Pages 0-90 Post - Adam

Dear Reader,

                So far, the book has been pretty confusing for me. It gets annoying at points because there are no quotation marks around any of the dialogue. Sometime I need to stop and go over what I had just read because I was not sure if it was dialogue or not.

                From the start of the book I like how he doesn’t try to make his childhood sound like a happy time. He comes straight out right away and says “It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while” (11). He knows that fact and doesn’t try to change it or make himself think differently. That is one of my favorite characteristics about Frank; he doesn’t lie, or change the facts that others might. From the very first page I realized that this book won’t be a very happy and exciting book. He life is horrible, “nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years” (11).  He says that other people complain, but no one has it as bad as him.

                This definitely made me think differently about my life, and how I am living currently. I get aggravated and/or annoyed with simple things. Like if we don’t have food in the house, I am most likely going to complain. After reading chapters 1 and 2, I thought differently. I shouldn’t be complaining if there are people out there, like Frank, who has it so much worse than I do. He had to sit through his whole life with his family and other factors falling apart and he doesn’t complain nearly as much as I would if I had to go do a chore. This makes me feel a lot more grateful and glad I have the things that I do.

                He is not the only character in this story that I feel bad for; I feel bad for his whole family. No one is living happily in that family, and each one is a different reason. I feel so bad for his mother because of the fact that Frank’s sister died. After that his mother got very depressed. I also feel bad for his father. I feel bad for him because “Malachy got drunk” (17) all the time. Most other people probably wouldn’t feel bad because they would say that it was his fault, or he can quit whenever. I do feel bad because once he does start, it is an addiction, therefore is hard to stop. I also feel bad for the kids, because they cannot help with any of this, all they can do Is live with it.

                I am hoping that as the book goes on, things will turn out okay, but I’ll just have to wait until then.

Sincerely,

                Adam