Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

I have recently finished reading one of the most compelling stories that I have ever read and was truly moved to read of such heart ache and pain and to think that it is all actually true. The sad thing is the author of this masterpiece remains strong to his roots to this day and writes about his childhood in a way that would put many people to shame for complaining about the childhood that they have had! The author in question is Frank McCourt ...
...landed back on the Emerald Isle to Limerick for what seemed to be less than an easy childhood. McCourt writes about that childhood with what seems to be great passion, he quotes on the cover of the book as follows: ‘When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive 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, ...

Squidget 13.06.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

...heaps? I digress, but Angela's Ashes produced yet again negative reactions. Oh it started off well, a poor Irish immigrant family living in Brooklyn during the depression, moving to even more poverty in Limerick, Ireland with intolerant and uncharitable relations who do not take kindly to the alcoholic husband from the North of the Country who has moved there with his wife and children in the hope of a better future. Written in the present tense, ...
.....towards him. In summary, Angela's Ashes is an account of one boy's impoverished childhood which begins in New York, moves to Ireland and ends with him returning to seek his fortune back in America at the age of l6 following his first pint in the local pub. If you like rather depressing tales of hardship and woe then this is the book for you. If however you're like me and enjoy a tale with some pace, meaning, and characters that you can breathe, ...

ANNJSEC 25.04.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes is a book, and now film, of the childhood memoirs of Frank McCourt. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and has been given praise by critics all over the world. It is the first of two books by Frank McCourt, both are memoirs. This book covers his life from 3 to 19 years old. The sequel, 'Tis continues the story onwards. Characters Frank McCourt (author) Frank is (obviously) the main character. When the ...
...in Limerick where many of Angela's relations live. Within a few years, the two twins die; firstly Oliver. Eugene then becomes depressed and dies soon after. Frank goes to school and at the tender age of 14 leaves to get a job, why, because his alcoholic father can't get a job because of his northern accent and when he does, he drinks it all. The next 5 years see Frank trying to raise money to go to America where the streets are paved with gold ...

christopherj84 03.04.2002 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

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, ...
...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 ...

dave27 04.08.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

This is another film and book I have seen/read both. I have covered both really in this review as they are silmilar and both excellent and compelling, however the book goes into more detail so I tended to favour this. This is about poverty in Ireland and how a family cope through the eyes of a young boy, Frank McCourt. It tells of the pain and hardship suffered and the indignity of seeing his mother beg for food. Although this makes it sound somber, ...
...poverty stricken parents, who are trying to get you school shoes , as you wear none, and the inspectors calling to validate the claim, find they have ’’gone to Italy’’!! Confused ..well this is the name for the upstairs rooms, they have to reside in due to flooding in the lower rooms. Also a funny yet sad moment, is when they realise the mattress they are all sharing is flea ridden, they are seen stamping the mattress in the ...

wENDIEWOO 01.05.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Angela's Ashes is more of an experience than a book. It was one of the most heart-wrenching things that I've ever read. Had it been a work of fiction, I'd have thought 'My God, what a good read'. However, knowing that the author, Frank McCourt lived through this story makes those tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise. Set in the slums of Limerick in the 1940's, Angela's Ashes is the story of how a young boy, namely Frank McCourt grew up and made ...
...pride in her children. Angela's Ashes takes the reader on an emotional roller-coaster ride through the life of this young boy. I laughed at his achievements and cried at his defeats. The book is written from the heart, and with every word written, you feel closer to Frank. Hoping that he will find his dreams, praying that his life will get better. I won't spoil a great story by telling how it all pans out. Suffice to say that it is well worth the ...

Anna-Marie 05.09.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

That a man alive in our own time could have such a tale to tell of poverty and deprivation is bad enough, that he was living in Europe is worse in many ways, because its so easy to develop the happy illusion that we're somehow more civillized - well, if this book is anything to go by, we aren't. Frank McCourt was born in America during the depression, the eldest child of 7, three of whom did not survive. He tells us he was the product of a one night ...
...passing encounter. It's not exactly a loveless marriage or home, but it isn't one built on the firmest of foundations. McCourt's memoires follow his family's return to Ireland, their desperate search for somewhere to live, their extreme poverty and the harsh environment they live in. The prejudice displayed in this book is incredible - McCourt senior hails from the North of Ireland, and no one in the South takes kindly to him -admittedly not helped ...

Bryn_Pearson 24.07.2003 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

...Such was the case with Angela's Ashes. As a true lover of fiction, I had not ventured into the world of non-fiction for quite some time. Angela's Ashes impressed upon me that a story is all the more poignant when it has happened, and when the author has felt all the pain, the sorrow and the joy of his words. Non-fiction is often equated with truth, but we must remember that autobiographies are not fact such as you would find in a history book. For ...
...that you get in reading Angela's Ashes. The most beautiful thing about this personal narrative is that somehow, in the end, despite all the suffering McCourt endures, it is a joyful recount of a childhood. McCourt's book is depressing simply by the recounting of events in his life--twin brothers dead in Ireland, the one girl McCourt dead in the U.S., a Father's abandonment and adultery with the drink. By all accounts this should be the most horrible ...

dyon.peoples 16.09.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

This book grabs your attention right from the start. The book is told through the eyes of a child, Frank McCourt, and tells the story of his childhood in America and then when he goes back to Ireland for a better life. It begins with an introduction to each parent and a bit of history on where they came from and how they met. The story begins with the McCourt family in New York. Frank tells you how he grew up with his mum, dad, and brother and what ...
...York. But his dad is more interested in staying at the pub than providing for his family, the story then tells how his dad often looses his job, from where he has turned up to work with a hang over or hasn’t even bothered to turn up from work. Any spare money goes on his beer instead of his family. Through the story you can see that Malachy breaks his promises all the time and gives out false hope to his family. Frank and his family lived in ...

Minx78 08.07.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

...It feels in the book Angela's Ashes, as if he is talking to you personally. This is a journey of a poverty-stricken childhood, that begins in one of the poorer areas of New York, then moves down into the dark "lanes" of Limerick, Ireland, during the depression years of the 1930s. Though Frank's childhood was filled with despair, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, illness, and was spent in a slum dwelling of the very worst kind, nowhere does Frank bemoan ...
...axe to grind. From page one through to the end of the book, Frank tells his tale with a wry humour, and his childhood oscillations from vulnerability to tough kid and back again, are a delight to read. What for me shines through greatly in the book is that despite living in desperate conditions and despite Frank's father being a bit of a waster, there is a massive pot of warm-hearted love in the family. Frank's father may spend all his wages in ...

CelticSoulSister 27.10.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

...to life's unfortunate circumstances. In Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt paints a picture of one such miserable childhood. Growing up dirt poor in Ireland, the McCourts were a sad lot in the eyes of many, but somehow managed to weather the hardships that they were plagued with, even if barely. McCourt overcame the obstacles in his path and managed to succeed in life. His reflections on his childhood, while candid, are a beautiful mix of sadness and ...
...enduring spirit of the human soul. It also champions the innocence of childhood. McCourt's sequel 'Tis, released in 1999, is an account of his adult life after leaving Ireland for America. I am looking forward to reading it and think it will present a fine balance to Angela's Ashes. ...

VeeZee 24.06.2000 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

After reading “Angela’s Ashes-A Memoir of A Childhood” by Frank McCourt I found myself intrigued by his description of the story, as told through the eyes of a young Irish child living within an impoverished family. Against all odds he never loses his sense of humour and fight for survival. I would like to examine more closely how Frank McCourt achieves this by looking at the style of his writing and the themes he deals with. The main theme that ...
...families deal with this problem and how people can be changed by money. Looking at this issue from a child’s point of view adds more interest to the book. The idea of having no money scarcely entered into Frank and his brother’s minds. When their house became flooded they enjoyed splashing in the puddles and moving everything upstairs. They even considered their enforced eviction to the upper room ‘like going away on our holidays to a warm foreign ...

avril321 02.11.2004 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Hello! It's me again! :p Why I have titeled my opinion this way is because of the fact that we really have another point of view, I mean if you live in Vienna. I have been to Ireland once, to Letterkenny, with school but I think you can't compare Limerick and Letterkenny! Okay the story of the book: Angela and her husband Malachy McCourt went back to Ireland from New York because of the fact that there was no chance for a man like Malachy - no ...
...the other - to get a job and bring money home for the children. He had 3 kids, 2 boys and one girl. The girl died soon after her birth. This was one of the main reasons why they went back to their home - Ireland, the green Island, with the opportunity to start a better life. But they weren't welcome at their families and so they had to live from the start on their own, alone, without any help. It was hard and very triste because there was no job ...

Lilian-the-Great 06.09.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

This is a very powerful and quite emotional autobiography of Frank McCourt’s life from his birth to being an Irish youth. The book recollects the poverty that he lived in and the efforts people will go to, to protect their children. It also recalls the sadness that alcohol can bring and how true love may never disappear even after abuse or sadness. It passionately details Frank’s personal torment, as he is a male child growing and gaining new experiences ...

fkeay 20.09.2000 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

No seriously, I mean it - this book is every bit as good as spending time at the wonderful place that is ciao.com. And as we all know, this takes some doing! I have to admit that at first this book did not appear to be my kind of thing, and I actually only decided to read it when I was recommended it by a fellow slave (sorry, employee) at work. As work happens to be a library I thought that the recommendation was probably a sound one and so followed ...
...For those of you unfamiliar with this work, "Angela's Ashes" is a memoir of childhood, set in Limerick in the 1930s/40s, and which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize. As the author himself says, it was a miserable childhood, but then who wants to read about happy ones? It describes the authors parents (Malachy and Angela), the births and deaths of his siblings, illness, schooling, catholicism, migrations and above all the utter grinding poverty and misery ...

Collingwood21 15.03.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt