Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,332
I just read that Frank McCourt, the wonderful teacher turned author of Angela's Ashes and other memoirs (and writings) succumbed after a battle with cancer followed by meningitis. He was 78.
Dickens often created characters in his novels that one can describe as "sterling." In Great Expectations Pip's brother-in-law Joe Gargary (sp?) is one. Neuman Nogs in Nicholas Nickelby is another. These folks are invariably down to earth and of reduced circumstances and yet their selfess innate morality and the modest ways in which they practice it, brings real joy to the often troubled protagonists whom they befriend.
I think of McCourt that way. A man who came from very reduced--some would say horrific--childhood circumstances and migrated to America as a young man. He became a teacher, then was catapulted to fame after his first memoir Angela's Ashes, the story of his childhood in Dublin, was published. If you haven't read it, you should. It is beautiful writing that in its way is poetic, very much so.
Here's a few quotes:
He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace. - Angela's Ashes
After a full belly all is poetry. - 'Tis (A Memoir)
RIP Frank.
Dickens often created characters in his novels that one can describe as "sterling." In Great Expectations Pip's brother-in-law Joe Gargary (sp?) is one. Neuman Nogs in Nicholas Nickelby is another. These folks are invariably down to earth and of reduced circumstances and yet their selfess innate morality and the modest ways in which they practice it, brings real joy to the often troubled protagonists whom they befriend.
I think of McCourt that way. A man who came from very reduced--some would say horrific--childhood circumstances and migrated to America as a young man. He became a teacher, then was catapulted to fame after his first memoir Angela's Ashes, the story of his childhood in Dublin, was published. If you haven't read it, you should. It is beautiful writing that in its way is poetic, very much so.
Here's a few quotes:
He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace. - Angela's Ashes
After a full belly all is poetry. - 'Tis (A Memoir)
RIP Frank.
