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What Am I Reading Wednesday - July 30
I can't believe the week is half over already. I got an indulgent amount of reading done over the weekend, so now I am writing it up.
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Beat Cop – Michael O'Malley
Being a biography of Francis O'Neill, who went from 17 year old immigrant from rural Cork to well-regarded chief of police in early 20th century Chicago. It's a generally well-written and entertaining read, in no small part because O'Neill led a fascinating life: the youngest son of a petty Irish landlord, he fled Ireland to avoid being forced into the priesthood, sailed the world from Britain to Japan to the Kingdom of Hawai'i, cut lumber in Georgia, herded livestock in the Sierras, taught in rural prairie schools, got shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, promoted the first Black policeman to the rank of desk sergeant in Chicago (and possibly the US), protected Emma Goldman(!!!) from violent interrogation after her arrest, and more. He also published O'Neill's Music of Ireland, a compilation whose influence on the modern understanding of "Irish music" would be difficult to exaggerate.
The genius of this book is how O'Malley centers all of this in the context of the times: the collusion between English colonizers and the Irish gentry that drove mass emigration to the US, the late 19th and early 20th century globalization that redefined people's sense of self from inhabitants of a town or region (Tralibane, County Kerry) to a citizens of a country or members of a race (Irish, Lithuanian), economic shifts from individual to aggregated production, and how all of that created drives to categorize, label, standardize, and define, whether in the field of policing, in grading the quality of grain or meat, or in collecting and taxonomizing heretofore hyperlocal music. O'Malley also makes a pretty convincing case that O'Neill desired to collect and categorize "pure" Irish music in part to create an "Irish" identity that sidestepped emotionally or politically fraught issues: his family's role in exacerbating the famine; his position in the graft-driven patronage networks of the Irish immigrant and Chicago political communities; his police duty to protect the interests of the politically and economically powerful, often to the detriment of fellow immigrants; his opinion on whether Ireland should be independent or not; his opinion on whether the struggle for Irish independence should be violent or not. And O'Malley is not writing a hagiography: he readily calls out the disingenuous aspects of O'Neill's memoirs, his abuses of power to collect tunes, his support for torture as an interrogation tool, his mistreatment of a mentally disabled musician.
But several elements keep this really good book from being a great one. One or more glaring typos occur in every chapter and the otherwise excellent endnotes. O'Malley gets very basic, fundamental facts wrong (boy howdy, jigs are not "usually in 3/4 time"), and his efforts at academic analysis can stray into the ridiculous: he spins an entire metaphysical theory out of Irish English speakers "having tunes" versus English or American English speakers "knowing tunes". But this is just a function of how possession (including of knowledge) works in Gaelic languages. It's a grammatical artifact, not a damning indication that O'Neill policed, colonized, and dispossessed anyone of "the community's music". Again, these are significant irritations that keep a good book from being excellent, but The Beat Cop is an entertaining and fascinating read despite them. I'm going to buy a personal copy because I will definitely read this one again.
What I Am Currently Reading
Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
Selected as a beach read and eminently suitable for that purpose.
The Story of Irish Dance – Helen Brennan
Surprisingly well-written, scholarly, and serious given the cheesy cover.
[.....] – [.....]
Being the second draft of a friend's novel, which I and many from the GeekBBQ crew are beta reading.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I picked up Caged by Joe McKean.
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Beat Cop – Michael O'Malley
Being a biography of Francis O'Neill, who went from 17 year old immigrant from rural Cork to well-regarded chief of police in early 20th century Chicago. It's a generally well-written and entertaining read, in no small part because O'Neill led a fascinating life: the youngest son of a petty Irish landlord, he fled Ireland to avoid being forced into the priesthood, sailed the world from Britain to Japan to the Kingdom of Hawai'i, cut lumber in Georgia, herded livestock in the Sierras, taught in rural prairie schools, got shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, promoted the first Black policeman to the rank of desk sergeant in Chicago (and possibly the US), protected Emma Goldman(!!!) from violent interrogation after her arrest, and more. He also published O'Neill's Music of Ireland, a compilation whose influence on the modern understanding of "Irish music" would be difficult to exaggerate.
The genius of this book is how O'Malley centers all of this in the context of the times: the collusion between English colonizers and the Irish gentry that drove mass emigration to the US, the late 19th and early 20th century globalization that redefined people's sense of self from inhabitants of a town or region (Tralibane, County Kerry) to a citizens of a country or members of a race (Irish, Lithuanian), economic shifts from individual to aggregated production, and how all of that created drives to categorize, label, standardize, and define, whether in the field of policing, in grading the quality of grain or meat, or in collecting and taxonomizing heretofore hyperlocal music. O'Malley also makes a pretty convincing case that O'Neill desired to collect and categorize "pure" Irish music in part to create an "Irish" identity that sidestepped emotionally or politically fraught issues: his family's role in exacerbating the famine; his position in the graft-driven patronage networks of the Irish immigrant and Chicago political communities; his police duty to protect the interests of the politically and economically powerful, often to the detriment of fellow immigrants; his opinion on whether Ireland should be independent or not; his opinion on whether the struggle for Irish independence should be violent or not. And O'Malley is not writing a hagiography: he readily calls out the disingenuous aspects of O'Neill's memoirs, his abuses of power to collect tunes, his support for torture as an interrogation tool, his mistreatment of a mentally disabled musician.
But several elements keep this really good book from being a great one. One or more glaring typos occur in every chapter and the otherwise excellent endnotes. O'Malley gets very basic, fundamental facts wrong (boy howdy, jigs are not "usually in 3/4 time"), and his efforts at academic analysis can stray into the ridiculous: he spins an entire metaphysical theory out of Irish English speakers "having tunes" versus English or American English speakers "knowing tunes". But this is just a function of how possession (including of knowledge) works in Gaelic languages. It's a grammatical artifact, not a damning indication that O'Neill policed, colonized, and dispossessed anyone of "the community's music". Again, these are significant irritations that keep a good book from being excellent, but The Beat Cop is an entertaining and fascinating read despite them. I'm going to buy a personal copy because I will definitely read this one again.
What I Am Currently Reading
Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
Selected as a beach read and eminently suitable for that purpose.
The Story of Irish Dance – Helen Brennan
Surprisingly well-written, scholarly, and serious given the cheesy cover.
[.....] – [.....]
Being the second draft of a friend's novel, which I and many from the GeekBBQ crew are beta reading.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I picked up Caged by Joe McKean.
これで以上です。