The good old days ... seen through splendid rose tinted glasses, all jumpers for goalposts and long summer evenings, the joy of the simple pleasures. Those grand old days...
This book puts that litany of lies firmly to bed in the starkest, cruellest, grimmest way possible.
As books go, this is the most morbid, depressing, cheerless one of them all and if you're desperate for a good cry then check out this tale of a poor Irish family from the 1930s, living on the very edge in appalling conditions.
At the same time it is an absolute masterpiece, a wonderful, wonderful exposure of prejudice, the religious divide and the total poverty that lay behind Ireland's Republican movement. Books of this magnitude come along rarely and I'm sorry if you're expecting some of the normal dave27 cheery lines - humour is totally out of place when thinking about something like this, although while it is a desolate and desperate, desperate book, it is also one of the warmest, sincerest, most genuine works you will ever have the pleasure to read, with some splendid lines and kids being kids.
Consumption and typhoid and TB and death are constant bed fellows of this unhappy breed, with the little baby daughter dying within pages of the start credits and a couple of luckless twins follow soon afterwards. Stark and in yer face reality bites in a way which is unusual in this day and age.
Alan Parker made a very emotive recreation of Frank McCourt’s autobiography, which tells the tale of the Irish McCourt family, who flee their adopted home in the USA and return to Ireland, where their mixed marriage (Southern Irish wife, Northern Irish husband) leaves them particularly unloved. The book won a Pulitzer Prize.
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SPOILER TIME ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Angela of the title is the mother of the family, and Frank McCourt is the oldest son.
The film begins in 1935 with 7 week old Margaret dying and the poverty stricken family opt to return to the Old Country, but they receive a cold welcome from their family when they return to Limerick, the rainiest town in the world. The scenes in the one up one down, flooded hovel they manage to rent are distressing and when the father does manage to get any work (which is very rare) he drinks away his earnings and quickly loses the job. Eventually, he travels to Coventry in England seeking work and leaves his family to their own devices.
Young Frank starts to earn money, first as an adolescent assistant to a miner, although he has to give that up when he contracts an appalling case of conjunctivitis. He later gets a job as a telegram delivery boy and also writes threatening letters for the local money lender, before leaving Ireland to seek his fortune back in the States. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SPOILER TIME OVER ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a wonderful, wonderful piece of literature, and the film is a major piece of cinema, quite effecting and I challenge you to watch it without at least one tear – the ladies won’t, I know that much.
Frank McCourt in the film is played at three different ages by Joe Breen (the young Frank), Ciaran Owens (the middle Frank), and Michael Legge (the older Frank). Each of them give excellent performances and are outstanding, eclipsing both Robert Carlyle as the fatherand Emily Watson as Angela. It’s an epic, sprawling history that captures Thirties Ireland and the intense poverty there to perfection.
I went into my first viewing of ‘Angela’s Ashes’ thinking I was going to despise it, but I absolutely loved every minute of it, even the blackest moments.
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Hi, I know this was a serious op, but I have to laugh at the bit about Limerick being 'the rainiest town in the world'. I come from Limerick and I'm always having Irish people asking does it ever stop raining in Limerick! :-) It's just funny to see it now on a UK site. Good op. Bye, Susan.
Aug 4th, 2001
very helpful by (100%):
