Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Book Review: Beautiful Memoir....Left Me Wanting More
Summary: 5 Stars
You know how sometimes a book is just so good, when you see you are nearing the end, you want to slow down and savor those last few pages?
Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt,was that for me.It is a wonderfully beautiful memoir and an engrossing story. McCourt tells the story of his life as a boy, growing up dirt poor in Ireland. And he tells it in a way that makes it impossible to stop reading. I always had a hard time finding a point to stop turning the pages, I had to know what would happen to Frankie McCourt.
The writing is incredibly honest. It flows from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph,page to page. McCourt puts himself right back into the mind of his younger self, and seems to be talking and thinking just as he would from ages 4 through a young man. He speaks of his family. His father that couldn't keep his wages in his pocket on pay day, and could not make it home without stopping for a pint(or two) along the way. Yet a man who seemed to understand his young sons, and always had what seemed sage advice and a great love for his children. His mother's suffering, with the loss of children dyeing, trying to make do for her family by begging, and did whatever it took to keep her children warm and fed. He writes quite honestly, about his schooling, his relatives,the many illnesses he and the family went through, his taking to petty thefts to keep from starving, discovering his sexuality, the jobs he had to do, and his great desire to go back to America, where he was born.
The stories are sad, and will tug at your heartstrings, but the humor he uses in describing the sometimes dehumanizing events(having to empty and clean disgusting chamber pots among them) make this a stand out read instead of a woe-is-me theme.The characters jump off the page, you can hear them speak with their thick Irish accents, or in some cases New York. He writes of all the doors that were closed in his face, when he needed help, but you can feel the tenacity with which he continued to move his life forward. There are many laugh out loud moments of little Frankie's adventures, and other times you may need to have the Kleenex handy.One thing for sure, you'll be thinking of Little Frankie McCourt for a long time after the read. Through thick and thin(mostly thin) this was a family rich with love. A love that is contagious.
I am very much looking forward to reading the next books, "Tis" and "Teacher Man", the "sequels".Thanks Mr. McCourt, for a wonderful time, spent with you and your family in Ireland.
Enjoy the Read....Laurie
also recommended:
Patient the True Story of a Rare Illne
Kirk Douglas The Ragman's Son An Autobiography
On the Road (Essential Penguin)
Book Review: Beg, Borrow, or Steal
Summary: 3 Stars
With the recurring theme of begging, starving, and deprivation, Frank McCourt tells of his childhood through mini vignettes in his memoir, Angela's Ashes, first published in 1996. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived 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," (11). Despite the sadness, Humor keeps Frank alive and vibrant. After he was born in New York, where his parents met and married, his family soon moved back to Ireland where they were originally from. The book starts off setting the gloomy tone with an alcoholic father of five kids providing no income to support the family. Being the oldest, Francis, also referred to as Frank, looks out for his younger siblings. However, even before the family moves back to Ireland, their youngest child and only daughter, Margaret, dies due to the family's harsh living condition. The children continue to beg, barrow, and steal food in order to survive, as their mother falls into a state of depression and continues to experience more hardships. McCourt shares his experiences in life through humorous tone while describing his depressing way of life. Francis tells the reader through the first-person narrative about his adventures and stories. Although his father repeatedly wastes his few earnings in the pubs, Francis and his brothers look up to their father and look forward to hearing his stories of heroic Irishmen. Within the memoir, McCourt's writing has the feel of a young boy and as he grows up his opinions on life develop to be more mature, giving you the feel that you are growing up along with Francis and are experiencing a similar lifestyle. Much lighthearted wit is found within Francis's school experiences, where he learns about his religion and common sense when dealing with the other boys at school. Francis comes down with a serious case of typhoid, requiring him to remain in the hospital for months where he develops a passion for Shakespeare. His interest in Shakespeare's work brings him to strive in school. Francis continues to carry on and preserver through life as he grows up...With the continuing cycle of lacking earnings brought home from Francis's father, Francis soon finds a job to support his family as World War I begins and his father is off in England looking for work. Even with the witty writing of McCourt, the strong depressing subject matter of McCourt's childhood brings an overall heartbreaking and distressing mood upon the reader, "When my mother sees Paddy on the street she says, Wisha, look at that poor child. He's a skeleton with rags and if they were making a film about the famine he'd sure be put in the middle of it," (120). After many family losses, home evictions, cold Irish nights, and foodless stomachs, Francis serves the family as a father figure and dreams of earning enough money to provide his family with food and clothing.Book Review: Captures Readers from the Very Beginning
Summary: 5 Stars
This book will grab readers from the first page. Picked it up at an airport and couldn't put it down. It definitely makes you rethink about what's important in life.Book Review: Depressing - Those Poor Children
Summary: 2 Stars
I read this story for a book club, and that sense of accountability was the main reason that I finished it.
The McCourt family's life did not have to be so bad, and the children did not have to be malnourished.
I know we have no right to judge others, but how could the parents keep spending what little they had on alcohol and cigarettes and give the babies sugar water to quiet them when they were hungry? Didn't the children deserve some kind of priority? Didn't this constitute child neglect?
Some of the children did make it, but oh, things didn't have to be that bad.
I must say, this book was depressing. Although, more power to the author for ending up alright despite his childhood impoverishment and neglect.
Book Review: Engaging read, surprisingly uplifting
Summary: 4 Stars
Frank McCourt chronicles the story of his life in the streets of Ireland, his family living a life of poverty and hard luck. Somehow, he is able to make what should be a bleak story uplifting with his wit, humor and straight-forward approach to telling a story. Sometimes he gives you TOO much of the story, things you would rather not have heard--but I guess this is because it is a memoir. There is a certain amount of haphazardness to his writings...there are many times where you have no clue where this is going. But, at other times, there is an effort to be sentimental about the few things he has in life, or the hope of better days ahead.
An interesting style McCourt uses to write the book, where he virtually uses no punctuation during the many dialogue scenes. He also has many, many run-on, wordy, and obtuse sentences that would probably have one of his master's in school up in arms. It took me awhile to get used to this "rambling" kind of style, and, as an English major, it almost had ME up in arms, but actually, after reading the book, the pace of book quickens because of this style. There was enough of a compelling and engaging story to care too much about punctuation, or lack thereof.
As far as content itself, McCourt's story was highly entertaining and somewhat touching. While the young Frank is at school, he meets one strict school master after another, and he deals with the peer pressure from some of his classmates. The young Frank tries to keep all of the disappointments and failures and embarrassments behind him by reminding himself that one day things will change for him in America. There are times when Frank goes to the library to escape the world, knowing that he can escape into a story: "It's lovely to know that the world can't interfere with the inside of your head." Frank also experiences some time in the hospital with fever and eye problems, and in his first visit he meets Patricia, a girl who teaches him poetry. When he gets separated from her for talking to her, it is one of Frank's saddest moments: "Nurses and nuns never think you know what they're talking about...You can't ask questions. You can't show you understand what the nurse said about Patricia Madigan, that she's going to die, and you can't show you want to cry over this girl who taught you a lovely poem which the nun says is bad." Frank also deals with the trials of being in a family with an alcoholic father who rarely comes up, spends up the family's earnings, and some other dysfunctional relatives. He keeps hope that one day things will change for the better.
While the story is highly engaging, one thing that irked me was the abruptness of the ending. Without giving too much away, the memoir just seemingly ends without any deep moment or thought. The incident with Frank and the woman--- is that suppose to be some momentous or life-changing event? It seemed kind of stupid to end the book right there. It also made the book seem a little uneven; after all, here is Frank preaching about how he wants to help his family in the future, and then what does he go and do in the book's conclusion?
Criticism aside, this is an enjoyable read, which I honestly didn't think would be possible based on what I had heard about the story. McCourt is able to intertwine humor and heart-break in a way I've never seen done before.