Baby blanket begun
I went shopping with my parents today, and although I didn't find any other clothes to suit me, I did find two excellent pairs of bras, and I also got the yarn for the baby blanket, and some yarn for knitting socks for my mom. So that's something. Dad bought me a directory of stitches and other knitting techniques, and it looks very promising. I seldom come up with any patterns of my own, so it's nice to have a bunch of new ones to try out.
The book for today is the long-awaited Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, which I've talked about last week, and even before that, because it happens to be one of the few biographies I've read, besides being a wonderful read. It's not wonderful in terms of the subject matter, because McCourt describes a childhood living in extreme poverty, first in New York and later in Limerick, Ireland, his family being Irish. It boggles the mind to read about the misery of lice, hunger, babies dying of flu and pneumonia, being punched around by teachers and classmates, and feeling that there would be no way out of it, ever. To cap it all, the Catholic church of Ireland at that time (before and during WWII) seemed to specialize in making the poor feel guilty for grumbling. You were supposed to be content with the station in life where God had been pleased to place you, even though it meant starving.
McCourt is a great storyteller,
and the people he grew up with are portrayed vividly: his father, who was poor but too proud to beg, who made his small boys promise to die for Ireland, when he came home drunk, and who told Frank the story of Cuchulainn, a mythical hero of the Celts.; his mother, who seems to have been a realist, with a wry sense of humour, and great spirit; his uncle, who was dropped on his head when he was little, and never learned to read, but who could hide a jam jar so well that Frank never knew where to look for it; and his headmaster, Mr O'Halloran, who tells the boys in his class that the Irish did bad things too, and that you have to make up your own mind, but that you can't make up an empty mind.
I don't quite know why I enjoy this book so much, for all the misery, grief, and dirt it describes. I prefer, as a rule, to read about relatively happy people, who are unhappy because of one or two things. The McCourts have plenty of reasons for unhappiness, but there isn't a word of complaint in the narrative. They see the world as it is, and somehow manage to enjoy themselves in spite of their circumstances. It's a lively story, written in simple language. and the light that illuminates the dark pages is hope. There's always a way, and there's something to look forward to. It's a message everyone needs to hear, I think. A Finnish literary critic said of Angela's Ashes: "It makes you laugh almost all the time when it doesn't make you cry". There's no pretense of any kind in the book, somehow, it just tells you how it was, and what it felt like. Things aren't glossed over, but they aren't dramatized, either.
This kind of writing is its own genre nowadays, harrowing descriptions of difficult lives, a kind of social pornography, as we call it in Finland. I think the success of books like Angela's Ashes contributed to this new Dickensian style of memoir. I'm not very interested in harrowing childhood descriptions, as a rule (as you can probably deduce from my own upbeat style of writing), but they have their place, and I think they make for therapeutic reading for some people, whether they have been in similar circumstances or not. But then the feeling I get from McCourt's book isn't "I had a miserable childhood, and I'd like to cash in now, please". There's no hatred for the English, no dramatic conversion to atheism because of the poor treatment McCourt received from some priests, and, as I said before, no complaints of any kind. It's just the story of an ordinary boy, who went through a lot, and survived it. I think the way to sum it up is "If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like".
I've spent a total of two hours on the phone today, talking with two of my friends, and now I've spent an hour writing. I think it's time to go back to knitting, and to spend the rest of the evening without any sort of communicative output. I'll see you again tomorrow, I hope, and answer another 50 questions of the neverending meme. Have a nice week!
The book for today is the long-awaited Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, which I've talked about last week, and even before that, because it happens to be one of the few biographies I've read, besides being a wonderful read. It's not wonderful in terms of the subject matter, because McCourt describes a childhood living in extreme poverty, first in New York and later in Limerick, Ireland, his family being Irish. It boggles the mind to read about the misery of lice, hunger, babies dying of flu and pneumonia, being punched around by teachers and classmates, and feeling that there would be no way out of it, ever. To cap it all, the Catholic church of Ireland at that time (before and during WWII) seemed to specialize in making the poor feel guilty for grumbling. You were supposed to be content with the station in life where God had been pleased to place you, even though it meant starving.
McCourt is a great storyteller,
and the people he grew up with are portrayed vividly: his father, who was poor but too proud to beg, who made his small boys promise to die for Ireland, when he came home drunk, and who told Frank the story of Cuchulainn, a mythical hero of the Celts.; his mother, who seems to have been a realist, with a wry sense of humour, and great spirit; his uncle, who was dropped on his head when he was little, and never learned to read, but who could hide a jam jar so well that Frank never knew where to look for it; and his headmaster, Mr O'Halloran, who tells the boys in his class that the Irish did bad things too, and that you have to make up your own mind, but that you can't make up an empty mind.
I don't quite know why I enjoy this book so much, for all the misery, grief, and dirt it describes. I prefer, as a rule, to read about relatively happy people, who are unhappy because of one or two things. The McCourts have plenty of reasons for unhappiness, but there isn't a word of complaint in the narrative. They see the world as it is, and somehow manage to enjoy themselves in spite of their circumstances. It's a lively story, written in simple language. and the light that illuminates the dark pages is hope. There's always a way, and there's something to look forward to. It's a message everyone needs to hear, I think. A Finnish literary critic said of Angela's Ashes: "It makes you laugh almost all the time when it doesn't make you cry". There's no pretense of any kind in the book, somehow, it just tells you how it was, and what it felt like. Things aren't glossed over, but they aren't dramatized, either.
This kind of writing is its own genre nowadays, harrowing descriptions of difficult lives, a kind of social pornography, as we call it in Finland. I think the success of books like Angela's Ashes contributed to this new Dickensian style of memoir. I'm not very interested in harrowing childhood descriptions, as a rule (as you can probably deduce from my own upbeat style of writing), but they have their place, and I think they make for therapeutic reading for some people, whether they have been in similar circumstances or not. But then the feeling I get from McCourt's book isn't "I had a miserable childhood, and I'd like to cash in now, please". There's no hatred for the English, no dramatic conversion to atheism because of the poor treatment McCourt received from some priests, and, as I said before, no complaints of any kind. It's just the story of an ordinary boy, who went through a lot, and survived it. I think the way to sum it up is "If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like".
I've spent a total of two hours on the phone today, talking with two of my friends, and now I've spent an hour writing. I think it's time to go back to knitting, and to spend the rest of the evening without any sort of communicative output. I'll see you again tomorrow, I hope, and answer another 50 questions of the neverending meme. Have a nice week!