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Title: It's a Long Way from Penny Apples by Bill Cullen ISBN: 0-7653-0710-3 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: The Anti-Angela
Comment: Bill Cullen is obviously one of the people who read "Angela's Ashes" and felt it was a negative representation of the Irish. On the advice of his local clergy, he has taken time out of his busy schedule to write "the Buke" as he calls it, the story of his poor Irish childhood and the polar opposite to "Angela's Ashes" in every possible way.
As most readers know, Frank McCourt opens his memoir with the re-telling of his conception: a "knee-trembler" in an alley following an imigrants dance in New York City. A few months later, Angela's angry cousins drag Malachy Sr. to the altar and history. Bill Cullen's conception is nothing so ignominous: he's conceived in church-sanctioned, wedded bliss, following his father's hard night as a hero,helping bombing victims in World War II Dublin.
"Angela's Ashes" is written thru the eyes of a child, in first-person narrative, vivid and haunting, with humor as black as a bog on a dark night. "...Penny Apples" is written in the 3rd person, with Bill Cullen referring to himself as "the young fella" or Liam. The only insights the reader gleans is that the Cullen family are all founts of wisdom,pillars of the Church, honest and hard-working, and beloved by all who know them. Humor? Laugh at themselves? Perish the thought, they're all too busy earning and praying to have a laugh!
The First Communion is a landmark in any young Catholic's life. Frank McCourt's is one of the highlights of his memoir, a hilarious recounting of the trials and tribulations of this momentous occasion. Bill Cullen's is summed up in a few paragraphs; the only reason it is mentioned seems to be for the opportunity for Cullen to brag that the most expensive tailor in Dublin made his Communion suit as a surprise for him, just because the tailor admired the Cullen family so much.
We learn, over the 357 + pages of "It's a Long Way from Penny Apples" that Bill Cullen was a paragon and a prodigy, a child who impressed every adult who came into contact with him, an athlete so talented that football recruiters tried to woo him to England, a child who simultaneously helped support his 12 brothers and sisters, won scholarships to prestigous schools and trophies for his athletic prowess. In each 24 hour day he somehow squeezed in Mass, working the family's street pitch, going to school, running errands, athletic practice, reading, social/Church activities...and all this on a daily meal of boiled potatoes, while sharing a bed with 4 brothers! He treats his mother("the Ma") with reverence, skipping school to help her feed and raise his 11 siblings. His grandmother "Mother Darcy" is evidently Mother Ireland in the flesh, having personally been involved in every possible event of note in 20th century Dublin as well as knowing everything about Irish history and human nature. Why, Mother Darcy was even friends with little-known brother of Adolph Hitler, Aloysius!
Bill (or "Liam", as he refers to himself thruout the book)is far from the only paragon in the Cullen family. The Ma, tho uneducated, is a whiz with figures. The Da has never had a drink in his life, and won't allow anyone else to have one under his roof. The Da has never earned a penny for himself his entire married life; he turns his unopened pay packet over to The Ma every payday. These pillars of the Church keep holy water by their front door, never failing to make use of it on the way out. They pray the Rosary together nightly, go to morning Mass and evening Church activities daily. The annual additions to the clan are welcomed with never a thought for some sort of birth control. I have no doubt that this book will become a staple of parochial school libraries.
I could go on, point by point, chapter by chapter. But the real difference between "It's A Long Way From Penny Apples" and "Angela's Ashes" is: Frank McCourt has written a masterpiece that will be loved by readers for as long as there are readers. Bill Cullen has written a self-serving bit of promotional "and then..." which will only be loved and cherished by his family.
Rating: 1
Summary: Forget this one
Comment: The profits from this book are going to charity. That is probably the best thing about this bloated, self-serving exercisein ego-enrichment. Mister Cullen is a remarkable man and he wants you to know that in a desperate way. He could have saved everyone a lot of trouble and just given the money directly to the charities. Mr Cullen tells the reader that he is not a professional writer. That wasn't needed.
Rating: 1
Summary: Indecision
Comment: I felt that author Bill Cullen could not make up his mind about what kind of book he was writing. In places it's a biography, toward the end it's a self-promotion, in the middle it's about marketing and bootstraps.
It's clear that the author is not a professional writer, as the prose is awkward, inconsistent, repetitive, and simplistic. I was also put off by the fact that he prefaced the book by declaring it to be a kind of Anti Angela's Ashes. While Angela's Ashes was unrelenting in its bleakness and hopelessness and despair, it was, unlike this book, masterfully written. Furthermore, who on earth is in a position to deny Frank McCourt his recollection of his experience? I don't think that Frank McCourt was making generalizations about everyone who is born Irish, poor, and Catholic -- that was not the reason he wrote his book. To think so is to miss out on the power of McCourt's story, his ability with the written word, and the subtleties of his humor.
Regardless of the different kinds of childhood they wrote about, McCourt's telling was so much more sophisticated and finessed than Cullen's. Cullen's story just plodded along, pounding into the ground his themes of faith, prudence, hard work, and rewards.
The only reason I kept plowing through it is because my mother is from Ireland, and so I enjoy reading books about life in Ireland in the first half of the 20th century.
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Title: A Dublin Girl: Growing Up in the 1930s by Elaine Crowley ISBN: 1569471371 Publisher: Soho Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Halfway Home : My Life 'til Now by Ronan Tynan ISBN: 0743222911 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Tea and Green Ribbons: A Memoir by Evelyn Doyle ISBN: B0000AACV8 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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