n  n    This review may contain what some may consider as spoilers. On the whole, I don't think reading this will take away your enjoyment of the book, however, I just had to put the warning here.n  n

This review has now been shifted to my n  BLOGn.

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

These are the opening lines from Frank McCourt's beautifully written memoir. It is the story of his childhood and growing up in Limerick, Ireland. He was born in New York City but it was the 1930s and during the depression. So the decision was made to move back to Limerick where Frank's maternal grandmother lived. But Limerick was not much better than New York, and in some ways worse, especially for Frank's father who was from the North.

His father, Malachy, rarely has a job and when he does he drinks his wages. The family lives in conditions of extreme poverty. Near starvation, wearing rags and shoes that are falling apart, picking up bits of coal from the road so they can light a fire, begging for a pigs head for Christmas dinner. The story moves from heartbreaking to hilarious effortlessly. It is done with eloquence. Destined to be a classic.

I can't put this down! I'm getting such a dark kick out of Frank McCourt's childhood. Favorite line that had me laughing out loud: "Oy, you Irish. You'll live forever but you'll never say challah like a Chew." I'm devastated this book is ending; it's been the most pleasurable part of my days over the past week. It's of course depressing, I mean, like he says in opening "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhoood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." I find myself adjusted to the constant string of tragedy after tragedy, the constant cruelty of the adults around him, and the constant poverty of his neighborhood simply because it's constant. He adjusts and so does the reader. Also, he obviously lives to tell the tale, so I think I may take subconscious comfort in this.

O título era-me familiar, mas não sei porquê, meteu-se-me na cabeça que era uma história de crime (talvez por causa do título) e coloquei-a imediatamente de parte, não prestando grande atenção aos comentários elogiosos que lhe ia ouvindo/lendo por aqui e por ali. Ou pelo menos, não o suficiente para me aperceber que se tratava, não de uma história de crime, mas de uma autobiografia de uma infância passada entre os EUA e a Irlanda, entre a Grande Depressão e a Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Quando me chegou pelo correio, através de uma iniciativa do Bookcrossing, que nos surpreende cada mês do ano com um livro diferente, pensei "Que chatice. Afinal vou mesmo ter que pegar neste livro, pelo menos dar-lhe o benefício da dúvida e ler umas páginas, nem que seja para desistir mais adiante".

Podem imaginar a minha alegria, quando comecei a ler, e percebi que se tratava de uma coisa completamente diferente. O livro é uma autobiografia e retrata uma vida muito dura e de grande miséria, mas o autor consegue fazê-lo de forma que, em vez de nos sentirmos permanentemente chocados, tristes ou comovidos com as vicissitudes desta(s) família(s), também nos rimos com vários episódios, contados com a candura típica de uma criança, que desempenha aqui o papel de narrador.

Um dos melhores livros que li este ano.

Multa saracie si ignoranta in Limerick-ul copilariei lui Frank McCourt. Si cu atat mai mult il admir pentru ca s-a ridicat din acea mizerie si a ajuns departe. O data in plus ma conving ca multi dintre cei care au suferit de lipsuri in copilarie sunt mai determinati sa reuseasca in viata.

Felul in care este scrisa cartea este exceptional, un stil tragi-comic curgator si sensibil care te face sa ii iubesti pe Francis, Malachy, Alphie, pe gemeni si pe mica Margaret. Poti chiar sa o intelegi pe mama care-si iubeste din suflet toti copiii si se zbate asa cum poate, dar nu stie ce sa faca mai mult, nici macar sa paraseasca un tata inconstient, care nu se poate abtine de la bautura nici cand isi vede de copiii flamanzi, fara pantofi si haine, locuind in incaperi insalubre, in frig si umezeala.

O carte trista, pentru suflet, cu in final din care razbate speranta.

One of my favourite books of all time! It made me laugh, cry, get angry ... without depressing me! Frank McCourt is a wonderful story teller!

I think I read Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt initially when the book was first published. In high school at the time, my mother and I shared books. I was introduced to all of her favorite authors that way and most of these authors I still read now. One author who was new to both of us at the time was New York school teacher Frank McCourt who published a memoir of his life growing up in Brooklyn and Limerick, Ireland. As with most books from that era, I had vague recollections because I spent the next twenty years finishing high school and college and raising a family. Books I read in high school were not at the forefront of my mind. Since my youngest daughter transitioned to a full school day three years ago, I have gone back and read all of those forgotten to me books from high school through adult eyes. The experience has been for the most part positive with only a few books that stand out as disliking. With my ongoing lifetime Pulitzer challenge focusing on nonfiction winners this year, I decided to finally turn my attention back to Angela’s Ashes and found it a worthy book indeed.

Angela Sheehan immigrated to America from Limerick, Ireland at the onset of the Depression. Life in the slums of Limerick was unbearable even for a champion ballroom dancer like Angela. Immediately after stepping off the boat, Angela meets Malachy McCourt and becomes pregnant by him. Being good Catholics, the couple gets married. Five months later, Frank is born, followed in close succession by Malachy, twins Oliver and Eugène, and Margaret. Malachy (the father) is a chronic drunk and spends all of his wages on drinks in local pubs. The children have no food, Margaret dies from SIDS, the twins wear rags for diapers, and Angela is inconsolable. At the urging of cousins, the family emigrates back to Limerick because as destitute as life is there, the McCourts will be among family who can support them in their desperate hour.

Ireland and its green land of the River Shannon and Cuchulain the hero who died for the country do not solve Malachy’s drinking problem. He can barely hold a job and Angela and the children still have barely any food to eat. The children still wear rags for diapers and the family shares two beds in flea and lice infested apartments where an entire building shares one bathroom. The twins succumb to illness and all is too much for Angela to handle. Her mother and sister have no sympathy for her situation and the family is relegated to going on the dole and asking for handouts at St Vincent of the Destitute. The McCourts eventually move to a home at the top of Roden Lane. It is as decrepit as their other homes but at least no one died there despite having one lavatory for the entire street that is right outside of their home. Although a chronic drunk, Malachy makes the best of the situation naming the downstairs portion of their home Ireland and the upstairs Italy. The children rarely have food but at least they have each other and stories told of old Ireland by the fireplace each morning.

Frank and Malachy and eventually surviving brothers Michael and Alphonsus attend the Leamy National School for the poor. Run by priests, it is a quality education despite the fact that most of the boys rarely eat, wear dilapidated shoes, and have parents who survive on the dole or handouts. The River Shannon and its environs sickens the air and Frank can name many friends and acquaintances who have died over the years of consumption. Yet, despite the horrendous upbringing that Frank McCourt knew, Angela’s Ashes had me laughing over the course of the book as he used humor to get through the darkest of situations of his life. His uncle Pa Keating was quite the character and interactions with him had me in stitches. Frank’s fear of confession to the priests and then his time in confession was also laced with comedy, as were most every other episode in the memoir, including dance lessons and mooching off school to run in an apple orchard with friends. If the situation was not so dire, perhaps comedy would not have been needed, yet Frank McCourt had a gift with words even as a kid. It was this gift that had his mother and other relatives telling him that he would go far in life in spite of the environs of Limerick during the darkest days of both the Depression and World War II.

With a drunk father and destitute mother, Frank desired to go to America as soon as he had the means to do so. By age nineteen, he sailed on a reverse trip back to New York and Frank was in America to stay. Eventually Malachy would follow and they would develop a comedic act for two about growing up poor in Ireland. Angela’s Ashes, despite the impoverished environment that it describes, is one of the most inspiring books I have read. How could anyone have an attitude other than positive and expect to rise from the slums of Limerick and make something of one’s life. Frank McCourt could find humor in any situation, even one that saw his parents bury three children and live for nearly twenty years on public assistance. Angela’s Ashes brings to light this horrendous situation and has me realize that even though the United States was also hit by depression, it is still the land of opportunity for people around the globe, the McCourts included. Thankfully, Frank McCourt reached New York and eventually told his story to the world, offering a beacon of light in even the darkest of times.

5 stars

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.

Impressive read...years ago already. Updating my library.

Achei o tom do livro demasiado leve para quem viveu tanta miséria. Achei que talvez pudesse ter havido alguma manipulação do leitor. Li algures que isto seria um acto de coragem por parte do autor, escrever assim, de modo tão despojado de ressentimento ou de zanga, quase tragicómico, sobre a sua própria infância tão terrível. Seriam certamente as cinco estrelas se o livro não fosse anunciado como autobiográfico. Resumindo, senti algo de estranho no tom da escrita, algo que não batia certo. Fiquei com um travo agridoce de que não gostei quando acabei de ler e não vou ler mais livros biográficos do Frank McCourt.

I LOVED THIS BOOK

Before I get too deep into my review, let me just say this: "Angela's Ashes" is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. That said, it is also fascinating, heartbreaking, searingly honest narration told in the face of extreme poverty and alcoholism. This absolutely entrancing memoir follows an Irish-American-Irish-American (more on this later) boy who comes of age during the Depression and the War years in a country gripped in the stranglehold of the Catholic Church, tradition, rampant poverty and unemployment, and the seemingly ubiquitous curse of the Irish: alcohol.

Young Frank McCourt is born in American barely five months after his parents were wed. (Naturally, he will ask later about the math.) His father squanders the family's wages at the pubs and soon the family (with new children seeming to drop on a regular basis) moves back to Ireland. Frank and his family move from slum to slum as his father drifts aimlessly from one job to the next and from one pub to the next, coming home at midnight to rouse his boys from bed, making them promise to die for Ireland. Everywhere for Frank is misery: at school, at home, in the weather, in the dreary conditions of Limerick, and in a fiercly pious populace. Forced to be a man long before most kids even have a paper route, Frank is soon working to supplement whatever his mother can get handed from the government or begging while his father is off working and drinking in England's wartime industries. Frank dreams only of returning to America, where "everyone is a movie star."

This novel is so incredibly heartbreaking not only because it is true, but because it highlights the devastating conditions faced by millions (and which sadly continue). The work is a stinging indictment of alcoholism without being a polemic, merely a recollection of what was everday life of the narrator's family, courtesy of his father's drinking. McCourt's supreme strength is in narrating the book through the eyes of his younger self rather than as an adult commentating or proselytizing about what he saw and did as a young man. The young Frank makes choices out of survival instincts and simply because they seemed right at the time (i.e. stealing to eat while promising himself to pay it all back later). On top of the normal perils of adolescence--sexual awakening and social awkardness--Frank, and countless young people like him, needed to grow up far too early to stave of homelessness for himself and his family in the absence of his drifter, drinking father. And ultimately, it is also the quintessential immigrant story of saving up enough to leave the Old Country behind in pursuit of a better life in America.

Approach "Angela's Ashes" with both caution and an open mind. Bring tissues and try not to condemn. Be like young Frank: Observe without damning.