Angela's Ashes

Hey there, guys! 

What are you up to right now? :)

I’ve been thinking really hard about what might be worth writing about Irish culture. I thought of wide-spread stereotypes – lonely green fields with sheep grazing on them in rough weather, ginger-haired Irishmen drinking Guinness in smoky pubs; you get what I mean, don’t you? – but somehow I was put off by the idea to enforce common clichés even further.

Then I tried to recall everything I was taught about Ireland in school (it’s a big topic in German high schools, we dealt with it for almost half a year). Mostly, it was about war, but I guess explaining the conflicts that have been going on for hundreds of years – Catholics versus Protestants, North versus South, Irish versus British – are far too complicated to be covered in one tiny blog post.

Eventually, another idea struck me: no matter how much I had learned about Ireland in school, nothing compares to what I was taught by Angela’s Ashes.

Angela’s Ashes is a novel by Frank McCourt and won the Pulitzer Prize. When I first had to read it in school, though, I literally hated it. For one thing, it has more than 400 pages, which can be quite daunting if you know you have to conquer them within three school weeks. For another thing, the story is not a happy one.

Angela’s Ashes is a memoir recounting McCourt’s strikingly poor childhood in Ireland. Written from the innocent perspective of little Frank, it displays mercilessly what life was like for him during the 1930s and 40s. His parents, both poor Irish immigrants living in New York, were forced to marry as Frank’s mother became pregnant. They decided to move back to their home country when the Great Depression struck. The years that followed read like someone added way too much drama to the story: the McCourts being rejected by their families and living under unbelievably poor conditions, Frank’s father becoming an out-of-work alcoholic, the children suffering from diseases and infections, three of them dying, the ones left stealing food and heating material to support their family. 

You see, all in all it’s not a cheerful story and I was nothing but relieved when I was finally done with it.

 

But then, half a year later, I found out that the story had even been turned into a movie (you can watch the trailer here). I wondered if I maybe only dreaded this book so much because I had been forced to read it, so I decided to give it another try. And it was worth it!

If you have a little background knowledge of what happened in Ireland at that time, Frank’s descriptions illustrate the situation in a very authentic and, because of his childlike innocence and honesty, a very humorous way. Hidden beneath all the misery lies the story of a little boy who, no matter how hard his life was, didn't lose the will to keep things going. Even more, he managed to fight it with a subtle kind of humor as his strongest weapon. 

If you ask me today, I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in finding out a little more about life in Ireland in the 20^th century. ...and this means a lot coming from the person who primarily doubted that she'd ever make it to the end of the book. ;)