Well, I'm surprised I finished it, though admittedly, the more abusive parts toned down a bit after the halfway mark, if not entirely. In some ways, Frank's increasing agency made it feel a bit less like he was merely a helpless victim of belligerent authorities.
I'm left with a sense of grief at the poverty and bitterness of so much of the people Frank describes. Curiously, I'm left with both theological and psychological griefs. On the theological side, I lament the broken, fear-based understanding of God and spirituality that he describes in many of the people. They seem to see God as angry and demanding, ready to smite and punish unless you follow the rules and rites. I get the sense that even should you receive absolution, this God is still watching and waiting - perhaps eager - to condemn you again the moment you choose wrong. To live under such a deity must be crushing. And yet, this also seems to be the character of much of the populace, and I imagine that only goes to show that we make God in our own image to some extent. Surely we all have twisted images of God, though I hope not as cruel as how this feels to me.
The one bright spot on the theological level are the occasional priests who are the only ones who actually show compassion to Frank in his greatest periods of internal struggle. The moments are brief and sparse, and Frank never fully grasps the meaning or significance of what is happening, but they are slivers of redemption and love in what seems to be an otherwise hostile, shaming world.
Psychologically, I lament the chasing after status that seems constant. The wealthy look down on the poor, shaming them and abusing them. People snipe at one another, pushing them down and harping on weaknesses and failings. Boys condemn one another for ignorance and mistakes. It seems a culture of endless attempts to hoist oneself up by shoving others down and pointing out that 'I'm not as bad as that one.' Relationships are not places of connection and care but spaces of comparison, opportunities to elevate oneself not through becoming better but by showing others as worse. It is a zero-sum game, but there don't seem to be cracks to escape this cultural prison.
Now, this is coming through Frank's perspective, so it's surely skewed, but even if so, that Frank should come out of this environment with this perspective is still telling. Perhaps it's not as bad as he seems to paint it; perhaps there were more redemptive, mutual, caring relationships than are immediately visible. Uncle Pa Keating may have been one. But the tenor of using others rather than loving one another is certainly the majority.
And I'm also left with a sense that there is so little emotional regulation in most people. This only makes sense if relationships aren't about connection; there is no safe place to learn such skills, so everyone is left in a constant state of defensiveness or hostility, and emotions have no way to be tamed but are just wild and chaotic. Frank's father's alcoholism is the first picture of this, needing drunkenness to manage his dissatisfaction with life and the inability to rein in his impulsiveness, not only with drink but with his foolhardy patriotism. At moments, he became fatherly in positive ways, but never enough. But others showed the same: Mr. Harrington's grief was understandable but wild in its careening from neediness to anger to shame and back. The woman who paid Frank to write letters for her business and her fear for her soul. Others' guilt and lust and anger are flung freely about. Frank describes early on his own moments of losing control and even awareness, and those instances are only extreme versions of what he is surrounded by, a population at the mercy of their storming and unpredictable internal worlds. In some ways, it feels like the antithesis of the stereotypical English stoicism and control, though it's clear that the English Frank describes were not actually any more in control of themselves. Frank depicts a people who were never taught to deal with their emotions or to rely on one another for stability. Perhaps I am laying a contemporary lens on a very different time, but I nevertheless grieve this people's struggles to love well and tame the forces that drove them so recklessly.
Am I glad I read this book? I'm not sure. The fact that I'm spending this much time writing about it surely suggests that it affected me. McCourt's writing is excellent narrative, capturing a feeling and character of the world he lived in and the childlike perspective he had, but it's a culture that is so painful to watch. It's powerful, clearly, and I applaud him for that. But I walk away grieved, and more, I walk away not feeling like there is anything to be done to redeem it. I don't have a sense of what to do in response, so there is no way to turn the grief into anything more. I sought out this book in part because I feel like so much of what I read is either purely scholarly or literary candy, and I hoped for something substantive but not purely instructive or informative. Did I get that? Maybe. I'm still working that out, I think.
I'm left with a sense of grief at the poverty and bitterness of so much of the people Frank describes. Curiously, I'm left with both theological and psychological griefs. On the theological side, I lament the broken, fear-based understanding of God and spirituality that he describes in many of the people. They seem to see God as angry and demanding, ready to smite and punish unless you follow the rules and rites. I get the sense that even should you receive absolution, this God is still watching and waiting - perhaps eager - to condemn you again the moment you choose wrong. To live under such a deity must be crushing. And yet, this also seems to be the character of much of the populace, and I imagine that only goes to show that we make God in our own image to some extent. Surely we all have twisted images of God, though I hope not as cruel as how this feels to me.
The one bright spot on the theological level are the occasional priests who are the only ones who actually show compassion to Frank in his greatest periods of internal struggle. The moments are brief and sparse, and Frank never fully grasps the meaning or significance of what is happening, but they are slivers of redemption and love in what seems to be an otherwise hostile, shaming world.
Psychologically, I lament the chasing after status that seems constant. The wealthy look down on the poor, shaming them and abusing them. People snipe at one another, pushing them down and harping on weaknesses and failings. Boys condemn one another for ignorance and mistakes. It seems a culture of endless attempts to hoist oneself up by shoving others down and pointing out that 'I'm not as bad as that one.' Relationships are not places of connection and care but spaces of comparison, opportunities to elevate oneself not through becoming better but by showing others as worse. It is a zero-sum game, but there don't seem to be cracks to escape this cultural prison.
Now, this is coming through Frank's perspective, so it's surely skewed, but even if so, that Frank should come out of this environment with this perspective is still telling. Perhaps it's not as bad as he seems to paint it; perhaps there were more redemptive, mutual, caring relationships than are immediately visible. Uncle Pa Keating may have been one. But the tenor of using others rather than loving one another is certainly the majority.
And I'm also left with a sense that there is so little emotional regulation in most people. This only makes sense if relationships aren't about connection; there is no safe place to learn such skills, so everyone is left in a constant state of defensiveness or hostility, and emotions have no way to be tamed but are just wild and chaotic. Frank's father's alcoholism is the first picture of this, needing drunkenness to manage his dissatisfaction with life and the inability to rein in his impulsiveness, not only with drink but with his foolhardy patriotism. At moments, he became fatherly in positive ways, but never enough. But others showed the same: Mr. Harrington's grief was understandable but wild in its careening from neediness to anger to shame and back. The woman who paid Frank to write letters for her business and her fear for her soul. Others' guilt and lust and anger are flung freely about. Frank describes early on his own moments of losing control and even awareness, and those instances are only extreme versions of what he is surrounded by, a population at the mercy of their storming and unpredictable internal worlds. In some ways, it feels like the antithesis of the stereotypical English stoicism and control, though it's clear that the English Frank describes were not actually any more in control of themselves. Frank depicts a people who were never taught to deal with their emotions or to rely on one another for stability. Perhaps I am laying a contemporary lens on a very different time, but I nevertheless grieve this people's struggles to love well and tame the forces that drove them so recklessly.
Am I glad I read this book? I'm not sure. The fact that I'm spending this much time writing about it surely suggests that it affected me. McCourt's writing is excellent narrative, capturing a feeling and character of the world he lived in and the childlike perspective he had, but it's a culture that is so painful to watch. It's powerful, clearly, and I applaud him for that. But I walk away grieved, and more, I walk away not feeling like there is anything to be done to redeem it. I don't have a sense of what to do in response, so there is no way to turn the grief into anything more. I sought out this book in part because I feel like so much of what I read is either purely scholarly or literary candy, and I hoped for something substantive but not purely instructive or informative. Did I get that? Maybe. I'm still working that out, I think.