C'ho questa voglia matta di andare in Irlanda che non mi si scolla più di dosso.Giuro, saranno due o tre giorni che rompo le scatole ai miei con 'sta storia. Sono sorpresi, visto che a me dell'Irlanda fino a poco fa non me ne poteva fregar di meno. Il potere dei libri. Se c'è una cosa che è riuscito a far bene McCourt è descrivere il suo paese, e ora che mi sono affezionata a questa storia, non riesco a far nient'altro che pensare al mio nuovo obiettivo: l'Irlanda. Leggere Le ceneri di Angela è come mangiare qualcosa di nuovo, particolare, da un sapore nè dolce nè amaro, e nemmeno salato. Uno di quei sapori che non si è capaci di descrivere, ma che sa un po' di tutto. Di salato, dolce, amaro, e tutto quello che ci viene in mente. Magari si mangia con gusto, ma non con foga, ci si pulisce, ci si alza dal tavolo soddisfatti, e il pensiero per un po' non ritorna su quel sapore nuovo. Poi ecco che qualche giorno dopo ci si ricorda di quella nuova esperienza culinaria, e...nasce l'assurda voglia di mangiarne ancora, e non per forza con un limite. All'improvviso ci rendiamo conto che non vorremmo mangiare altro, che il resto ci è indifferente. Come quando io vado in fissa con il cioccolato. Eh, la stessa cosa. Sì, sì, lo so. Non è che posso fare sempre paragoni col cibo, ma è la cosa che mi riesce più facile. Ho finito il libro ieri a letto verso mezzanotte, con tanto di odioso sottofondo di cartoni su Rai Gulp (nella mia lista nera, nella mia lista neraaaah). Ho chiuso il libro in un gesto piuttosto automa, e sono rimasta lì muta. Non capivo se mi sentivo male o non mi sentivo e basta. L'ho appoggiato sul comodino, ma mi ero accorta che non riuscivo a mollarlo lì. La mia mano non ne voleva sapere, non si staccava. In un altro gesto automa l'ho lasciato là, di fronte, e mi sono girata dall'altra parte. Il tutto si è trasformato in una parodia del "non lasciarmi". Mi sono rigirata dopo due secondi e tempestivamente ho riappoggiato la mano sul libro accanto. Sta' qui, McCourt, io non so come mi sento, ma tu sta' qui, eh. Non muovere un passo, che ti vedo. Sono diventata di colpo molto premurosa, continuavo a girarmi per toccarlo, da brava mammina preoccupata. I libri non scappano, ma non si sa mai. Con queste rivoluzioni tecnologiche continue è pure possibile che presto avranno veramente vita propria.L'infanzia di Frankie non ha avuto apparentemente nulla di straordinario: un bambino irlandese come altri, non è un prodigio o un genio incompreso, è solo un bambino che sinceramente racconta la propria storia. E dopotutto, se io adesso arrivassi e cominciassi a raccontarvi la mia, apparentemente poco straordinaria, pian piano magari raccoglierei persino dei fan, degli appassionati. Se fosse stata la vita della mia vicina di casa pettegola forse no, ma Frankie dopotutto ha cuore ed è intelligente. Sono già due ottimi ingredienti per una bella storia, no? E aggiungiamoci la ciliegina sulla torta: Frank McCourt è anche capace di raccontare bene. E aggiungiamoci un'altra premessa, tanto per fare il pacco completo: nel suo piccolo di episodi assolutamente singolari ne ha vissuti. Non avrà scoperto l'America, ma se voi sapeste quanto è stata piena la sua infanzia e adolescenza. E poi l'Irlanda, waaaah. Che scenario. Sto passando nel dreaming mode. Torno subito. Non so se rende la similitudine, ma questo libro è stato come uno di quei amici che vedi sempre, una di quelle presenze costanti e allo stesso tempo apparentemente poco importanti.Invece non è così, perché dando per scontato il fatto che saranno sempre con te, ecco che arriva il giorno in cui non si presentano. E la loro assenza pesa come un masso piombato giù dal cielo all'improvviso, e tu in realtà ti senti anche un po' cretina. Perciò ecco come difendersi: McCourt, sta' qui eh. Io non ti dimentico.
tAngela’s Ashes is the first of three memoirs written by Irish author Frank McCourt. Angela’s Ashes was published in 1996, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The story was made into a film directed by Alan Parker in 1999. Frank McCourt begins his story with the tale of how his parents meet in Brooklyn, New York. When Malachy gets his mother Angela pregnant with Frank, she marries him and the two start their life together in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Angela gives birth to three more sons while in Brooklyn; the second son is Malachy, followed by twins Oliver and Eugene. Malachy Sr., Frank’s father, proves to be a hopeless alcoholic who cannot hold onto a job for more than a few weeks at a time. Some motivation to improve his behavior comes with the birth of a daughter, Margaret. When Margaret passes away in their Brooklyn apartment, only a few weeks old, the McCourt family moves back to Ireland, where twins Oliver and Eugene both die within a year. Two more sons Michael and Alphie are born in Limerick, into a gritty world of discomfort and suffering.tFrank McCourt’s story is an absolutely miserable one. He opens the novel explaining the extent of the misery that was his childhood. “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.” The McCourt family eventually settles into a less-than-comfortable house on a sorrowful lane in Limerick. The lane shares just one lavatory among all the houses, which happens to be located in the McCourt’s backyard. In addition to the cold and the rain, the McCourt family has to endure the stench of their neighbors dumping their sewage on windy days. Angela McCourt is left with no other option than to beg for the dole and handouts from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Malachy manages to drink away all of his wages in the pubs, and still cannot hold onto a steady job. During World War II, Malachy travels to England to work at a defense plant, yet he still manages to waste all of his money, and only sends wages home once. The McCourt children have one set of clothes and a pair of patched shoes each, struggling to live off of very little in their damp, cold climate. tAlthough Frank’s story is desperate and sometimes unbelievable, it is full of good humor and adventure. The reader is certain to find themselves laughing out loud many times throughout the course of the book, and there are countless quotable passages between the covers. As a memoir, this book is particularly interesting because it is McCourt’s real account and interpretation of his childhood. He paints a beautiful picture with his words, telling what was going through his mind as he grew up in brutal conditions in New York and Limerick. McCourt recounts the days when having an entire egg to himself for breakfast was an exciting and noteworthy luxury, and his clothes were held together by his mother’s obvious stitch work, while some children in his class had no shoes at all. McCourt’s voice and rhythm are very distinctive, and I would definitely rank him among my favorite storytellers. Angela’s Ashes is a powerful masterpiece which tells a true story about pain, hunger, desperation, love, heartbreak, and, above all, strength. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read which is full of humor, but also very meaningful.
What do You think about Angela's Ashes (2005)?
Thanks for your comments. I want to read a book I can recommend to my book group, who are religious, and I cannot recommend a book, as good as a story as it sounds, that talks a lot about masturbation. Is it really necessary to the story line? I will never know. Thank you.
—Alicia
I have to admit that I didn't love the first third of this book but I realize the information gained there made me enjoy the rest even more. At times, this book was a beautiful dark comedy, "There is nothing like a wake for having a good time," and I think that some day I might make my kids promise to die for Ireland. Near the end, the young boy is trying to figure out what adultery is by looking it up in the dictionary; he is forced to look up new words with each explanation he finds and the result it priceless. There is also a part where an old man has the young boy read A Modest Proposal. I love that essay and just read a parody of it within another parody, The Sorrows of Young Mike. I love books which reference the piece and would appreciate people to let me know any other works that mention the satire in the comments below.
—Jonathan Ashleigh
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.
—Eric Althoff
