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Get tips on theatre and art from other Mumsnetters on our Culture forum.

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I know I'm a bit slow but aren't 'Angela's Ashes' and 'Tis' wonderful books??

25 replies

moondog · 02/08/2008 19:14

Wept like a baby at end of Tis and had to take a shower to calm myself down.

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moondog · 02/08/2008 19:15

Feel so bad, only just getting over 20 year aversion to all things Oirish after going out with one drunken specimen in uni.

Read both in about 4 days.

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Spagblog · 02/08/2008 19:17

I didn't enjoy Tis as much, but both great books.

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ByTheSea · 02/08/2008 19:18

I loved 'Angela's Ashes' and liked 'Tis' a lot. It's been years since I read them though.

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Pruners · 02/08/2008 19:18

Message withdrawn

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moondog · 02/08/2008 19:20

Twas original miserly lit therefore acceptable.
Sotender and eloquent. Father such a selfish bastard, drinking away the money while they literally starved.

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TheQueenIsDead · 02/08/2008 19:21

They're fantastic books, especially Angela's Ashes.
Pruners, they're not misery lit. They're a memoir of growing up poor in ireland and they're full of humour. No-one was abused in them.

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TheQueenIsDead · 02/08/2008 19:22

Unless you count the dad drinking away all the food money...

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moondog · 02/08/2008 19:23

They were.Teachers beat the crap out of them.
Such astartling example of English as repression. I want to pick up Frankwith hisbad teeth and sore eyes and kiss him better.

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moondog · 02/08/2008 19:23

Soz, not English, mean religion

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CuckooClockWorkShy · 02/08/2008 19:25

I did love them, but I think that he's since admitted he exaggerated their poverty a teensy bit. His mum DID queue up at st vincent de Paul for charity clothes and shoes, but they were not HUNGRY or cold on a regular basis..

I agree queen, different from a misery memoir because the tone was not 'poor me look what I have overcome'. Not to knock other authors' experiences. I know some people have lived through some dreadful stuff.

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moondog · 02/08/2008 19:26

Am in love with Frank.

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TheQueenIsDead · 02/08/2008 19:32

I forgot about the teachers. And the priests.
Does it show that I haven't read them for a while?

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DeeRiguer · 02/08/2008 19:45

i enjoyed angela's ashes more that 'tis, to be sure..
the film spoiled it for me
dont see the film its kwrong-ish

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deanychip · 02/08/2008 19:48

my all time fav book is Angelas ashes, have read it over and over and over.

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moondog · 02/08/2008 19:49

God, would never sully experience by watching ashite monie, oh no.

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deanychip · 02/08/2008 19:51

When the twin died,then you turn the page and the other twin died as well...the beer resting on the small white coffin,
and the sugar bowl and the granny saying "we are not millionaires"!
i laughed allot in parts, but held my breath with awful shock in others.
fab book and i jsut love his style of writing, its so easy to read.

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ExterminAitch · 02/08/2008 19:57

it's TOTALLY misery lit, just unrelenting... sometimes TERRIBLE things happen on one page and you just can't believe that on the next something tops it. (usually the death of a sibling). i remember being totally sucked in, but Tis kind of spoiled it for me. in a weird way, the fact that the location was at least a bit recognisable meant that any bogusness shone through, whereas in AA it was totally convincing. (until you read what his brother wrote about it mostly being self-serving bollocks).

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ExterminAitch · 02/08/2008 19:58

lol x-posted with deanychip. i was trying not to spoil that bit...

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moondog · 02/08/2008 20:00

Did bro say that?

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ExterminAitch · 02/08/2008 20:02

aye, but frank said he was just a jealous old boozebag so who to believe?

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moondog · 02/08/2008 20:03

Franksoundslike aregular barfly himself. Spending 4 years with a hopeless Irish drunk really put me off them until lovely hols there last year.

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suedonim · 02/08/2008 20:25

Interesting that Frank Wotsisname is now saying he exaggerated as I didn't really believe it all in the first place. There are some dreadfully sad parts, which I'm sure did happen but it was all those bl%dy cups of tea out of jamjars that got tovme - ober-egging the omelette, I thought.