The Hare With Amber Eyes

Posted on 22 July 2018 by Edmund de Waal

The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who burned like a comet in nineteenth century Paris and Vienna society Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox.The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection.The netsuke drunken monks, almost ripe plums, snarling tigers were gathered by Charles Ephrussi at the height of the Parisian rage for all things Japanese Charles had shunned the place set aside for him in the family business to make a study of art, and of beautiful living An early supporter of the Impressionists, he appears, oddly formal in a top hat, in Renoir s Luncheon ofthe Boating Party Marcel Proust studied Charles closely enough to use him as a model for the aesthete and lover Swann in Remembrance of Things Past.Charles gave the carvings as a wedding gift to his cousin Viktor in Vienna his children were allowed to play with one netsuke each while they watched their mother, the Baroness Emmy, dress for ball after ball Her older daughter grew up to disdain fashionable society Longing to write, she struck up a correspondence with Rilke, who encouraged her in her poetry.The Anschluss changed their world beyond recognition Ephrussi and his cosmopolitan family were imprisoned or scattered, and Hitler s theorist on the Jewish question appropriated their magnificent palace on the Ringstrasse A library of priceless books and a collection of Old Master paintings were confiscated by the Nazis But the netsuke were smuggled away by a loyal maid, Anna, and hidden in her straw mattress Years after the war, she would find a way to return them to the family she d served even in their exile.In The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal unfolds the story of a remarkable family and a tumultuous century Sweeping yet intimate, it is a highly original meditation on art, history, and family, as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves. New Read The Hare With Amber Eyes [ by ] Edmund de Waal [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr After the first few pages I was wondering whether this wa going to be one I would have to wade through as a noble act of bookclub fidelity However, its like a walk up a mountain where you are straining up a hill, panting and feeling its your duty and then suddenly you brow the hill and there opening out before you is this great vista and you get a second wind and off you go at a cracking pace This is exactly what happened with this really clever concept Edmund de Waal, a potter, traces the hi After the first few pages I was wondering whether this wa going to be one I would have to wade through as a noble act of bookclub fidelity However, its like a walk up a mountain where you are straining up a hill, panting and feeling its your duty and then suddenly you brow the hill and there opening out before you is this great vista and you get a second wind and off you go at a cracking pace This is exactly what happened with this really clever concept Edmund de Waal, a potter, traces the history of 264 netsuke, small japanese ornaments made from various woods and stones, through their purchase by one of his ancestors in the 1870 s through their journey to Paris, Vienna, Tunbridge Wells on to a return to Japan and then back to their final resting place in London The 120 years or so of their possession by the Ephrussi family corresponds to the families journe...I would have enjoyed this bookhad I been less familiar with some of the topics tackled during its first half Namely, the Paris and Vienna of the 1870 1914 period with Impressionism, Japonisme, Proust, circles of Jewish finance and art patrons, Dreyfus affair and the parallel Building of the Ringstrasse, the Sezession, Psychoanalysis, etc All this is a bit of a d j vu or d j lu for me But Edmund de Waal easily escapes the clich s when he relies on well known cultural episodes As the I wo...At first I thought this book was slow, overly preoccupied with art at the expense of narrative, and becalmed By the end, the author s view as artist illumined the narrative and its characters, who are several past generations of his family As all the summaries and reviews say, the generation of his great grandfather were a wealthy Jewish banking and grain exporting dynasty in Paris and Vienna and around Europe, and also art collectors and patrons, but in the next generation the family s financ At...There are many excellent reasons for reading The Hare with Amber Eyes Its author, Edmund De Waal, is known to the world as a fine ceramic artist, whose work is widely shown in museums and galleries He is also an exceptionally fine writer, bringing an artist s sensibility to this other medium a meticulous attention to the detail of language, its rhythms and its evocative potential Read the book for its exhaustive descriptions of interiors, whether bel poque Paris or Wiener Werkstatt Vienna There are many excellent reasons for reading The Hare with Amber Eyes Its author, Edmund De Waal, is known to the world as a fine ceramic artist, whose work is widely shown in museums and galleries He is also an exceptionally fine writer, bringing an artist s sensibility to this other medium a meticulous attention to the detail of language, its rhythms and its evocative potential Read the book for its exhaustive descriptions of interiors, whether bel poque Paris or Wiener Werkstatt Vienna for its evocations of historical moments like fin de siecle France, or Austria at the time of its annexation by Hitler and his Nazis, or immediately post war, bombed out Tokyo or for its compassionate portrayal of flawed and fascinating human characters Read it as a four generational family saga, or an insightful history of Eur...The concept of tracing the history of a rich Jewish bankers family through the vicissitudes of a collection of Japanese miniature sculptures, is original and interesting The beginning of the book is a bit slow, but it then comes to life with fascinating descriptions of the Ephrussi in Paris during Impressionism or in Vienna during the first part of the 20th century, ending with dramatic events surrounding the Austrian Anschluss into the German Reich.And yet it is hard to feel much sympathy eith The concept of tracing the history of a rich Jewish bankers family through the vicissitudes of a collection of Japanese miniature sculptures, is original and interesting The beginning of the book is a bit slow, but it then comes to life with fascinating descriptions of the Ephrussi in Paris during Impressionism or in Vienna during the first part of the 20th century, ending with dramatic events surrounding the Austrian Anschluss into the German Reich.And yet it is hard to feel much sympathy either for this family or for the author A wronged sense of entitlement pervades much of the book, and a lot of energy goes into describing how the family lost most of its wealth under the Nazis the description of the Kristallnacht mob entering the Ephrussi building and ransacking the furniture is blood curdling On the other hand, no moral judgment is passed on how the Ephru...This was an interesting read and a fascinating account of the journey of a group of netsuke through a family history of about 140 years and several generations The journey moves from Paris to Vienna, across Europe through Nazism and to Japan.De Waal s family history is fascinating and I was particularly interested in the link to Proust and Great Great Uncle Charles being the model for Swann The descriptions of furnishings and the decorative aspect of the grand residences are sumptuous De Waal This was an interesting read and a fascinating account of the journey of a group of netsuke through a family history of about 140 years and several generations The journey moves from Paris to Vienna, across Europe through Nazism and to Japan.De Waal s family history is fascinating and I was particularly interested in the link to Proust and Great Great Uncle Charles being the model for Swann The descriptions of furnishings and the d...Uma requintada pesquisa em busca de uma fam lia e de um tempo perdidos A partir do momento em que abrimos o livro entramos na velha Europa, integralmente recriada Colm T ib nDescobri A Lebre de Olhos de mbar numa lista intitulada22 livros que s o diamantes para o c rebro , na qual constam 9 que j tinha lido, em que apenas 3 n o considero j ias preciosas porque enfim, n o posso gostar de tudoEdmund de Waal um prestigiado oleiro descendente da fam lia Ephrussi Ao herdar uma colUma requintada pesquisa em busca de uma fam lia e de um tempo perdidos A partir do momento em que abrimos o livro entramos na velha Europa, integralmente recriada Colm T ib nDescobri A Lebre de Olhos de mbar numa lista intitulada22 livros que s o diamantes para o c rebro , na qual constam 9 que j tinha lido, em que apenas 3 n o considero j ias preciosas porq...Oh my good Lord, what did I do that you put me through the torture of reading that book Did I like it No.It is a story of the authors family in a blindly tunnel vision view of how everyone was out to get his Jewish family as they rose to the pinnacle of society in the Austrian empire, survivedor less as well as anyone else did in the 2nd world war and on to his gay uncles exploits in Japan.With such wo...Very difficult for me to rate this book I found a plagiarism sentence of George D Painter s biography of Marcel Proust in de Waal s book, which had me wondering how many other plagiarisms there might be There is also mention of Peter Altenberg having his mail sent to Caf Griensteidl, which is wrong It was Caf Central This might sound like nitpicking on my part, but when I read a non fiction book, I want to be able to trust the facts Also, I wasn t too keen on the literary style of the Very difficult for me to rate this book I found a plagiarism sentence of George D Painter s biography of Marcel Proust in de Waal s book, which had me wondering how many other plagiarisms there might be There is also mention of Peter Altenberg having his mail sent to Caf Griensteidl, which is wrong It was Caf Central This might sound like nitpicking on my part, but when I read a non fiction book, I want to be able to trust the facts Also, I wasn t too keen on the literary style of the b...I started out giving Hare with Amber Eyes four stars, but as it settled in, I decided to up it to five stars This is a very special book de Waal approaches his extraordinary family history as the artist he is, art, paintings, and especially decorative objects and architecture are all infused with his extraordinary visual and tactile sense I don t use the word extraordinary li...

English
22 July 2018

Edmund de Waal