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Rating: WHAT A COUNTRY, AMERICA
I've always been bothered by leaving a bite on the plate. No, not because while I'm eating, I start thinking about children dying of hunger in the third world. More simply, when I start something, it seems logical to me to finish it. I struggled to read the last pages; I couldn't get up on the pedals to start the final sprint. That innocent handful of pages increasingly took on the contours of the fearsome hairpin turns of the Mortirolo. In fact, my gaze, with each turn of the page, always ended up in the same place: down to the right, to check if the speedometer was increasing and the finish line was finally in sight. Consequently, I had to give it a K.O. due to fatigue after a liquid pit stop, in the middle of the night, capable of giving me the necessary verve. It might seem like the prelude to a very negative judgment and instead "What a Country, America" I liked, even though it could be compressed into a smaller and lighter brick. The reason is easily explained: the author doesn't have a great story in his hands. No, it's not a spectacular hydrogen bomb, not even an old reliable crate of TNT, but only a firecracker whose pathetic noise can disturb only the deathly silence of a library. Seen from this point of view, the situation, you will agree with me, changes. And not a little.
How did Frank McCourt manage to constantly entertain me for a week in the evenings after work, if he spoke to me about his entire life, which offers nothing, absolutely nothing to originality and curiosity? Immigrated from the rainy, green, and gloomy Ireland, our poor wet chick goes to New York full of hopes and fears. The adolescent skin and bones, with perpetually red eyes, has to try to make a go of himself and achieve success in a country totally different from his own. To describe this, McCourt uses the proven formula of comparison.
If you take a photograph to highlight the subject you've decided to focus on, you will naturally look for a contrast to emphasize its beauty. Because white painting on a white background may also be art: an undisputed masterpiece of genius by contemporary parameters, but beauty, since the world is world, has always revealed itself with ugliness, light with shadow, and so on. And it is precisely in such a proven manner that Frank unravels, between a beer and a lesson at school, his life. We are with him in the provincial dirty and grimy hole of Limerick, and then, with a modest leap, just a paragraph lower, we cross the ocean in the general indifference of the Big Apple, where you almost don't exist. Cultural, physical, accent, cooking differences are overly magnified and turn into sixth-degree cliffs to climb without safety ropes. Even eating a slice of cake and drinking a soda at the cinema becomes a reason for passionate interest for an entire chapter, as if it were the description of a bank robbery.
For its structure and linear plot, "What a Country, America" appeals mainly for the author's way of writing. He manages to capture attention with a fast-paced narrative, often pleasantly vulgar and full of precious black sarcasm with which he paints the saddest and most difficult parts of his life. McCourt has the talent to find, describe, and highlight the clumsy and pathetic that characterize the everyday.
The sharp self-criticisms that Frank subjects himself to for the countless decisions he made, always wrong, which he describes to us with meticulous attention and amusing demeanor, are also delightful. If we could take the events that form the chapters of the book and, like fortune-teller's cards, lay them naked and raw on the table where you now have your nice pc connected, the final result would be a gray story, largely depressing; with only some timid bursts of sunshine destined to be quickly covered again. The author's approach, instead, makes us laugh heartily even while skimming over themes like racism, alcoholism, separation, integration, career, and the climb up the social ladder.
Having said that, once you appreciate the way McCourt writes, lacking a solid hook to hold on to, the banal story inevitably diminishes the hunger for pages towards the end of the book. The very colorful secondary characters, like that of the Italian shoeshiner, aren't enough to keep the level of attention and interest intact until the end. I'd like to leave you with a comparison, thus giving stars, but the much more famous "Angela's Ashes" I haven't read yet. I can therefore only imagine that it follows this style and probably enjoys greater brilliance having been nurtured and cared for longer. Nonetheless, "What a Country, America" is a good example of how you can write a tantalizing and enjoyable book without having anything astounding or original to tell.
ilfreddo
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