Frank grows up in horrible poverty in Limerick. His family returns from New York. His father is an alcoholic fantasist unable to hold down a job and drinks away any money he earns. His wife Angela and his children starve and several die.

The story is told with wit and humor even surrounded with grinding poverty and living in a slum Frankie and his family survive. The divide between the Protestants and Catholics is strong. Frankie is a Catholic and his family who are failed by the church.

Deaths in the family, sickness, school, cleanliness or lack of and his experiences growing up are told without navel gazing. Its an inspirational story in which Frank tells how he saved to immigrate back to America.

Well deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

" Când tata vine acasă cu leafa din prima săptămână, mama e încântată că poate plăti datoria italianului drăguț de la băcănie și că poate ține iar capul sus, fiindcă nimic nu e mai rău pe lume decât să fii dator și obligat față de cineva. Face curat în bucătărie, spală cănile și farfuriile, curăță masa de firimituri și de resturi de mâncare, golește răcitorul și comandă o nouă bucată de gheață de la alt italian."
" Trebuie să studiați și să învățați, spuse el, ca să vă faceți o părere proprie despre istorie și toate celelalte, dar ce părere să vă faceți dacă vă fluieră vântul prin minte. Mobilați-vă mintea, mobilați-vă mintea. E casa voastră prețioasă și nimeni pe lumea asta nu se poate atinge de ea. Dacă ați câștiga la Loteria Irlandei și v-ați cumpăra o casă care are nevoie de mobilă, ați umple-o cu resturi și gunoaie?"

اجاق سرد آنجلا یک آتوبیوگرافی زیبا بود.

زیباترین و غم انگیزترین بیوگرافی که تاحالا میتونستم خونده باشم
ابتدای کتاب از زبان یه پسر خردسال شروع میشه و همینطور که کتاب جلوتر میشه این پسر بچه ی توی کتاب هم بزرگ تر و پخته تر میشه واین پختگی توی متن کتاب و طریقه ی صحبت این پسر حس میشه.
فرانک مک‌کورت توی این کتاب درباره ی همه چیز صحبت میکنه. از قبل از اینکه به دنیا بیاد شروع میکنه به توضیح دادن که چجوری پدر و مادرش باهم اشنا شدن و چه کسایی باعث شدن که مادرش و پدرش باهم ازدواج کنند. فرانک درباره ی پدرش میگه که چطور تمام چند دلار پولی که درمیاورد رو خرج الکل میکنه و اون و مادرش و برادراش همیشه گشنه‌ن. فرانک درباره ی برگشتنشون از امریکا به ایرلند توضیح میده درحالی که وقتی خودش بزرگ میشه آرزوش بازگشت دوباره به امریکاست.
فرانک و مادرش و برادرهاش زندگی سختی رو داشتند. هم توی امریکا و هم توی ایرلند. فرانک توی ایرلندی زندگی میکنه که از دست انگلستان آزاد شده ولی وقتی جنگ میشه بخاطره چندقرون پول همه ی ایرلندی ها به انگلیس میرند. چون توی ایرلند چیزی نیست که بخواد این مردم رو نجات بده. تنها چیزی که توی ایرلند موج میزد مذهب بود، اینکه تو باید حواست باشه که توی مراشم عشاء ربانی تمیز باشی و لباس های تمیز بپوشی (درحالی که چندین ماه هست جز لباس هایی که تنت بوده لباس دیگه ای نداشتی)، حواست باشه جسم خدا به دندونت گرفته نشه مگرنه گناه کردی، و هیچوقت یادت نره که باید جانت رو برای ایمانت فدا کنی.

در یک قسمتی از کتاب فرانک میگه:
"معلم می‌گوید مرگ در راه ایمان افتخار بزرگی است و پدر می‌گوید مرگ برای ایرلند افتخار بزرگی است و من مانده ام که آیا اصولا کسی می‌خواهد ما زنده بمانیم؟ "

توی این کتاب همه نقش دارن و زندگی همه تعریف میشه از پدر و مادر فرانک و خاطراتشون تا پیرمرد پولداری که به فرانک پول میداد تا براش قصه بخونه، حتی شیموس که توی بیمارستان کار می‌کرد.

Speriamo che me la cavo

Superati i sessant'anni, Frank McCourt sente il bisogno di fermare su carta la girandola di ricordi della propria vita che dall'Irlanda lo ha portato negli Stati Uniti.
Lo sguardo che scruta verso il passato è limato dalla distanza temporale e così l’impressione è che si cerchi di togliere le pieghe a dei ricordi già di per sé sgualciti con il risultato di qualche forzatura.
La vita che ci racconta è assoluta miseria, alcolismo, freddo, malattie ma non si trova autocommiserazione piuttosto un evidente, anche se non esplicito, orgoglio per avercela comunque fatta a sopravvivere in tanto squallore.
La lettura, comunque, trascina e coinvolge facendoti quasi sentire nelle ossa tutta quell'umidità irlandese.
Il contesto è quello marchiato da patriottismo, cattolicesimo nelle forme più reazionarie e conseguente rigidità scolastica ma anche sociale.
E’ un mondo a parte: si parla pochissimo dei ricchi come se ci fosse veramente un muro a dividere, a nascondere.

Tutto sommato una lettura piacevole. Il giudizio positivo nasce, in particolar modo, da due aspetti:

1) Il racconto fa scattare una scintilla che accende la miccia dei propri ricordi (questa cosa è testimoniata dalla lettura in Gdl dove molti hanno riportato i propri ricordi); trovo che il riconoscimento sia uno dei valori fondamentali della lettura.
2) E' una storia singolare perché racconta di una vita che offre una seconda possibilità anche quando tutto sembra avverso.

Note stonate:
-troppa esaltazione dell’ American Dream
- una scrittura non memorabile (in questo senso mi aspettavo qualcosa di più)

[Gennaio 2015]

This is a great book and I thoroughly enjoyed it, which seems ironic, considering its subject matter.

This is a story about grinding poverty and an alcoholic dad who spends the money for food on "the pint".

There are terrible tragedies and the family is constantly fighting to survive.

Kids and parents alike are nearly starved, most of the time. They are constantly cold and damp because of their lack of clothes and disgusting living conditions. This, in turn, causes disease and death.

The Catholic church doesn't come out of the book well. Priests and nuns view the poor as little more than vermin. The Church is only concerned with ensuring total obedience to canon law and to terrorizing the poor with threats of eternal damnation.

Having said all that, there is plenty of humour throughout. When the rent man comes to call, the family have ripped down a wooden partition wall to use as firewood. He looks round and asks, Where's my other room? I rented ye two rooms, what have ye's done with the other one?

I didn't include quotation marks because neither does the author. I don't know why they are missing but the book is easy to read, nonetheless.

I have heard some debate that the author has taken liberties with the truth of the story, but so what.

Millions of people lived and died in horrendous conditions and everything that happened in the book must have happened to someone.

In the same way that "Roots" lives on as a document charting a period of history - again with the author being accused of tampering with history - "Angela's Ashes is a wonderful social document in the Dickensian tradition. It describes grotesque characters and even more grotesque conditions, but ultimately it is a tale about survival. It's not trying to be inspirational or heroic, people fight to survive because the alternative is death.

What a beautiful book. You will never look at your home's second story the same way again after reading of the flooding incident and how the family retreated to the upper story. I add this to the long line of reasons for wishing my Grandmother were still around so that I could ask about stories of our family's past in Cork. Read. This. Book.

I had not planned on writing a proper review, so I began to read others'. Quite a few unleashed verbal vitriol at McCourt's memoir, claiming that it is not entirely accurate and that it is too mawkish/maudlin/bathetic. Others claim that the author romanticizes the penury and destitution of the lives in his lane.

First, no memoir can ever be 100% truthful; our memories are incomplete and sporadic (at best). In fact, as I read I liked that there were NO quotation marks used to indicate speech. I actually thought that was a subtle way to indicate the author wholeheartedly admitting that it is impossible to accurately recall conversations from one's childhood. The book does not have to represent a meticulously accurate picture of what Limerick was like at the time; all it has to do, and all any memoir purports to do, is reveal what life in a particular place was like AS EXPERIENCED BY THE AUTHOR. Plus, who cares about inaccuracies--a good story is a good story.

To say it is maudlin is extreme. There are many unfortunate events that take place; however, not once did I get the sense that McCourt was trying to manipulate his readers' sympathies. Events were described as a child would experience them...kind of like a Scout Finch as narrator. It is this fact that led some reviewers to claim that McCourt romanticized the rampant squalor and death. That would be like saying To Kill a Mockingbird romanticizes racial prejudice.

Anyway, it was an absorbing read filled with personal tragedies and laced with humor. Definitely worth a read.


If I were not such a jackass in high school, perhaps I would have appreciated Frank McCourt speaking at my graduation and even read this ten years ago. I wish I had.

There once was a lad reared in Limerick,
Quite literally without a bone to pick.
His da used scant earnings
To slake liquid yearnings;
In American parlance – a dick.

To get past a father who drank
In a place that was dismal and dank,
He wrote not in rhymes,
But of those shite times
A memoir that filled up his bank.

“O meu pai, Malachy McCourt, nasceu numa quinta em Toome, no Condado de Antrim. Tal como o seu pai, levou uma vida violenta, sempre em conflito com os Ingleses, ou com os Irlandeses, ou com ambos. Lutou ao lado do Antigo IRA e, por um acto de desespero qualquer, acabou como fugitivo e com a cabeça a prémio.
Quando eu era criança, costumava olhar para o meu pai, para o seu cabelo fraco, a sua falta de dentes e perguntava a mim próprio porque havia alguém de pagar um prémio por uma cabeça daquelas.”

Uma história dramática, uma infância desoladora que nunca se esgota. Apesar desta irreparável realidade imposta à criança do autor, muitos dos seus relatos são contados com graciosidade, humor e ingenuidade.
Uma leitura que valeu a pena!

"Cuando recuerdo mi infancia me pregunto cómo pude sobrevivir siquiera... La infancia desgraciada irlandesa es peor que la infancia desgraciada común, y la infancia desgraciada irlandesa católica es peor todavía".

Autobiografía del escritor y profesor Frank McCourt, que narra los convulsos y dolorosos primeros años de su vida. Historia de una familia sumida en la pobreza que a causa de la Gran Depresión deciden dejar Nueva York para regresar a la ciudad de la madre en Irlanda, Limerick, sin saber que les espera un peor destino que en Estados Unidos.

Libro que genera dolor en cada una de sus páginas. Es inevitable sentir frustración ante la historia del padre alcohólico que nunca tiene empleo y se gasta el dinero del seguro de desempleo en los pubs, y la madre "piadosa y derrotada que gime contra el fuego" que debe pedir comida a la asistencia pública para dar de comer a sus hijos.

A pesar de todo, el libro contiene cierta belleza e inocencia gracias a la relación entre el narrador y sus hermanos menores. Gran libro de memorias.

This autobiographical book about Frank McCourt's childhood is so lyrical and well-written that I fell in love with it by the time I was on the second page. And then it seriously took my heart and ripped it into little shreds and stomped on the remains.

When I read Angela's Ashes my children were really young, about the ages of Frank and his siblings at the start of the book. I found the story of their neglect-filled childhood in New York and Ireland - with a helpless mother and an alcoholic father who spends his odd paychecks, as well as their welfare payments, in the pubs and lets his family starve and children die - so harrowing that I literally shoved the book under my bed after I'd read about a hundred pages and tried to forget what I'd read. It was at least a couple of months before I could bring myself to pull it back out again and finish it.

Life got better for Frank McCourt as he got older, and I managed to finish the book without more tears, but it's that heartwrenching first part of this book that really sticks in my memory years later.

In this week’s episode of “Is Kelly Really That Dumb?” (spoiler alert – she is) let’s discuss the fact that she never read Angela’s Ashes because for some reason she thought it was a book about a family in a concentration camp and was never quite in the headspace to tackle it. Then she Googled “funny memoirs” and it popped up, but since it was Reddit I figured some troll was trollin’. Turns out they weren’t (and also this obviously wasn’t anything like I had thought it was about).

The story here is about the McCourt family – who move back across the pond from New York to Ireland since daddy has more than a little problem with keeping a job and not being on the drink – told by Frank. It is somehow both heartbreakingly tragic and laugh-out-loud funny. I listened to it on audio – and be warned it is about 112 million hours long – but it made my walks so much more enjoyable and I was sad when I finished.