Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

I had no intention to read this. It had been sitting on the pile for more than a year, until I had enough and chose it for the non-fiction challenge. See, I moan about the restrictions of challenges, but sometimes they help overcome some unreasonable blocks about some books we've had for ages. Like Angela's Ashes. In my head I had the notion that it was gonna be an immensely depressive read. I've seen the movie a while ago, and it was, immensely depressive. All the blog reviews I had read agreed. Very sad, unbearable, even boring.
But they must have read a different book, because I ended up enjoying it very much, I even found myself laughing and smiling quite often. It must be because of the language. Even when it recounts the most incredible hardship, it always has its very Irish way of telling it.
You have to get used to it, though. Especially because the prose doesn't use any quotation marks, which I didn't find confusing, but might require some adjusting at the beginning. I thought it added to the musicality and the flow of the narration.
So, the book, as many of you might know, is about Frank McCourt's childhood:

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, ot course, a mirerable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood

Forget about plot. This is hardship after hardship, in Limerick in the 1930's. Drunk father, depressed mother, constant hunger. While I was reading it I kept thinking how lucky I was that I could eat anytime I wanted! Not something I will take for granted again.
The story recalls Frank's memories from when he was 3 and still in America, to the Limerick years of poverty and rain. McCourt's memories are incredibly detailed, even during the early years. Indeed, you could wonder how he knew that much at only 3. So, I just assumed that at least these early memories were partially fictionalised to fit the story.
I understand that reading about what it is about doesn't sound very appealing. Who wants to read about endless sufferance, dirty rags, cold winters and rainy summers? About queues at the dole, dead babies, stinky alleys and broken shoes? I wouldn't. But again, it's how you say it that counts, not what you say. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece of writing, but it was certainly entertaining.
Few examples: Grandam is a grumpy, hard soul, who never stops going on against protestants. But she managed to make me laugh when Frank's mother had just had yet another baby and there were fears it will die without being baptized.

Grandma is there to help and she says, That's right, no hope in heaven for the infant that's not baptized.
Bridey says it would be a hard God that would do the likes of that.
He has to be hard, says Grandma, otherwise you'd have all kinds of babies clamorin' to get into heaven. Protestants an' everything, an' why should they get in after what they did to us for eight hundread years?
The babies didn't do it, says Bridey. They're too small.
They would if they got the chance, says Grandma. They're trained for it.

Another favourite part of mine was Frank's composition called "Jesus and the Weather" which its last paragraph was:

It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him. The end.

The conditions in which Frank's family managed to survive were unbelievable. I'm not surprised he left the country as soon as he could and never wanted to come back. If even half of what he tells is true, it would have been enough to drive anyone insane, or bitter at least.
But there was often a comic side of their miseries. Once their house was so cold that Frank and his little brothers Malachy and Michael run out of wood and decided to burn the wall that divided the two rooms in it. When the rent man saw what happened he wasn't pleased:

He says , Great God in Heaven, where's the other room?
Grandma says, what room?
I rented ye two rooms up here and now there's one. And what happened to the wall? There was a wall. Now there's no wall. I distinctly remember a wall because I distinctly remember a room. Now, where is that wall? Where is that room?
Grandma says, I don't remember a wall and if I don't remember a wall, how can I remember a room?
Ye don't remember?Well, I remember. Forty years a landlord's agent and I never seen the likes of this. By God, 'tis a desperate situation altogether when you can't turn your back but tenants are not paying their rent and making walls and rooms disappear on top of it. I want to know where that wall is and what ye did with the room, so I do.
Mam turns to us. Do any of ye remember a wall?
Michael pulls at her hand. Is that the wall we burned in the fire?

I can't help but laugh. The book is full of these tragicomic situations, which make the unbearable even funny, sometimes.
Ok, I didn't find it impossible to put down, but when I did pick it up I enjoyed it. i didn't expect it to, so it was a very pleasant surprise, which should teach me something about prejudices and expectations. Only, I know I would make the same mistake again. It's just too good to be surprised sometimes.

other blog reviews:


Peruse Peach
Well above average
Trish's Reading Nook

Let me know if you've reviewed it too and I'll add it to the list!

There's an egg in my soup...and other adventures of an Irishman in Poland - Tom Galvin

Up until two years ago I had no idea that so many polish people were in Ireland. I think I was in living on the moon. There's polish shops, polish newspapers, polish restaurants, polish signs in the banks, polish adds in the streets. An estimated 300.000 polish people are currently living and working across the country.
And I had no clue! Typical.
But anyway, when this book came out, it looked too funny not to give it a try. And it was, funny. Without being disrespectful or snobbish. No, this guy really loved Poland, so much that he stayed there for five years!
Tom Galvin went to Poland in the mid '90s to teach English in a State School for a year, and he ended up staying for four more, and marrying a polish woman in the meantime. So, it's less of a "travel" writing book, and more of a "stay-and-mingle-with-the-locals" kind of book. Which is essentially what I did. I meant to come to Ireland for a year, and I'm still here after four...
What I liked most about this book was its readability. I didn't expect a non-fiction book, about someone living abroad for few years, to be gripping. But it mostly was. It was a very quick and enjoyable read, which I would definitely recommend, even if you don't plan to travel to Poland anytime soon.
Some of the funniest parts were at the beginning, during his acclimatization stage, where he describes his struggling attempts to:
- buy food
- enjoy a cooked polish meal in a restaurant.
- hide empty bottles of beer in his coat.
- avoid the canteen meals.

One of my favourite part was his description of the butchers in his town: Butcher Nice, Butcher Nasty, Butcher Nervy and Butcher Nephritis. All women and all scary, except for Butcher Nice, of course. Here are my highlights:

Butcher Nasty is to animals what Satan in to God-fearing Christians. Mean and tight and with a stare that would stop a cuckoo emerging from its clock, she cuts cold meats using cheese-wire and a ruler.

Butcher Nervy is a schizophrenic. Although she works alone, I distinctly heard her talking to her 'assistant' one day when I asked for a pound of sausages...The type of character that would have floated around the mind of Hitchcock...

Butcher Nephritis's shop looks and smell like a leper's graveyard. But Butcher Nephritis is really a kind old soul, a typical country butcher, and perhaps only for this have the tools of her trade not been confiscated and herself locked away in a walk-in freezer for a minimum sentence of ten years.


I also laughed out loud when I read about his first night out in a proper restaurant:

The second course is "tatar", a serious disappointment, having starved all day for it. Tatar, I'm told proudly, is a typical 'delicacy', consisting of raw, minced beef mashed with raw onion and crowned with the yoke of a raw egg. It strikes the fear of God in me. I later learned that God was right to have struck his fear in me, as I'm told of a man who got a tapeworm from the stuff.

Yeeewww!

But the best part must be the "customised" buses. I don't know if they still exist,but I wish I could go to Poland just to experience a ride on them:D

Unlike most public transport systems, in which a driver might travel different routes and on different buses, Polish drivers usually have the one bus for the duration of their careers. They tend to customise it according to their tastes, with stickers, pendants, crosses, picture of Jesus and the Pope, and of course, their own stereo and music collection. In the majority of cases, the music is a brand known as "Disco Polo", a poorly produced imitation of nineties continental disco with a hint of Polish folk thrown in. The result is unsettling.

Now, except for the customised buses, I'm not sure I would want to spend such a long time in east Poland as Tom Galvin did (you see, now I even know that the west of Poland is reacher than the east!). I understand now why so people left as soon as they could. It didn't sound like a place that offered a future for young people,especially in the rural areas. But I really wish one day to go as a tourist, at least now I have a slight idea of what to expect!

The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire- Arundhati Roy

The time has come, the Walrus said. Perhaps things will get worse and then better. Perhaps there's a small god up in heaven readying herself for us. Another world is not only possible, she's on her way. Maybe many of us won't be there to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen carefully, I can hear her breathing.

This is a collection of essays, speeches and articles written by Arundhati Roy between 2002 and 2003.
Reading them has had a huge impact on me. I can’t call it exactly an eye-opener experience, because my eyes were already open, on a lot of the topics Roy talks about. I don’t claim to be an expert on international politics, neo-liberalism or imperialism. But her arguments on war, global injustices and world poverty are familiar grounds for me. My first anti-war protest was in 1991, when I was 10 or 11. I’ve attended three European Social Forum, I’ve been to countless demonstrations and meetings. I’ve always wanted to make the world a better place, and I believe that “another world is possible” is not just a nice slogan.
It’s just that recently I have withdrawn from all this. Now I want to start to read more, to be informed and have good arguments to use when confronted with someone who supports the war on terror, or neo-liberal agendas. It’s not enough to say “was is wrong”. You need facts and figures. And you need to know what you’re talking about.

Arundhati Roy definitely knows what to say and how to say it. She writes about Iraq and the Middle East, about Chomsky and Bush, about everyday people struggling for their right to exist. She writes about this and so much more, with confidence and passion, and even humour.
If you think politics talk is boring, think again.

I must admit that even if I believe that people can always make a difference and that it’s better to do something than just sit and watch, my faith in the power of protests has had some ups and downs.
In February 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq, millions of people, all over the world, got on the streets on the same day, and said no to war. All over the world. 800 cities. 60 countries. It was a global protest of unprecedented scale. And it still didn’t physically stop the war. Not that year, not the year after, and not the year after that. So, what’s the point?

Arundhati Roy, even before February 15, in her speech “confronting empire” in Porto Alegre, had said:

We may not have stopped [Empire] in its track – yet - but we have stripped it down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now stands before us on the world’s stage in all its brutish, iniquitous nakedness. Empire may well go to war, but it’s out in the open now – too ugly to behold its own reflection.

This is why I needed to read this book. With beautiful words, she urges everyone to have an opinion, and possibly do something to bring change, even a small one.
She is compelling and moving. She sent shivers down my spine more than once.
I can’t recommend this book enough.

Non-fiction Challenge and Meme

I was looking forward to the Non-fiction Challenge 2008. I think I need a reason to read some non-fiction, and without a challenge I don't think I will ever be able to abandon my comfortable novels so I'm happy that it's finally up at Thoughts of Joy.
The Rules are HERE
I don't have a full list yet, but I'll come up with some more later.
For now I have:
Current Affairs: The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy - I've had this for ages, it's high time I read it!
Biography: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - same as above
Travel Writing: There's an Egg in my Soup by Tom Galvin - It's about the experience of an Irish Man in Poland in the 90's. The Polish population in Ireland is amazingly big, therefore the need to learn more about their country and culture.

I might add something for History, True Crime, more Current Affairs (I've never read No Logo by Naomi Klein and this might be the right time), or possible some more biographies.
I have time till may to come up with something and the list can change anytime.

Edited: I've come up with 4 more titles!
- Little Girls in pretty boxes by Joan Ryan. It's about the hidden world of elite gymnastics and figure skating. It's almost a text book for any gymnastics fan, even though it casts a dark light on my beloved sport, I think I have to read it.
- No Logo by Naomi Klein. Another title I need to read!
- The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium: An Englishman's World by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. Daily life in the year 1000, should be interesting.
- Female Chauvinist pigs - women and the rise of raunch culture by Ariel Levy. I've been wanting to read this for a while now.
There. I like my new list. I'm not sure I'll be able to read them all but I'll do my best!


So, since I'm here talking about Non-Fiction, I figure I'd do this meme I've seen everywhere, created by Guatami at My own little reading room!

a). What issues/topic interests you most--non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that has nothing to do with novels?
I'm interested in many topics: art, biographies, mythology and folklore, politics...
I LOVE cookery books, especially those with beautiful pictures. I also like handcrafts and knitting books but I don't have many because I find knitting books hard to understand!

b). Would you like to review books concerning those? yes, of course, I like reviewing anything I read.

c). Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? Tell reasons for what ever you choose. Definitely!! It would be a dream job, second only to writer and editor.

d). Would you recommend those to your friends and how? Yes, why not. If I think a friend would be interested in the topic I would probably buy it for them or just talk about it a lot!

If you have already done something like this, link it to your post. I've reviewed Nadia Comaneci's autobiography and that'it, for now.

f). Please dont forget to link back here or whoever tags you Nobody did, I tagged myself!