Helmet For My Pillow

Helmet For My Pillow

By Robert Leckie

I'm going to cheat a little for this blog entry. My mother sent this book my way and left an interesting note inside the pages that seems to speak more about this book than any drivel I would have written. So instead of my usual bloviating, allow me to reprint my mother's note verbatim. It's way more interesting:

Fabulous book. I thought of (my) Dad and Uncle Bill throughout the entire read. Uncle Bill (Charles) died in 1975 in a road accident with his grandson. Uncle Bill married Aunt Lottie, a widow, and fell in love with her daughter (Irene P-----) and adopted her. You know Irene. Uncle Bill was fun loving and up for anything. I remember him as loving to play cards.

When the war started Dad got his mother to okay that he could join the Royal Navy (as the youngest son he needed his mother's okay). Uncle Bill and dad joined together and spent the war on all the same ships and subs.

Stories I remember:

Dad and Bill were invited to an elegant home in New York and both of them threw up all over the place as they were so drunk.

Bill finding Dad passed out drunk around a toilet in South Africa.

Bill and Dad on guard duty in San Francisco letting their shipmates back on board as they had left the ship unauthorized to party it up.

Bill so drunk on their return to the sub that he thought that the entrance to their sub was a pool and dove in. Dad says that was why he had a hearing problem.

This book was according to the stories I heard was as it really was.

Substitute the marines with the navy and I think Dad would have also agreed that it was a true account.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Love, Mom.

P.S. Dad always said the best looking women in the world are from Malta. I always wondered about that.

Did you know I was named after a British nurse when Dad was in the hospital in Britain. Also, he refused to meet the Queen when she was touring that hospital during the war.

My grandfather, Harrison Pelley, died in 2002 when I was 28 years old. While he was always a little reluctant to talk about the war, especially with my grandmother around, you could always get a few great stories out of him when he was alone. One of my greatest regrets in life is not taking the time to listen to more of his stories.

I miss my grandfather very much, but just a little more while reading this book.

Highly recommended.

Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

Look at me! I'm reading the most talked about book of 1996! Yes, I know my books aren't timely and most real readers have read what I read long ago, but please remember that I live in a place where access to English books is scarce and I am at the mercy of what I get from a variety of sources.

End of rant... on with the blog!

It's not that I didn't like Angela's Ashes. I did! I did! It's a searing yet heartbreaking memoir of childhood poverty in Ireland. Its themes of forgiveness and understanding and fragility are underscored by desperation and anger. It is a stark actualization of a specific period in Irish history and a brutal cross-section of life in the lanes. In short, it's a sublime piece of honesty.

But something troubled me about this book.

It's not that I didn't feel for little Frankie and his mother, Angela and all the kids (both living and dead). Every time Frankie's father didn't come home with the wages and the kids suffered from some class of hunger I would go to my own kitchen and marvel at my refrigerator and all the contents therein. Every time angela had to bury one of her kids i thought about how lucky my wife and I have been to have never experienced anything like that. Every time someone got sick with the consumption or typhoid I was thankful for my health benefits. I certainly wouldn't classify myself as a man living in the lap of luxury, but there is always food in the cabinets, money in the bank and time for the pint. Thank Jaysus!

It's not that I didn't enjoy the way Frank McCourt brought to life the abject poverty of Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s. His cast of characters from county Limerick are worth the price of admission from his hardened grandmother and Aunt Aggie to Uncle Pa, Theresa and his best friend Micky Malloy. I loved the way in which Frankie learns about the world by simply being in it and picking things up along the way. Felt bad about ll that Catholic guilt, though.

It's not that it wasn't well written. I enjoyed the childlike stream of conciousness and the way he wrote the entire memoir in the present tense so that we discovered his world along with him throughout.

I liked everything about this book. I thought it was one of the best books I've read this year and one of the best books (among many) that I have read about growing up poor in Ireland. There was just something off about the entire book. Something that, if left unresolved, was going to ruin any chance I would have of enjoying the book. So I sat down and thought hard until I figured it out: I've read this book before. No, not Angela's Ashes, specifically, but rather the story in general. Only the first time I read it it was called Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and it was written by a guy named Roddy Doyle.

It's a memoir. I'm not questioning McCourt's authenticity. Once I figured it out, I finished the book happily and enjoyed every page. It's a good book. But I found it strange that Roddy Doyle and Frank McCourt's stories could be so similar despite Doyle's being older and a piece of fiction.

I know, I know... books about growing up poor in Ireland are a dime a dozen. James Joyce, Leon Uris and others have done that theme to death, but still... I am currently working on a theory that Roddy Doyle may be in possession of a time machine.