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.

Δεν έχει πολλά να πω για αυτό το βιβλίο, όλα όσα πρέπει να ξέρετε είναι στο οπισθόφυλλο.
Το είχα διαβάσει πρώτη φορά δανεισμένο από τη Δημοτική Βιβλιοθήκη της Ξάνθης όταν σπούδαζα εκεί και μου έμεινε στο μυαλό για χρόνια, οπότε κάποια στιγμή που το πέτυχα το αγόρασα. Και τώρα που το ξαναδιάβασα; ξανά το ίδιο συναίσθημα, να σκέφτομαι ότι είναι απίστευτο ότι ο συγγραφέας επέζησε από όλη αυτή τη φτώχια και την πείνα για να μας διηγηθεί την ιστορία του. Και θλίψη για την Άντζελα που κατάφερε να μεγαλώσει τα παιδιά της, παρότι ο τρόπος ζωής και η αδράνειά της είναι αδιανόητα για την εποχή μας (ή τη δική μου νοοτροπία εν πάση περιπτώση).
Τέλος πάντων, πραγματικά αν το πετύχετε κάπου διαβάστε το χωρίς δεύτερη σκέψη, είναι πολύ ωραίο βιβλίο.

خیلی دوستش داشتم

I'm still pondering this book and its impact on me - I think I will be ruminating on it for a while - but it's not hard to give it the five stars. The writing is superb while being innocent and understated, and packed with deeper meaning. Been wanting to read it for a long time and now that I have, I am eager to read what my fellow Goodreads friends wrote about it in their own reviews. It's the kind of book you want to talk about; no wonder it was a book club favorite the year it came out. It probably still is. I would talk more about the ashes but that would be a spoiler perhaps... Suffice it to say that sometimes when you look for something in a book that you think you should see at some point, you find that that something was there all along, everywhere...

Non-fiction memoir about Frank McCourt’s family from his birth in 1930 to 1949. After being born in Brooklyn in 1930, Frank’s father, Malachy, has troubles with alcohol and with finding work, and, during the Great Depression, decides to return to Ireland. The alcohol and work issues continue in Ireland, and the growing family lives in poverty.

The titular Angela is Frank’s long-suffering mother. She endures a seemingly never-ending series of hardships, including her husband’s alcoholism, abandonment, and the deaths of multiple children. McCourt gives us an idea of her character: “You never know when you might come home and find Mam sitting by the fire chatting with a woman and a child, strangers. Always a woman and child. Mam finds them wandering the streets and if they ask, Could you spare a few pennies, miss? her heart breaks. She never has money so she invites them home for tea and a bit of fried bread and if it’s a bad night she’ll let them sleep by the fire on a pile of rags in the corner. The bread she gives them always means less for us and if we complain she says there are always people worse off and we can surely spare a little from what we have.”

While the misery is vividly portrayed, McCourt offsets it with subtle humor. For example, his father would drunkenly awaken his children during the night, singing patriotic songs and making them pledge to die for Ireland, leading Frank to observe: “The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.” At one point, his mother wants him to learn to dance, leading to: how I can die for Ireland if I have to sing and dance for Ireland, too. I wonder why they never say, You can eat sweets and stay home from school and go swimming for Ireland.”

It is written from a child’s perspective in present tense. Much of the narrative is extremely detailed, and it may be too much description of misery for some people. I found it poignant, filled with both tragedy and humor. I particularly enjoyed all references to books and storytelling McCourt encountered in his youth, as it would be very easy for people living under dire conditions to never be exposed to literature.

But the worst offender of the last twenty years has to be the uniquely meretricious drivel that constitutes "Angela's Ashes". Dishonest at every level, slimeball McCourt managed to parlay his mawkish maunderings to commercial success, presumably because the particular assortment of rainsodden cliches hawked in the book not only dovetails beautifully with the stereotypes lodged in the brain of every American of Irish descent, but also panders to the lummoxes collective need to feel superior because they have managed to transcend their primitive, bog-soaked origins, escaping the grinding poverty imagined in the book, to achieve - what? Spiritual fulfilment in the split-level comfort of a Long Island ranch home? And Frankie the pimp misses not a beat, tailoring his mendacity to warp the portrayal of reality in just the way his audience likes.

No native Irish reader, myself included, has anything but the deepest contempt for this particular exercise in literary prostitution and the cynical weasel responsible for it.

{my apologies to the fine people of Long Island, for the unnecessary vehemence of the implied slur in the above review: clearly it is not meant to be all-encompassing}

“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!

Ah Mr. McCourt is on my short list of people I would love to meet, especially after watching him on PBS doing a pub crawl show around Ireland. He seems like a man I could share a pint with and hear great stories in an Irish brogue. Ashes broke my heart and made me thankful for everything I have in my life. You don't understand "poor" until you read this. It reminds me of stories my mom told of her parents during the Great Depression, but worse, but thru it all, McCourt remains a charming story-teller not looking for sympathy, but telling a story. As a storyteller myself, I appreciate his straight-forward approach. This book is a gem and one of my faves.

Overpraised and insubstantive, the first installment in Frank McCourt's memoir cycle, Angela's Ashes, is mostly based around such an obvious cycle that its mind-numbing: "Times were tough and we were on the dole. Me father drank and came home late at night waking us up and making us swear we'd die for Ireland. Me mother and me father fought and he shaped up. Got a job, but nobody liked him because he was from the dirty north. So he drank his first Friday's paycheck, was late to work on Saturday, and the boss fired him. So we was back on the dole. Times were tough." Seriously, 300-odd pages of this, on loop. The more gripping sequences are in the beginning, when the McCourts first arrive in Ireland and are so sickly that it seems like at least two children die per chapter. You almost had to wonder why they don't, I dunno, just STOP REPRODUCING, but I guess I'm not that Catholic and thus can't understand. Anyways, it's harrowing and heavy, and most important, hasn't become a pattern yet. I was able to hang with this part. But once the last child dies, about 70 pages in, and the story shifts moods from ultra-depressing to whimsical for a while ("me neighbor wanted me to dance for a few pence, but I was so poor I only had one shoe, so I could not dance properly. Och, it was a jolly spectacle!"), and it's just the above sequence on repeat, I simply had a struggle understanding why the bloody hell this book won a Pulitzer. I suppose it presents a brutal picture of poverty in Ireland in the early 20th century, the prejudices and sufferings that result from it. And it subtly comments on the senseless bitterness of the IRE / UK divide. But, really, I've read Frank McCourt derivatives (Damian McNichol, for example) who are more poignant and less didactic than this novel. Worst was the conclusion; young adult Frank arrives back in the U.S., and sleeps with the neglected wife of a WWII vet on his first night in the country. "Isn't it great, this America?" his travel companion asks. "'Tis." Frank responds. What the hell?

I grew up hearing about how my Irish maternal grandfather had gone out one day to buy a pack of cigarettes one night and never returned home to his family. While they were not exactly in the economic level of poverty of the Frank McCourt's family, it still brought to life the mentality of that time - especially of the men who were alcoholics. It was a hard book to read, depressing on a different level when told from the perspective of a child. That still doesn't take away from my feeling that it was a good book.

In Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt paints a picture of a childhood mired in poverty. He manages to be humorous and heartbreaking, and hopeless and triumphant all at once. I laughed, I cried, I felt dearly for the disadvantaged McCourt family that struggled against all odds.

The memoir borrows heavily from the art of realism -- as tales of impoverished childhoods usually are. McCourt was born in depression era Brooklyn to an alcoholic father who spent all his wages at the bar, and a mother disgraced and desperate to feed her starving children. Here, we have a glimpse at the life of an Irish family living in a ratty (but ethnically diverse) tenement building. The children were often left their own devices, while the adults struggled with adult problems -- keeping a home, putting food on the table, etc. Loss is a prevalent and recurring theme in the book. Frankie's siblings, as young as several months, were victims of death many times.

Things don't improve when they move back to Ireland to start over. Their North-Irish and alcoholic of a father couldn't find work, drank all the charity money they managed to get, and eventually abandoned his family for good. Meanwhile, the rest of the family must overcompensate by stealing, begging, and applying for public assistance -- the shame of which deeply affect each member of the family. Additionally, Frankie, a devout Catholic, must reconcile his church values and practices with stealing to feed his family, his sexual awakening, and the continuing deaths of his family and acquaintances.

All in all, fantastic depression-era slice-of-life of a poor Irish family. McCourt is soulful and has a way with weaving tales and building characters. He makes you laugh and cry with the family, and keeps you rooting for their survival. I was very engaged and was sorry it had to end (a bit too abruptly too, I must say.) Five stars.

New York in den 30ern. Die McCourts haben sich als irische Einwanderer kennengelernt und leben mit ihren vier kleinen Kindern in armen Umständen. Der Vater versäuft den Lohn, sobald er ihn bekommt. Nur selten schafft er es, das Geld nach Hause zu bringen und seiner Familie so ein glückliches Wochenende zu verschaffen. Als die einzige Tochter stirbt, können die New Yorker Verwandten das Elend nicht mehr mitansehen und sorgen dafür, dass die Großeltern die McCourts zurück nach Irland holen. Doch sie gelangen vom Regen in die Traufe. Im Freistaat bzw. in der Republik ist es für den nordischen Vater, obwohl er Katholik ist, schwierig, Arbeit zu finden, und wenn er welche hat, versäuft er den Lohn hier erst recht. Es bleibt an der Mutter, ihre Kinder irgendwie durchzubringen.

Ja, das ist ein erschütterndes Buch voll tiefster Armut, wie man sie sich in Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts kaum vorstellen kann. Der Stadt versorgt die Ärmsten nur notdürftig und tut sich schwer damit, Frau und Kinder eines Mannes zu versorgen, der ja arbeiten könnte, aber es nicht tut oder das Geld in den Pubs lässt. Dass es den McCourts nicht besser ergeht als in Amerika, ist nicht verwunderlich. Die irische Kultur ist zu dieser Zeit geprägt von dem, was wir heute als toxische Maskulinität bezeichnen würden. Immer wieder finden sich die Anzeichen hierfür in Frank McCourts Worten:

„Dad, Uncle Pa Keating and Uncle Pat Sheehan looked sad but did not cry and I thought that if you’re a man you can only cry when you have the black stuff that is called the pint.“ (Seite 92)

oder

„Even if Dad came he wouldn’t be much use because he never carries anything, parcels, bags, packages. If you carry such things you lose your dignity.“ Seite 120

Da auch Betteln die Würde des Vaters beschädigen würde, bleibt seiner Frau nichts anderes übrig, als dies an seiner Stelle zu tun und ihre kleinen Kinder irgendwie zu versorgen. Notfalls mit Zuckerwasser in der Babyflasche. Als der Vater nach England geht, wo es wegen des Krieges viel Arbeit gibt, ist von vornherein völlig klar, was passieren wird. Der Vater lässt monatelang nichts von sich hören und schickt natürlich kein Geld.

Das alles klingt sehr deprimierend und ich kann mich erinnern, dass ich über das Buch schon gehört habe, es sei irische Jammerei. Doch das Buch überraschte mich mit viel Humor, Galgenhumor teilweise, während die schlimmen Passagen relativ nüchtern geschildert sind, so dass ich mich dem Vorwurf, das Buch sei ausschließend deprimierend, nicht anschließen kann. Das Ende spiegelt Hoffnung wieder. Die letzten Kapitel habe ich nicht mit ganz so viel Interesse gelesen wie den Rest der Autobiografie. Es herrscht Aufbruchstimmung, die Handlung strebt nur noch dem Zeitpunkt entgegen, an dem McCourt endlich zurück nach Amerika gehen kann. Doch das Buch hat mich über weite Strecken sehr gut unterhalten und berührt. Es gibt auch eine Fortsetzung über McCourts erste Zeit in Amerika, die ich wahrscheinlich auch noch lesen werde. Ein schönes Buch!