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Summary: A Triumph of Language and of Spirit
Review: Frank McCourt had six brothers and sisters, all baptized in the same lace dress. Only three survived their brutishly poor childhood in Brooklyn and Limerick. Frank not only survived; he triumphed--and he produced this work about the triumph of spirit and the triumph of language. McCourt is a great storyteller, and these stories about his life through adolescence are wonderfully written. It may even be that his ability to detach and see his life as a tale to be retold accounts for his triumph over his station. But make no mistake about it: these are stories. It is impossible for the reader to tell where literal truth--even remembered truth--ends and where the embroidered story begins. At some level, perhaps, it may not matter, because we love the audacity and freshness of each of the stories so much. Whether or how much of it is apocryphal is hardly relevant, since it is so well told. In essence, this is the adult version of how Mr. McCourt would have, should have, must have seen the world as a child. One theory of human dynamics says that we fulfill our perception of others' expectations of us. Frank McCourt thinks we think he is a witty, resilient, triumphant storyteller. And so he is. I'm just not so sure that we know what he really felt as a kid growing up in Limerick, which is where the lace dress in which he and his siblings were baptized was made.
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Summary: Two Thumbs Up for The Memoir of Frank McCourt
Review: Angela's Ashes is the wonderful memoir of Frank McCourt, born during the depresson in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son to emabattled, Irish immigrants and raised to endure poverty after moving to Limerick, Ireland. It is a story of abuse, neglect, and tragedy. Yet Frank, the eldest son, lives to tell his tale with humor, eloquence, and remarkable compassion. The book is deeply moving, being such a combination of many melancholy and humorous feelings. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir is nothing short of a future classic.
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Summary: DEPRESSING YET UPLIFTING, AND YES ITS HILLARIOUS!
Review: What a depressing yet uplifting tale told from the eldest childs perspective (Mr Frank McCourt) narrating his families harrowing life in hilarious detail while growing up in Limerick, Ireland. Dispite their tragic circumstances, Frank and his brother (I hesitate to use family, youll see why when you read this excellent story for yourself! ) manage to rise above it all using humour and streetwise intelligence to see them through. Their Mother and Father never manage to cope well, both trying to run from their problems instead of facing them, thankfully dispite all the awful things they go through Frank is able to colour the greyness of their lives with his brilliant mind. Franks description of family and school life is so funny that rather than weeping tears and bemoaning their fate (and there was plenty to cry about! believe me! )I was laughing instead, this is a sure sign of excellent writing, that though you sympathise with their circumstances, your able to laugh freely, even when their lives are at their most desperate. Thankyou Mr McCourt for this Depressing yet wonderfully told tale of an Impoverished Irish/Catholic family (certainly made me appreciate my own upbringing all the more! )BUY IT READ IT JUST GET IT NOW! , ITS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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Summary: A memoir like none other...
Review: Frank McCourt is an artist: his medium is language; his pallet is the world. In the sense of being a true artisan, McCourt has recreated his life as a poor child growing up in Ireland with a realism that is unparalleled. Assisted by an amazing survival story, McCourt uses a style of writing that brings you right into the shoes of little Frankie. McCourt is masterful at evoking the gambit of emotions from the reader. He implants in the reader a seed of hope-the hope that Frankie will be able to overcome the adversity that he meets almost every day of your life. This book gets put down once-when you are done. Highly recommended for any reader.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: It is amazing that a man could live through the things Mr. McCourt did and not only find the courage to write about it, but to be humorous and uplifting about it. The child in the book knew his lot in life and still enjoyed it. What a lesson for us all to appreciate the things we have and love those around us while we have them. This book was inspiring and oddly enough, although it was terribly depressing in many parts, it was genuinely uplifting as well. The courage and strength of Frank and his mother and brothers should be a lesson to us all that there is always a bright side to life if we only look for it hard enough. I would recommend this book to anyone.
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Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: This is the saddest, most depressing, funny story of survival I've ever read. The McCourts live in the most dismal poverty imaginable in Limerick, Ireland. The father is a drunken bum who cannot hold a job but is a wonderful storyteller and a good singer. Whenever he gets a job he only keeps it until the first payday because he goes on a drunken binge. The mother, Angela always has hope that he will change. They are on the dole and have to beg for help from the church. Frank and his younger brothers have to go out and pick up bits of coal in the streets of Limerick. At Christmas, Angela and Frank and Malachy (six and five years old) go to the butcher to beg for meat for their Christmas dinner. The butcher gives them a pigs'head wrapped in newspaper. Frank has to carry it home. The bloody newspaper falls away and the neighbors can see what he is carrying and that they won't have a decent dinner for Christmas. Their father can't go out and beg or pick coal bits from the streets because it is beneath his dignity. Throughout his childhood Frank always has hopes and dreams of a better life. He is forced to commit petty thievery many times to help his mother. The Catholic Church shuns the family although they are very devout. Frank is a good student but there is no one to help him further his education after grade school. He goes to work delivering telegrams and writing letters for a loan officer when he is fourteen. It takes him five years to save enough money to pay his way to America. The book ends as he reaches America. He apparently got a college degree and taught writing at the high school level. This is a fascinating book and one that I will not forget easily. Frank McCourt found humor in the squalor of his childhood and I was amazed at the eternal optimism his family had.
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Summary: This book was really really helpful to me
Review: Angelas Ashes is a fantastic book. It shows us just how good we have it. It is a great memoir both funny and forgiving. Frank McCourt is stunning and will leave an impression on every readers mind. It's about a boy living in poverty that has a drunken father and a begging mother. He has an abusive teacher and abusive relatives. He lives in an ally where everybody throws their wastes to the streets,and smells rank all the time. To read this book you have to understand it from the beginning to the end. I would recomend this book to ages 15and up, because it was hard for me to read and understand and i am only 14.
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Summary: A textbook on surviving poverty.
Review: Via his childhood memories, Frank McCourt offers a poignant, unflinching view of a poverty so grinding and oppressive as to certainly be almost unimaginable by most readers. Indeed, I had to frequently remind myself that the years described were endured not in some pestilential Victorian-era slum, but in the mid-1900's. My only criticism is the lack of an epilogue to the story. What ever happened to the elder Malachy McCourt, Frank's father, a devastating testimonial to a life wasted by alcohol abuse and a peculiar melancholy which is endemic, I suspect, to the Irish? And Angela, Frank's mother, a sure candidate for sainthood if measured by her daily struggles to keep her children fed and alive? I hope God blessed Angela's ashes and rewarded her with riches in heaven. Oh, and the book is much better than the movie adaptation (3 stars) as the former has better continuity between events, though the latter has stunning visuals and superb acting performances.
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Summary: What Else Can I Say? I Loved This Book!
Review: I don't usually read this type of thing but someone loaned it to me so I thought, let's see what the fuss is all about. It's worth the fuss. McCourt's prose is so descriptive you can smell the atmosphere (and the dirty people). The humor comes at moments you least suspect. If I had to complain about anything it's that it doesn't go on longer.
Rating:
Summary: A Touching Recollection...
Review: "Angela's Ashes" is a poignant, gripping story that reveals the the strife of poverty, but also shows us that humor and love can exist regardless of the circumstance; that all of us have the ability to look above our stations in life to what we want to be. This is a treasure of a book that touches the human spirit. Everyone should read it!
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