I am sorry that we have lost him. However, I did struggle to get two-thirds of the way through Angela’s Ashes and then gave up. I found the personal history and the account of the time and place memorable and affecting, but I guess I also felt worn down by the fact that it seemed to be the same finite sequence of events repeated again and again. I wouldn’t have wanted to live it, and I didn’t want to read it either.
It was that book that sent me off to read about Cuchulain, about whom the father, Malachy McCourt, liked to ramble on when in his cups. I bought a copy in hard cover, in Lady Augusta Gregory’s magnificent rendition. How I do love the graceful, glorious prose of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries! Even children’s books written in that period were creations of literary beauty. I think something of the character of that language infuses McCourt’s style and gives it a richness far above plain prose. I wish I had been able to finish the book.