Cover des Buches Angela's Ashes: A Memoir (ISBN: 9781616799304)
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Rezension zu Angela's Ashes: A Memoir von Frank McCourt

A memoir I won't forget

von Schlehenfee vor 7 Jahren

Rezension

Schlehenfees avatar
Schlehenfeevor 7 Jahren
„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.“

Reading this quote you would think that you're about to read a depressing and boring memoir of a boy growing up in Limerick in the 1930's and 40's.
But Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt is much more, it's funny, thought-provoking, ironic and yes, depressing and heart-breaking as well, when three of his siblings die in infancy for instance.

Born in America to a Northern Irish father, who loves drinking more than his family, and an Irish mother, his parents went back to Ireland when he was five. Frank's whole childhood is dominated by poverty, hunger, broken shoes and his father who spends his wages or the dole money in pubs and comes home singing Irish rebel songs.

„Angela's Ashes“ is told in a succession of little anecdotes about McCourts life, told like a stream of conciousness in the voice of the age of the narrator. This style is unique in my opinion, McCourt describes his experiences at the age of five like a five-year-old would. The reader essentially grows up with him.

Through Frank's eyes, we witness how life was among the poorest, the way the Catholic church and her teachings permeate every aspect of life, until thoughts of sin and doom are ingrained in everyone and thus the bad conscience he had as a teenage boy for „dirty thoughts“. The priests feign mercy towards the poor but despise them at the same time. Frank is denied entrance at secondary schools, which are run by the Catholic church, because he is poor and even though his headmaster puts in a good word for him. Still, Frank is optimistic and dreams of emigrating to America. In spite of the despair eminent in the book, our narrator is full of optimism and that makes „Angela's Ashes“ so memorable.
I really liked Frank McCourt's memoir, which also won the Pulitzer Prize in the 90's and recommend it to anyone interested in Ireland in the 30's and 40's.
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