Mr McCourt is an amazing writer. As was the case with Angela's Ashes, I constantly had to remind myself this was not fiction. Otherwise I would have laughed out loud at what was in fact misery. Actually, I would remind myself that this was not fiction, then ask myself,"but how the hell does a single person in a single lifetime collect so many lunatics?" Then I would laugh out loud. I love this book. In my mind, Tis and Angela's Ashes are one book so I will skip the comparisons.

This book surprises. After the misery of Limerick, I had the romantic notion that Frank would roll his sleeves up, polish off his brains, work hard, walk the thin and narrow, and attain the American dream. Instead, he went and struggled with the drink, ghosts of a slum upbringing and all that. How un-romantically human! And isn't that why we fell for McCourt in the first place?

I have several books currently reading and a ton in the "to be read" pile but couldn't wait. Started this last night. Enthralled.

Really enjoyed this book. I felt the first half of the book better than the last. Although his teaching experiences were a delight to read. The differences he felt between growing up in Ireland and then the apparent wealth in America - I'm sure relates to a lot of immigrants. I found the book useful for tracking down inherited feelings of a particular kind, the inbred Irish thoughts of not being good enough.

Sometimes while reading this I thought McCourt was telling a story or anecdote that wasn't worthy of a book, it was just a regular everyday thing about his life, I thought it was just him feeling compelled to tell someone something. I often think that when reading memoir. And then that story or anecdote transformed into something extraordinary. This is my favorite example of that from "'Tis":

I can’t go to lunch until I walk around and look at this place I’ve been seeing in newspapers and newsreels since I grew up in Limerick. There are tablets with inscriptions in Hebrew and German and I’m wondering if they’re over mass graves.

There are ovens with the doors open and I know what went in there. I saw the pictures in magazines and books and pictures are pictures but these are the ovens and I could touch them if I wanted to. I don’t know if I want to touch them but if I went away and never came back to this place with the laundry I’d say to myself, You could have touched the ovens at Dachau and you didn’t and what will you say to your children and grandchildren? I could say nothing but what good would that do me when I’m alone and saying to myself, Why didn’t you touch the ovens at Dachau?

So I step past the tablets and touch the ovens and wonder if it’s proper to say a Catholic prayer in the presence of the Jewish dead. If I were killed by the English would I mind if the likes of Rappaport touched my tombstone and prayed in Hebrew? No, I wouldn’t mind after priests telling us that all prayers that are unselfish and not for ourselves reach God’s ears.

Still, I can’t say the usual three Hail Marys since Jesus is mentioned and He wasn’t any way helpful to the Jews in recent times. I don’t know if it’s proper to say the Our Father touching the door of an oven but it seems harmless enough and it’s what I say hoping the Jewish dead will understand my ignorance.

Weber is calling to me from the door of the mess hall, McCourt, McCourt, they’re closing down here. You want lunch you get your ass in here.

I take my tray with the bowl of Hungarian goulash and bread to the table by the window where Buck and Weber are sitting but when I look out there are the ovens and I’m not much in the mood for Hungarian goulash anymore and this is the first time in my life I ever pushed food away. If they could see me in Limerick now pushing away the food they’d say I was gone mad entirely but how can you sit there eating Hungarian goulash with open ovens staring at you and thoughts of the people burned there especially the babies. Whenever newspapers show pictures of mothers and babies dying together they show how the baby is laid on the mother’s bosom in the coffin and they’re together for eternity and there’s comfort in that. But they never showed that in the pictures of Dachau or the other camps. The pictures would show babies thrown over to the side like dogs and you could see if they were buried at all it was far from their mothers’ bosoms and into eternity alone and I know sitting here that if anyone ever offers me Hungarian goulash in civilian life I’ll think of the ovens in Dachau and say, No, thanks.

I'm not sure I'll read McCourt's other works, maybe maybe not. He wrote all of them after he turned 60, says The New York Times in its obituary of Frank (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/bo... "Mr. McCourt, who taught in the city’s school system for nearly 30 years, had always told his writing students that they were their own best material. In his mid-60s, he decided to take his own advice, sitting down to commit his childhood memories to paper and producing what he described as 'a modest book, modestly written.'”

I find it shocking and uplifting that someone can rise from his upbringing, remain a high school teacher for decades, and then write his first book, a Pulitzer-winner, in his twilight years. What a life. This, from that obituary: "Speaking to students at Bay Shore High School on Long Island in 1997, he said, 'I learned the significance of my own insignificant life.'"

This was a second reading. McCourt was such a good writer although I enjoyed his first book the most. Seems to me he went on a little long about about his students’ antics and sometimes it really reached into the realm of fiction

Maybe not as engrossing as Angela's Ashes, but still very worth reading. I love memoirs for their ability to act as a door into another time which I'll never be able to experience for myself.

Francis "Frank" McCourt (1930-2009) palasi 19-vuotiaana Irlannista takaisin synnyinkaupunkiinsa New Yorkiin. Amerikan ihmemaassa kertoi hänen omakohtaisesta elämästään vuoden 1949 lokakuusta lähtien. Frank McCourt sai esikoisteoksestaan Seitsemännen portaan enkeli Pulizer-palkinnon vuonna 1997.

Frank McCourt alkoi heti kotiutua New Yorkiin, kun huomasi, että joka kadulta löytyi irlantilaisia kuppiloita. Yhdessä niistä, baarimikko käski hänen painua kirjastoon ja lukea Johnsonia ennemmin kuin juopotella kuppiloissa. Päätyipä hän jopa tansseihin erään samassa talossa asuvan nuorukaisen kanssa. Harmi vaan, että Frank oli hiljainen kaveri, eikä myöskään osannut tanssia.

Asunnot vaihtuivat, työpaikat vaihtuivat ja tyttöystäväkin ilmestyi kuvioihin mukaan. Halu opiskella pysyi mukana mielessä vuosien ajan, ja niinpä eräänä päivänä Frank uskalsi ilmoittautua opiskelemaan avoimeen yliopistoon. Yleensä sinne vaadittiin lukio-opinnot, mutta Frankin kohdalla tehtiin poikkeus. Lopulta hän valmistui opettajaksi, ja niihin opettajavuosiinkin voit syventyä tarkemmin tämän kirjan parissa. Luvassa on runsain mitoin rehevää kerrontaa, sillä Frank McCourtin teksti suorastaan ilotulittelee tarinoidessaan.

Ik vind het een beetje lastig (en bezwaarlijk) om iemands eigen geschreven biografie een sterrenrating te geven. Niet omdat McCourt zichzelf overdreven heilig neerzet - helemaal niet zelfs. Het is meer dat ik dit boek minder mooi geschreven en minder interessant vond dan McCourts vorige boek, De As van mijn Moeder. Maar hoe geef je een rating aan iemands leven - hoe verklaar je je het minder interessant vond dan alle drama in zijn jeugd? Misschien komt het ook omdat ik niet zo van Amerika ben en eerder mij interesseer in Ierland. Misschien komt het omdat McCourt nogal wat jammerend en zelfmedelijdend overkomt in dit boek. Het komt zeker ook door de vele personages die uit het niets opdoemen die mij niets zeiden (waren ze al geïntroduceerd? Moet ik deze mensen kennen?). Het vorige boek maakte mij wereldwijzer - dit niet echt. Allemaal punten die aangeven dat ik mijzelf forceerde dit boek uit te lezen, omdat je toch wil weten hoe het min of meer afloopt met alle broers en McCourt zelf. Was het het waard? Meh. Raad dit boek niet echt aan. De eerste memoire is goed geschreven, boeiend en leerzaam, dus lees lekker die en laat deze links liggen (sorry meneer McCourt, ook al bent u dood en ken ik u verder niet)

كانت معجزة ان يحقق ماكورت حلمه ويلتحق بالجامعة بدون شهادة ثانوية عامة
نبدأ رحلة ماكورت في هذا الجزء من التحاقه بالولايات المتحدة حتى وفاة والدته ومن ثم أبيه
عندما كانت تعطيني هذه السيرة انطباعا واضحا عن المجتمع الايرلندي كانت أقرب إلى قلبي وكلما غاصت في المجتمع الأمريكي وذعري ان يصبح فرانك نسخة عن والده أصبحت أكثر بعدا!
ينقل فرانك أصوات الأخرين بحذر ويحاول ان لا يعرض فكرته ولا
انطباعه الا فيما يتعلق بالجنس! لذا من الصعب أن تتخيله معلما لمراهقات لأن الصوت الوحيد الذي يميزه يغيب فإن صدح به سيكون الأمر مريب
حسه الساخر وصل حظه لدي عندما عرض على ابن اخيه الانضمام لجيش الدفاع الإسرائيلي ورغبته برؤية عناوين الصحافة بخصوص ايرلندي يفعل ذلك
ربما هذا الموقف الذي حسم الأمر لدي بخصوص التوقف عن استكمال الثلاثية والاكتفاء بأول جزئين.

Shite, what a dire book, I considered giving up multiple times, What a pain in the ass it must have been to know this guy.

I appreciated Frank McCourt's candor about his own shortcomings. He does not sugarcoat any of his experiences and his life was clearly difficult when he first arrived in New York City with no high school education. However, he never feels sorry for himself; there is a lightheartedness and a sense of humour to his descriptions of hardship, much like in Angela Ashes.

My one criticism is McCourt's habit of constantly repeating things that he wrote earlier in the book. While I understand that this is a stylistic theme, I think it should have been used much more sparingly.

'Tis is nowhere as good as Angela's Ashes, but it has its merits and is definitely worth reading.

The beginning of this book is suppose to be the end of "Angela's Ashes" but he didn't have the guts to explain why he learned to not have a fiddler's fart about anything.

So since the editor made him change it, he must have ended it with "Tis" to reference this book and then ended this book with the reason for the title of his first book being "Angela's Ashes."

I enjoyed this one better than Angela’s Ashes !