izvrstan, pulitzerom ovjenčan memoarski roman o odrastanju u irskom gradu limericku, između 1930. i 1949. frank mccourt, s vremenskim odmakom od 60 godina, prisjeća se odrastanja u krajnjoj bijedi, gladi i siromaštvu; rođen u najnižem sloju irskog društva, u vrijeme nakon velike gladi, kao sin oca koji je uglavnom besposlen, a kada i nađe posao, svaki petak zapije plaću, a majka je vječno trudna i pokušava živu djecu prehraniti, dok paralelno mrtvu sahranjuje.

prepušten sam sebi i ulici, s oblinom dozom humora (koji, slijedom, često bude i crni), bez okrivljavanja, bez suda, bez zgražanja i bez drame, vodi te kroz svojih prvih 19 godina života. tekst je toliko jasan, realan i pun života da prolaziš kroz te stranice s opipljivim, posve jasnim scenama grada, ljudi, njihovih bijednih, vlažnih i ušljivih domova, proživljavaš njihove sušice i tifuse, njihov sram, jad i očaj, njihova razočarenja i uzaludne nade.
paralelno s čitanjem, tražila sam stare fotografije limericka i uličnog života: ono što sam našla, posve odgovara slici koju sam stvorila čitajući knjigu.

nastavak, "irac u new yorku", slijedi čim prije.

I read his book, then I got to know him, and rarely will you find as similar a voice between the man and the writer as in this memoir. A tragic gem of a childhood story.

“If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you was dead
If you had the luck of the Irish
Then you’d wish you was English instead”

How can ONE book be so WONDERFUL and so HORRIBLE at the same time? I have no idea. But this book is both. Big time.

It’s difficult to imagine anything worse than a childhood crushed under the oppressive conditions of abject poverty, relentless filth and unmitigated suffering. The childhood described in this book is the worst I’ve ever encountered. The “lucky” children suffer injuries or illnesses that (due to poverty) go untreated and result in death. The rest suffer miserable existences. Actually, “suffer” and “miserable” are not adequate to describe the experience. The children in “Angela’s Ashes” would have traded their lives for a life of merely suffering a miserable childhood in a heartbeat.

And yet, somehow, Frank McCourt achieves a brilliant feat in this book. He tells a horrific story that caused me to cringe, grind my teeth, cry and loose sleep worrying. This book affected me physically. It was beyond upsetting. But McCourt wrote it in a way that kept me reading. As depressing as it was I could not put it down. McCourt’s writing is mesmerizing.

One of the best books of the 1990s-this beautifully written memoir tells of the suffering of a poverty stricken childhood in Ireland of the 1930s and 40s-written in such a way that it captures the sadness of the suffering of the family, and yet retains a seismic wit that will make you cry and laugh in turn.

Always written from the point of view of the child and teenager Frankie, at the age he is at the time, never from the perspective of an older man looking back, this is a book you wont want to put down and will stay with you forever.
This book takes you from the eraluest memories of the auhtor as a toddler to the angst and burgeoning sexuality of his teens.

Frank is the son of a alcoholic father who squanders the few wages he ever gets on drink (while making his children swear to die for Ireland), and a mother who struggles to keep the family together. It begins with his life until he is four in New York during the Great Depression, and then the family's return to the greater depression of their homeland, Ireland, where they live on a tiny government dole, and the charity of begrudging relatives.

what makes this memoir so compelling is how the author juggles the different emotions, always with a ready wit, which makes this book a classic, and yet always at the same time displaying to pathos and misery of the Ireland of this era.

McCourt describes the loss of his baby sisters with heart wrenching realism. He has three more brothers, the more charming and easy going Malachy, the king hearted Michael who brings home beggars and stray dogs to the family's humble abode, and the youngest Alphie.

Always pervasive is the grinding poverty, the oppressive and guilt-inducing all pervading presence of the Catholic church and education system ,and the fierce patriotism and resentment at Realm of the time of the 800 years of English domination and cruelty.

But what always shines through is the refusal to forget the humour and hope, the appreciation of small things and nature, through such crushing circumstances, and always the hope. The memoir closes with the realization of Frank's dream and goal to emigrate back to the America of his birth. Ultimately it is a book of the life of life, and refusal to ever be sunk by circumstances-what makes it more inspiring is a true life story of the authors' childhood.

“You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”

This book comes highly recommended by everyone I've met and know. Also, it seems like I might have been the last person to read this book but I am happy I did.

In Angela'a Ashes Frank McCourt paints us a vivid picture of his early life, from the point of leaving America and settling in Limerick. In this memoir we learn about life in Ireland during the depression and what trails the McCourt family faced.

Usually I would devour and ABSOLUTELY love a book like this but... I just could not get into this book. I spent two weeks trying to finish it. Every time I picked it up I got depressed all over again. This book reads like a series of very unfortunate even that just wont quit. My heart broke for Angela and at times I wanted to physically fight her husband.

A hard read.

P.S. In the case of this rating, its mostly about me and not the book. I might revisit it later in life.

I will confess here and now that all along my reading of Frank McCourt’s book, Angela’s Ashes I was trying to catch the hidden meaning of the title, only to find out (long live Wikipedia ) that the author simply inverted the titles of his two memoirs, since this one finishes with the word “’Tis” and the other, which is called ‘Tis, with the scattering of Angela McCourt’s ashes on the shores of Ireland. Now I don’t know whether Frank McCourt was joking or not when he provided his readers with this blasphemous (for his fans, at least) piece of information, but one cannot deny it is as good an explanation as any, more profound, other

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]

می‌گوید توی خانه هیچ‌چیز خوردنی پیدا نمی‌شود،حتی یک تکه نان،و وقتی خوابش می‌برد من روزنامه‌های چرب را از زمین برمی‌دارم.صفحه‌ی اولش را میلیسم که تمامش آگهی فیلم‌های سینمایی و ... است.عناوین درشتش را می‌لیسم.آگهی‌های تسلیت،شعرهای غمگینِ یادبود اموات،صفحه‌ی ورزشی،اخبار بورس و قیمت روزتخم‌مرغ و کره را می‌لیسم. آن قدر روزنامه را می‌لیسم که حتی ذره‌ای چربی رویش باقی نمی‌ماند. نمی‌دانم فردا چه خواهم کرد.
#اجاق_سرد_آنجلا
#فرانک_مک_کورت
#ترجمه#گلی_امامی

یه کتاب عالی پر از درد و غم و بدبختی...
اینکه فقیر باشی و گرسنه... اینکه کاتولیک باشی و با احساس گناه دائمی...اینکه خودت کودک باشی و گرسنگی کشیدن برادرای کوچکترت به جای بازی و شیطنت دغدغه ت باشه...اینکه گدایی کردن مادرت رو دیده باشی...اینکه درک کنی مادرت برای داشتن سرپناه به چه کارهایی باید تن بده... اینکه یه پدر دائم الخمر داشته باشی که سرکار هم که میره روزی که حقوقش رو میگیره تا نیمه شب که پولش تموم شه برنمیگرده...اینکه مجبور شی دزدی کنی اونم از آدمی که همیشه باهاتون مهربونه...اینکه تو اوج این بدبختیا هی فرشته پله هفتم براتون خواهر و برادر بیاره :-)
فقط یکی از اینها میتونه یه زندگی رو تلخ کنه چه برسه به اینکه همه ی اینها با کلی بدبختیه دیگه رو سرتون خراب بشه.
در نهایت آدم سختیهای زندگی خودش ‌به نظرش مسخره میاد...

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.

I just love it when I come across a book as beautiful and extraordinary as this one. As I had already watched the film of "Angela's Ashes" I knew this was going to be somewhat bleak, but I had no idea just what an amazing book this would turn out to be.

Frank McCourt describes a childhood that is ridden with poverty. He made me cry, he made me angry, he made me happy and he even made me laugh. The book is harrowing, but the humour in this book is uplifting, and one cannot help but smile. My heart went out to the McCourt family, and the sorrows they had to endure.

I must admit, it was tremendously difficult to read about Frank's father, who was an alcoholic, that regularly spent every penny he had in pubs, instead of bringing home the wages to feed his (ever growing) family. It made me sigh in utter dismay, and I cannot quite get my head around an adult, who would rather put his needs first, instead of feeding his starving family.

Frank McCourt is entirely masterful with this words, and he had me hooked from the first page. I'm only sad that that the book ended, and rather unexpectedly at that.

" 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?"