Frank McCourt is a Funny Guy

 

For my second independent reading book, I chose to read ‘Tis, by Frank McCourt. Freshman year, I read Angela’s Ashes, McCourt’s more well known memoir about his life in Ireland. I distinctly remember enjoying the book for McCourt’s clear sense of voice within his memoir. The experiences he went through were heavy with darkness, but tinged with his characteristic humor. Once again, ‘Tis is similar in the portrayal of McCourt’s hardships, but – using his words – he doesn’t “give a fiddler’s fart” about anything. And I like that. There’s no filter, it’s personal, and straightforward enough to be understandable.

So far, McCourt has given me a great point of view on his experience of immigration. America was always seen as a land of opportunities, so that’s what McCourt believed he would be granted with upon his arrival. However, in the beginning of the novel, he is met with one crushing disappointment after the other. It is the littlest of things like not being able to eat the leftovers in the hotel or having to turn off the light promptly every night because the landlord says so, but they add up to a skewed view of what America should have been. I do take comfort in the fact that McCourt does become a successful writer and teacher later on.

On a side note, I used to go to Stuyvesant H.S. and it was really interesting to see his perspective of students while teaching at Stuyvesant. I’m amused to see that Stuy students back then (when it was still a predominately boys school) do not really differ in their approach to education from the students today.