tis. This book, however, needed editing to move the story along more smoothly. Certain parts are moving, thoughtful, or funny but some are repetitive, self-indulgent, or boring. I grew weary of reading all that Frank was thinking but never saying to people or reading again and again about his drinking - which he knows is destroying his marriage. I admire Frank's rise from abject poverty in Ireland to his college degree from NYU, his teaching career at Stuyvesant High School in Brooklyn, his home in Brooklyn, and his publishing of several well-regarded books, but this book could have been better.

First, let me say that I absolutely adored this book. While not as dear to my heart as the first, I think this story is moving and the voice is, as always, unique. That said, this story is a much more familiar one than the last: Irish immigrant trying to make a life for himself in a new world, and a war-enraged America. This story, though, is much more tangible than "other" immigration stories and unique in that, throughout all the troubles, heartache, injustice, and anger, this is a story not burdened with self-pity. That's magic.

This is the continued story of Frank McCourt (see Angela's Ashes) and we pick up upon his arrival in America. His eyes are still troublesome, a testament to the poverty that has followed him across the ocean. The cold-water flat he rents is both freezing and tiny, he finds. He must stick close to other Catholics (initially), and the land of opportunity, it seems, offers little opportunity to the likes of him.

Where the first book seemed startling and heartbreaking in its sudden contrast to American life, this book invokes the same feelings but with an added twinge of guilt for the fact these were our ancestors mistreating and being mistreated. These lives were real--not a distant story, but a tangible one. McCourt's voice too is nothing short of poetry throughout:

"We said a Hail Mary and it wasn't enough. We had drifted from the church but we knew that for her and for us in that ancient abbey there would have been comfort in dignity in the prayers of a priest, proper requiem for a mother of seven.

'We had lunch at a pub along the road to Ballinacura and you'd never know from the way we ate and drank and laughed that we'd scattered our mother who was once a grand dancer at the Wembley Hall and known to one and all for the way she sang a good song, oh, if she could only catch her breath."

Sadder in some ways than Angela's Ashes. Whereas Angela's Ashes was a story of Frank McCourt fighting the odds and dangers of growing up in a Limerick slum and trying to escape, this book is about Frank McCourt fighting with himself and occasionally American society. This book reveals his darker side, including his own battles with the drink (though these are never as bad as his father's alcohol problems), his insecurities and the chip on his shoulder about growing up in a slum. Frank had a tough life even in America, and while the book is occasionally humorous, it is sad to see the way drinking contributes to a lot of his problems and the growing gulf between him and his mother. McCourt's sparse writing style, while refreshing, only makes these problems seem worse. In Angela's Ashes, McCourt left Ireland in triumph, as a victim turned hero, while in 'Tis he is half victim, half villain.

Not as strong or comedic as Angela's Ashes.

Sigh. 'Tis.

Quite some time ago I reviewed McCourt's first autobiography, Angela's Ashes. 'Tis is the second book which picks up as Frank is sailing from Ireland to America, where he expects to see everyone has a tan and beautiful white teeth, i.e. the Hollywood version. First lesson, New York City and its people don't much resemble his expectations.

He's still poor as a churchmouse of course but he finds a job sweeping the floor and emptying ashtrays in the lobby of the Biltmore, then moves on to a warehouse job on the docks. He rents a place at a rooming house with a strange landlady and her handicapped son. Eventually he talks his way into NYU despite his lack of a high school diploma. Many of my friends will be happy to learn he got in because of his reading habit. He had read classic literature that most American youth would disdain. At length he becomes a teacher, a teacher with a girlfriend no less.

You may remember he had three surviving younger brothers; they all came to this country. His mother finally came here as well and made a career of carping about everything American. The book ends as the McCourt sons and their children take Angela's ashes back to Limerick.

I raved about the first book. I laughed my head off reading parts of it and other parts tore my heart out. Young Frankie's poverty-stricken childhood was terrible. However, I was disappointed in this book. It's written in the same stream-of-consciousness style and he has the same sense of humor, and parts of it made me laugh out loud. The adult Frank McCourt, though, isn't such a sympathetic character. There were times when I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. I wanted to say, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and for heaven's sake stay out of Irish bars!" But I must admit McCourt is a good man at heart and he's certainly a better writer than I'll ever be.

Aceeasi voce si acelasi umor (tragic) ca în "Cenusa Angelei", dar poate tocmai din cauza asta si-a pierdut din farmec. Am citit-o în salturi, cu pauze mari, dar fãrã sã am gândul de abandon. Dimpotrivã, l-am cãutat pe domnul McCourt pe youtube si am descoperit un om modest, blajin, carismatic.