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Author:
Frank McCourt, the author and main character of this novel was born in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York, as the son of two Irish immigrants, Angela and Malachy McCourt.
He grew up in Limerick (Ireland), from where he went to America at the age of nineteen.
After spending every spare minute reading books from the public library, Frank started a career as a high-school teacher.
He began writing about his childhood, when he was 60 years old and had told them many times to his classes at school and in some bars of New York.
His novel "Angela's Ashes" went straight into the best-seller lists and brought him the Pulitzer Prize.
Nowadays Frank lives with his wife, Ellen, in New York City.
Characterisation:
Frank McCourt:
He is the teller of the story and the eldest son of Angela and Malachy McCourt.
Frank has a close relationship to his younger brother Malachy junior.
He is very growing up for his young age and knows much about the world around him.
Angela McCourt :
She is the mother of Frank, a strong, proud and loving morther.
But she suffers a lot from losing children, Margaret, Oliver and Eugene who died.
She also can not cope with the alcohol problem of her husband Malachy.
Malachy McCourt :
He is the husband of Angela McCourt, an egoistic and disrespectful man.
Malachy also has a big problem with alcohol and boozes very ofte the family`s income support away.
The only person, who kept him from drinking once, was his little daughter Maragaret.
The grandmother:
She is the mother of Angela, a very religious, but sometimes unfriendly old woman.
The relationship between her and Angela is not the best, but the grandmother helps her a lot after the death of Angela son Eugene.
Summary of the story:
Malachy McCourt comes from Northern Ireland, but has to leave it in 1920. He goes to New York, where he gets to know Angela, who is sent there into exile by her mother. Angela and Malachy marry soon and do not see their forthcoming misery.
Both have never enough to eat, nevertheless Angela gets pregnant every year, till they have five children: Frank, who is the eldest one, the twins Oliver and Eugene and Malachy junior. Margaret, the youngest one and the darling of the father, dies a short time after her birth, because of tuberculosis.
The whole family goes back to Ireland when Frank is four years old, because everything in the house reminds them on Margaret and they also hope for a new start there.
First they can stay a few days at the house of Malachy´s mother, but in the end she tosses them out on the streets, declaring she has not enough space for them in her house.
Angela and Malachy find a scruffy flat in the slums of Limerick, which is far too small for them and which offers the same pitiful life as in New York.
Malachy is still without a job and continues to booze the family's income support. He also forces his children to sing old Irish freedom songs and to promise him, they would die for Ireland.
Angela has to beg everywhere for some clean diapers for the twins and something to eat. Frank just sometimes gets some fruits of a greengrocer or his mother's relatives.
There is also a big lack of hygiene, and fleas build a healthwise problem for the family, especially for one of the twins: Oliver.
One day he gets ill very badly and dies a few days later.
The family can not cope with that situation and Eugene stops laughing after his twin brother's death. He will never be the same again.
Angela sends her sons at Leamy`s National School, where they are called Yanks and get beaten by the priests, who have some sort of teaching function there.
Just a short time after his twin brother Oliver died Eugene dies because of a pneumonia.
The family does not want to stay in their house any longer and plans to search for another flat.
They find a house, which has two rooms upstairs, two downstairs and a toilet, that can be used by other house owners too. Their new home is the birth place for Michael, who gets also ill after his birth, but for sake not badly.
Frank's father finds work in a cement factory, and would earn enough money there to pay the bills, but he guzzles that money after pay day in a pub and loses his job a few days later.
When the second World War starts, and when Malachy´s wife gives birth to another baby named Alphonsus, he leaves her and the children to support his home land in that war.
The problem is, that Angela is not entitled to get the income support and that`s why Frank has to quit attending school, to earn some money for the family.
Frank finds a job as a "carbon supplier" for old people, which makes his relatives angry, because they expected him to be an employee.
Another issue between them, is the situation, that Frank has a girlfriend with 14. Her name is Teresa and she is 17 years old.
She suffers from tuberculosis and the doctors say, she will not survive her next birthday. It is her only wish to sleep with one boy or man, before she dies, and is also willing to pay for it. Nobody wants to grant her wish, because everybody is afraid of her illness.
But Teresa gets the chance to seduce Frank and to sleep with him.
They fall in love with each other, even if the other house owners believe, Frank sleeps with Teresa just for the money. Unfortunatly Teresa dies soon.
Frank`s biggest wish is, to go back to America, so he saves all the money for his future plan. He starts working for Mrs. Finucane, who ownes a second hand store, and writes reminders for her.
Mrs. Finucane has a "little" problem with alcohol, that`s why Frank makes her drunken every time, to steal some money of her.
With the stolen money he is able to go to America by boat and to grant his wish.
Personal opinion:
I do not really know, wheter I liked that book or not, because on the one hand I really enjoyed McCourt`s writng style, but on the other hand I got sometimes very sad, while reading.
But the optimisn of the main characters and the way McCourt told the story, namely in the view of a child, where the reasons, why I kept on reading.
All in all I just can recommend that book to everyone, who prefers books with a high standard.
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