c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ Hugh Kenner, one of America’s most distinguished literary critics, has finally spoken the truth about the writing of Frank McCourt.

In a recent Wall Street Journal review, Kenner says of the latest McCourt volume,”Tis,”that both the new book and his earlier”Angela’s Ashes”are filled with indulgent self-pity.

Doubtless McCourt writes very well, and doubtless he had a sad childhood. Doubtless he has reason for self-pity if anyone does. Yet self-pity does not produce a worthwhile book no matter how much bathetic wit it may contain.

The principle targets for McCourt’s self-pity are Ireland and Catholicism. He blames both for ruining his childhood. In fact, his early years were brutally unhappy because his mother unfortunately married a fall-down drunk and the institutional church was of little help to the family.

I make no case for the brutality characterizing much education in Ireland during the 1940s and 1950s. It was a disgrace to Catholicism. Yet there is surely more to the Irish Catholic heritage than the behavior of some Christian Brothers and some abusive nuns and priests.

Moreover, the impoverished Ireland of his childhood was still recovering from the wrenching of the social structure by the Irish revolution and civil war, and the subsequent trauma of the Great Depression.

I have no objection to McCourt’s description of his childhood agonies _ that kind of book has become fashionable today. But I do object to laying the blame on Ireland and Irish Catholicism. Not everyone in Limerick had a similar childhood.

However, kicking Ireland and the church is a great indoor sport for Irish writers, though not for the true greats like Roddy Doyle, Brien Friel or Seamus Heaney. Such writing is great fun for the Irish intelligentsia and great amusement for Americans who still look down at Irish Catholics, as well as for the Irish Catholics in this country who look down on themselves.

Ultimately, however, it is false, dishonest and indulgent.

An Irish historian at Cork has for years been blaming the lack of economic progress in Ireland on faults of the Irish character. He did not notice the remarkable sea change on the Irish as they migrated to lands which had not been devastated by hundreds of years of oppression and exploitation. Nor did he seem to think the oppression and exploitation provided a statute of limitations on blaming Irish character for it sad economic plight.

Along with McCourt, he blamed all the problems of the Irish on the Irish. Many Irish writers share the English contempt for the Irish and hence have contempt for themselves.

Now the Irish economy is booming and the Irish standard of living has passed that of the English. No one, I daresay, will argue that the failure of the English to keep up with the Irish is due to a fault in the English character.

So what do the Irish intellectuals like McCourt say about the astonishing success of the Irish economy? They say the Irish have become greedy materialists, that they are ruining their environment and no longer care about the poor in their country or in other parts of the world. The Irish clerical intellectuals are particularly eager to engage in this self-hatred.

Ireland can’t win.

Self-hatred and self-pity are flip sides of the same coin. Those Irish (on both sides of the Atlantic) who feel sorry for themselves blame Ireland for their problems, real or imaginary, and the Irish for what’s wrong with Ireland. McCourt doesn’t seem to realize that his way with words is also part of his Irish heritage.

How can a book so filled with self-pity and self-loathing sell 2 million copies? The writing, of course, is brilliant, even if Kenner is dead right about its self-indulgence. Many Irish Americans are bemused by McCourt’s style and pay little attention to its underlying themes.

There is something else at work, however. The New York literary and cultural establishments love the book because it confirmed what they always believed about the inferiority of the Irish and of Catholicism. So, implicitly and collectively, they decided the book was a wonderful portrait of Ireland and Irish life and worked to make it a huge success.

I’m being paranoid, you say?

Hey folks, I’ve been there. I know what they’re like.

IR END GREELEY