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blogra235 · 3 years

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A Monk Swimming

A Monk Swimming. New York: Hyperion, 1998. Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2010. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. By Malachy McCourt. Alachy McCourt, the author of this amusingly intemperate memoir, 'A Monk Swimming,' is a younger brother of Frank McCourt, whose. A Monk Swimming: A Memoir (Hardback) Malachy McCourt. Published by Hyperion, United States (1998) ISBN 10: ISBN 13: 983. New Hardcover Quantity available: 10. Seller: Book Depository International. (London, United Kingdom) Rating. A Monk Swimming A Memoir. By MALACHY MCCOURT Hyperion. Read the Review. There is a story in our family that one day my mother was strolling along with my brother Frank and myself, and pushing our twins in a pram. A huge black motorcar stopped at the kerb, and out hopped a smartly dressed chauffeur, who opened the rear door for a bejeweled.

A Monk Swimming Malachy Mccourt

A Monk Swimming Meaning

June 4, 1998

BOOKS OF THE TIMES / By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

A Monk Swimming Malachy Mccourt

'A Monk Swimming': A Tragedian's Brother Finds More Comedy in Life

A MONK SWIMMING A Memoir. By Malachy McCourt. 290 pages. Hyperion. $23.95.

alachy McCourt, the author of this amusingly intemperate memoir, 'A Monk Swimming,' is a younger brother of Frank McCourt, whose best-selling 'Angela's Ashes' won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for the best autobiography published in 1996.

A Monk Swimming Meaning

So right away, you can't help thinking that 'A Monk Swimming' is an exercise in me-tooism. After all, the McCourt brothers, who were born in Depression-era Brooklyn and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland, have teamed up before. As Malachy tells it, 'The brother Frank had somehow got to the U.S.A. in 1949, at the age of 19, and then saved up enough money to send for me in 1952, when I was 20.'

Years later, they performed together in 'A Couple of Blaguards,' a musical revue about their Irish youth. At a time when it was not politically incorrect to make generalizations about people of like cultural backgrounds, you might have said they shared the Irish gift of gab. (As Malachy puts it, introducing one of the several Irish songs he quotes, 'To make fine wine, it is necessary to crush the grapes, and the English crushed us Irish, hence the vintage wine of words.') Since they have so much in common, why shouldn't the McCourt brothers produce matching volumes for the bookshelf?

Yet a reading of 'A Monk Swimming' reveals that if Malachy is horning in on Frank's act, he has managed to do so in a most un-imitative way. Where 'Angela's Ashes' is about the McCourts' childhood in Limerick, 'A Monk Swimming' picks up the story after the brothers return to America. Where the older brother writes in the modulated lyricism of an Irish-American looking back to a distant time and place, the younger brother speaks in the raucous brogue of a native freshly landed on a foreign shore.

MALACHY MCCOURT Credit: Michael Brennan/Hyperion

Where Frank is restrained and tragic, Malachy is outrageous and comic. Where the title 'Angela's Ashes' refers to the author's mother's suffering, 'A Monk Swimming' is a whimsical evocation of the way its author as a child misheard 'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women' as 'Blessed art thou, a monk swimming.' The only sense you can make of this is to think of the book as an expression of the author's somewhat distorted behavior 'amongst women.'

McCourt's recollection of this behavior begins somewhat unpromisingly with a series of disconnected but mildly amusing stories about his adventures as a longshoreman, actor and barfly after he first arrived in New York. One night at P.J. Clarke's, Ed Wilcox, 'a sometime gossip columnist,' saw the Giants football players Kyle Rote and Frank Gifford heading back to the pub's lavatory, and 'without a moment's hesitation' shouted 'for all to hear, 'See what the backs in the boys' room will have.'

Another evening McCourt arrived at a restaurant to meet a friend and was asked by the bartender to please check his overcoat in accordance with the establishment's dress code. Because McCourt did not like to be ordered around, he repaired to his car, took off ALL his clothes, put on his overcoat again and returned to the bar. When the bartender once again asked him to check his coat, McCourt complied, leaving himself buck naked in front of the diners and causing a near riot.

But wherever he went and whatever he did, people seemed to take to him, to want him at their parties or on their television talk shows. So he played the stage Irishmen for all it was worth, drank up everything that was poured for him, did his own pouring in a singles bar called Malachy's that he helped start, slept with every willing woman he could stay awake for, acquired a wife and fathered two children with her, and drank a great deal more.

McCourt does not boast about these feats. Rather he describes them ruefully in language that would not be badly misplaced in John Millington Synge's great drama 'The Playboy of the Western World,' in which the author acts at one point in his narrative.

Despite his irresponsibility as a husband and father and the infantile way he behaves when his wife finally leaves him and asks for a divorce (he forces his way into her apartment and begins to demolish the place), one grows to like McCourt for his honesty and to sympathize with him for the struggle he wages with a mind that he describes as 'leaping about like a caged and vicious rodent' whenever he wakes up after a night of drink. When he is eventually reduced to smuggling gold bars into Bombay, India, wearing a vest that makes him precariously top-heavy, you laugh when he nearly tips over from the weight of it, and you sweat when the authorities seem to be closing in.

Of course, you know from the book's flap copy that McCourt at 66 is now happily married, the father of five children and the grandfather of three. This is a long way from a low point in his story, when he returned to New York from Europe after an extended drinking spree with assets consisting of 'three shoes (apparently one had taken a walk by itself), some tattered drawers, some defeated shirts, a woebegone suit, a drove of dead socks, a balding toothbrush, a well-worn passport and a tie, that if immersed in water, would have made a thick, nourishing soup for to feed most of Calcutta.'

How he got from then to now is not told in this volume. But apparently the pitilessness with which he could gaze at his past sent his demons to a place they could no longer torment him. Whereupon peace came and allowed him to write this funny, oddly winning book.

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wychive · 3 years

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about me tag !

again ty to @yunwoo for tagging me follow her, she's so sexc kisses (with consent!!) 😁

tagging: @neo-shitty, @hwanami, @closer-stars and others who would like to do this <33

what do you prefer to be called name-wise?

alachi but in a shorter form kai !

when is your birthday?

april 11th <3

where do you live?

sarawak, malaysia 🚶‍♀️

three things you are doing right now?

watching james marriott, breathing, doing this tag <3

four fandoms that piqued your interest:

harry potter (i just love Harry James Potter sm, you don't even know), mcyt & dream smp (mainly wilbur, tommy, and quack!), bungo stray dogs (kisses atsushi and kunikida), genshin impact (DILUC COME HOME PLS)

how has the pandemic been treating you?

it has it's rough and calm times but overall, stressful, tiring! at times it can even be the worse day ever,, but enough about that :') on th positive, i get more creative outbursts so <3

a song you cant stop listening to right now?

striptease by carwash,, def recommend

recommend a movie:

dead poets society and kill your darlings! big NEED to watch if you're into light/dark academia aesthetics

how old are you?

16, as of date

school, university, occupation , other?

school cries

do you prefer heat or cold?

depends. heat like the spring's sun, very gentle NOT like summer sun where it's blazing. cold, like air conditioning on a night you can't sleep NOT morning cold when you've just woke up

name one fact others may not know about you:

i like reading physics theories

are you shy?

to my father's and mother's peers, yes but not to people around my age (younger to older by 10 years)

pronouns:

she/him !

biggest pet peeves:

people eating with their mouth open, when my sadness turns into rage, when people advise things that i can do on my own (im vv annoying im sorry)

what is your favourite dere type?

kuudere and tsundere! (possibly kamidere too,,)

rate your life from 1-10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be.

7-8 rn

whats your main blog?

this one hehe

list your side blogs and what theyre used for:

@bktboyf - for shits but i havent used it in a long time sksk

is there something people need to know about you becoming friends?

just that- i dont like chainmail,, not even the positive ones, im sorry. they're just vv annoying,, if you wanted to tell me something just use them in your own words tyvm friends,, and also that i am a major extrovert so i tend to not use tone indicators that much but i do on MAJOR things that could be seen in a joking way but other than that im always here 4 you !

#about alachi !#alachi thingz #alachi's moons #yeayea :D

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wychive · 4 years

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me: is doing homework

my music: touch me, tease me, feel me up.

#SERIOUSLEUNRMT #im so addicted to this song its not funny #NOT FUNNY DID NOT LAUGH #hate this sm #about alachi !#wayv

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wychive · 4 years

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about me !

rules: tag 10 followers you'd like to get to know !

thank <3 for tagging me in this @noya-sannnn aka da gf

name: alachi / kai [its not an irl name but wtv <3]

sexuality: bisexual,, with a male lean. yes im more het but the gay in me will always live 😗✌

gender: female

favourite colour(s): beige, blue, black !

hogwarts house: ravenclaw <3

cats or dogs: cats ! i currently own two hehe

dream job: music producer / anything related to astrology or astronomy

favourite haikyuu boys: kenma, bokuto, tendou,, ushijima, osamu, kiyoko <3

when i started this blog: a few years ago but if it’s related to when i started writting hm,, one day ago aka 14/06/20

reason why i named my blog what it is: this is gonna be confusing but,, the number 9 is related to wooyoung since he’s a 99 liner, the number 4 is related to my birth month, and the 94 is sehun’s birth year so its basically,,, my ults + me core lmao

tags:

@sansbadada @minghau @miyaosamoo @star-daegyu !!

not tagging much because im an anti social person but pm me nonetheless, i’’ll be glad to be your friend <3

#kpop #haikyuu #about me #about the author #about alachi !#support

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wychive · 4 years

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tagged by : @neo-shitty (toffee! ilysm hehe)

tagging: @noya-sannnn , @vitriosan , @hwanami , @luthenia and anyone else who wants to participate

slight warning : mentions of food

this is kind of long so it can help you relax if you want to do this!

[ one ] tell me the first song that made you stan your current fave group and why did your faves attract you so much?

wave // ateez

when jane showed me and fely (she already stanned ateez) the mv i was like :00 this song is really good and it goes with my type of music; pumped up and really fun. i decided that i wanted to stan them because of this introduction video that they did during pirate king where san broke the toy hammer trying to smack yunho’s ass SHHSSIJS,, i found them really funny and comforting! they made me so happy and that’s why they attracted me so much. + their amazing music ofc

forever // exo

alright so i originally just casually listened to exo from wolf era up till 2017 when the kokobop teasers came out. they looked really pretty and so i watched them up till kkb was released. it’s what baekhyun’s voice in the forever teaser that captured me into stanning them. everything about the exo’s attracted me, their vocals, their dancing and ofc their visuals. bonus: their time on the ‘360 show(??)’! im not sure of the actual name for the programme but it was where yixing kept pronouncing jurassic park wrong pls that was so cute and funny how could you NOT stan them!

[ two ] answer the ten questions given by the previous person and write 10 of your own for the next person!

what’s your favorite season and why?

we only have two types of seasons here but if this includes western seasons, i would pick spring! flowers give me a sense of calmness whenever they start to bloom so being in a season where it’s just different coloured plants all around you? sign me up pls

are you a cat person or a dog person?

im a cat person! i currently have two cats as pets

what’s your current favorite song and why can’t you stop listening to it?

it would probably be fever by ateez! this is because it gives off freedom vibes and i’ve been stressed lately so the song is a little oasis for me

if you had the ability to do either of the following, would you rather change something in the past or see into the future?

i would choose to see into the future so that i could change what i do now, whether its related to me being lazy or me being selfish,, i would like to keep the past the way it is even if i had some scarring moments. it’s nice to look back on those and see how far you’ve come as a person.

what’s your favorite movie?

my favorite movie would either be spirited away or paper towns,, i actually don’t have a favorite movie because all of them have affected my life in different ways so yea :D

what did miss rona ruin for you this 2020?

probably the food fair this year,, my group of best friends were supposed to go there to celebrate jane and another friend’s birthday. the food fair happens yearly so it wasn’t anything big to anyone else, but to us it was something special. there are a lot more things but this was one of the major things she ruined :/

what’s your favorite album? (you can name one for each genre you like or you can just name one, it’s up to you.)

toffee why my top three would be day6’s sunrise, bts’ you never walk alone and lauv’s ~how i’m feeling~

if you could talk to your past self (person who lived your past life), what would you tell them?

“hey, dude, i hope you’re doing okay. stop being so selfish all the time alright? and stop comparing yourself to others, it wouldn’t do you any justice. make sure to spread A LOT of positivity even if no one acknowledges it. its okay to cry sometimes too. is my soulmate doing okay? i hope they are. i’ll make sure to find them in this timeline, and the next. whatever it takes. learn to love yourself.”

do you have a go-to person? who is it?

uh i dont have a go-to person,, i can’t vent or rant without feeling like burdening the other person or spreading negativity to them. instead i just kind of rant to myself on discord.

if you could tell your younger self something, what would you say?

“hey, kiddo. don’t fall in love too much nor fool around. it’ll affect you badly. appreciate the things your parents do for you, okay? don’t take anything for granted. ignore the people who call you names, they don’t matter here in the future. just be you.”

how do you spend your free time?

who or what is your biggest inspiration?

if you were a character in a horror movie, which stereotype do you closely resemble? and why?

your top 3 fanfiction tropes! (can be nsfw)

do you believe in soulmates and why?

painting or sketching and why?

what is on the top of your to-do list right now?

list down the top 3 things that make you happy.

who are you simping for right now?

what is your first core memory?

[ three ] bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations.

AIR ༉⋆͙̈

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see the dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE ༉⋆

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favorite season / my radio is always playing

WATER ༉⋆͙̈

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep past midday most days / i love simply lit dinners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids shows out of nostalgia / i see emotions in colors not words

EARTH ༉⋆͙̈

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love this chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER ༉⋆͙̈

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / i always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally

[ four ] the ultimate tag: answer whichever ones you want to because there are a lot.

personal

name: [REDACTED], alachi nickname: teja, kai birthday: april 11 zodiac: aries nationality: malaysian languages: english, malay, learning korean gender: female sexuality: biromantic height: 160 cm / 5"2’ or 5"3’

blog stuff

inspiration for muse: music, other people’s work meaning behind my url: fever (current fav song) + core (aesthetic??) blog established: around 2018 but i started becoming active in late 2019/early 2020 followers: 146 ( i love you all )

favorites

favorite animal/s: anything connected to the cat species favorite book/s: the authentics (abdi nazemian), satellite (nick lake) favorite color/s: lighter shades/mid-tones of cool colours, a dash of yellow

random

average hours of sleep: 6 cats or dogs: cats coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea current time: 11:34 pm dream trip: south korea, japan, europe dream job: song producer, lyric writer hobbies: listening to music, browsing the internet hogwarts house: ravenclaw last movie watched: harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban last song listened to: no. of blankets you sleep with: 1 random fact(s): my favourite subjects are biology and english!

[ five ] 10 songs i can’t stop listening to:

eternally - txt

fever - ateez

blue - keshi

lights out - exo

00:00 - bts

strawberries and cigarettes - troye sivan

maze in the mirror - txt

i loved you - day6

illusion - ateez

stolen moments - the vamps

#this took wayyy too long hhh #but thank you to toffee for tagging me <333 #tag game #tumblr game #kpop #about alachi !#alachi thingz #alachi's bffs!

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