picked up this one at the library! one of nytime’s 10 best books of 2022.

about the book: it’s an amazing nonfiction on modern ireland, but threaded through with direct experiences of the author himself or his family and friends. not only eloquent and precise, but completely captivating.

i was entirely naive to irish history. heard some irish american comedians joke about their cultural heritage, but that was about it.

the complexity. independence, division… and complete chaos when folks try to solve the division through violence… and the dilemma between holding onto traditional catholic values/righteousness vs. the desperate desire to modernize and be shoulder to shoulder with the other european countries.

the double-standards of what is supposed to be and what actually is - the unknown known –or, the intentional unknowing – through the church’s dominance as well as the economic bubble in 90s and 00s

the sensitivity to britain - the urgency of establishing an identity, or otherwise it vanishes… or worse, get absorbed into britain. i think there’s some shared experience in terms of sensitivity to the outside in japan that i recohnize, but at a much more urgent scale (understandably so) because of the tragic history.

another way that this book struck a chord for me was that O’Toole was born around the same time as my mother did, in a small fisherman’s town in Japan. the book’s each chapter is tagged with a year or a sequence of years, and as the author’s experience moves from when he was 10, to a teen, to college, and to his career, i constantly had what my mom would have been experiencing at the back of my mind. its really remarkable the amount of societal changes a person experiences in their life.

overall, i relished every moment of reading this book! 10/10 highly recommend to anyone.