Tuesday - September 26, 2006
Angela's Ashes
*** a boy's chronicle of poverty.
Irish Catholic depression era poverty.
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
(1996)
Okay, it was the second book in a row i spent inside a boy's head and it made me downright claustrophobic. Again, it was a sad story on so many levels. But at least Frankie has a sense of humor, and that was the book's saving grace.
Frankie gives a brutally frank description of his family and their lives from the beginning of their story in Brooklyn, desperate flight back to Ireland and years of squalor (yes!) until his final return to the States.
By his account he was a good-hearted, abeit strange, child who pretty much had the goodness sucked out of him by the evils of the world, so when he finally landed back in America - directly into the set of Desperate Housewives - he was not too good to indulge in that American Pie.
It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd hoped for an ending more like Le Lay Hayslip's (When Heaven and Earth Changed Places- an AMAZING book ), who went back Vietnam to visit her relatives and vowed to help them. Le Lay told a magnificent story, but her purpose was to inform. McCourt is a storyteller, more comfortable perched on the best seller list than at the head of an international humanitarian organization.
If it wasn't quite so crude I would want my kids to read this so they stop whining about what's for supper or having to do chores.
Okay, it was the second book in a row i spent inside a boy's head and it made me downright claustrophobic. Again, it was a sad story on so many levels. But at least Frankie has a sense of humor, and that was the book's saving grace.
Frankie gives a brutally frank description of his family and their lives from the beginning of their story in Brooklyn, desperate flight back to Ireland and years of squalor (yes!) until his final return to the States.
By his account he was a good-hearted, abeit strange, child who pretty much had the goodness sucked out of him by the evils of the world, so when he finally landed back in America - directly into the set of Desperate Housewives - he was not too good to indulge in that American Pie.
It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd hoped for an ending more like Le Lay Hayslip's (When Heaven and Earth Changed Places- an AMAZING book ), who went back Vietnam to visit her relatives and vowed to help them. Le Lay told a magnificent story, but her purpose was to inform. McCourt is a storyteller, more comfortable perched on the best seller list than at the head of an international humanitarian organization.
If it wasn't quite so crude I would want my kids to read this so they stop whining about what's for supper or having to do chores.
