Angela’s Ashes, a Pulitzer prize winning book for biography or Autography category, about Frank McCourt’s childhood in Limerick. It is about the hardships that he himself, his mother and his siblings had faced there, and how there American accent had affected their lives in Ireland.
The story starts with his father and mother getting married in America, and then how they were forced to move to Limerick, where he (Frank) had spent his childhood. He had aptly described the problems that his mother Angela and he had faced because of his father, a drunkard, and how they had led their lives in those trouble times.
The book is good, but the most surprising thing (or rather annoying and sounding racist) to me in it was the mention of India, or rather using India as a benchmark for comparing any lowly thing.Let us look at the following lines, where a character is talking about fleas – "I have to be careful standing here for if one of them gets on my clothes I might as well invite his (fleas) whole family home. They multiply faster than Hindus" But, I may only say that author must have also considered the multiplication rate of his family, for he himself has 6 brothers; and this in fact is not the only case but , there were five or six similar instances where comparison is made to India or Indian people.
I am a bit choosy about reading books, and to be very frank I chose this book only because of the following comment- "Ever once in a while, a lucky reader comes across a book, that makes an indelible impression, a book you immediately want to share with everyone, around you…..Frank McCourt’s life, and his searing telling of it, reveals all we need to know about being human"
But, frankly speaking, I didn’t feel anything like that, the reason for that may be his style of writing, the language is weird, not actually weird but one must also say great, as author has tried to do justice with the Irish accent of English. Moreover, a little part of the book was all about church, communion… and that had really bored me.
On the whole I would say that, if you have patience you can read this book, or else don’t pick this up.
Book review submitted by Chetan
“They multiply faster than Hindus”
I laughed at this line.
I thought Hindus were the slowest…!
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lol …. ya Hindu growth rate implies slow growth rate
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Whats da joke guys? I dont seem to get it. Hmm! Or is this some guy thing.? BTW Not all author are same. Some do refer positively. Eg the lost symbol
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Mani Padma,
Hindus, if they had a population growth rate as implied by the author of the book, would probably have over run this world… as opposed to… you get the point?
I don’t know if LR understood it correctly…
No offense intended to anyone or any…
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@Mani
Its no guys only joke
just taking a dig at the book author.
@Ambi
I understood it ..
Even in economic parlance, Indian economist use “Hindu growth of rate” for slow growth rate
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Dig at the author for not taking reality in to consideration…
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this is nothing,you will laugh more, if you read all the comments about India,
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If you keep aside that one sentence I loved this book. It presented such a true picture of Ireland. The poverty and despair have been woven in quite beautifully.
In spite of so many hardships. Mccourt does not sound defeated anywhere. I would recommend this book.
Plus Indians get mighty itchy when somebody says something disagreeable about them. I too am an Indian and a hindu…but I preferred to overlook this sentence to read a wonderful book.
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@lazy pineapple
You are infact right, that the book is beautifully written, and has done justice to the culture and living style of people, of which it intend to represent.
But, the benchmark that author chooses to express his views, didn’t impress me.
It not at all hurt me as an Indian, but somewhere his descriptions became ironical in the story
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