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octavia_cade 's review for:
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt
A strong argument for social welfare, birth control, and divorce, this is the frankly horrifying story of McCourt's childhood. As one of the charity workers come to inspect their home offers, it's more akin to life in a Calcutta slum than anything else. (I wanted to reach through the pages and slap the useless father - don't know where he ended up, but I hope it's somewhere rotten.) The stranglehold religion had on that culture drags like an anchor. Reading about how teenage McCourt had to go around his delivery job ripping out newspaper pages that related to contraception was deeply frustrating, given how badly the entire impoverished community was in need of it.
It's kind of astonishing to think that a life like this is living memory for some - although clearly it is for many still in less developed parts of the world.
The real strength of this story, though, lies in the voice. It'd be easy for this to descend into misery-porn, and yet it doesn't. That's due to the very controlled narrative. It reads as easy and ignorant, a perfect child's voice, but it can't have been a simple thing to replicate. A lot going on under the surface there I think.
It's kind of astonishing to think that a life like this is living memory for some - although clearly it is for many still in less developed parts of the world.
The real strength of this story, though, lies in the voice. It'd be easy for this to descend into misery-porn, and yet it doesn't. That's due to the very controlled narrative. It reads as easy and ignorant, a perfect child's voice, but it can't have been a simple thing to replicate. A lot going on under the surface there I think.