The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance - Hardcover

De Waal, Edmund

3.94

57,405 ratings by Goodreads

9780701184179: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701184175 ISBN 13: 9780701184179

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2010

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264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined...

The Ephrussis came from Odessa, and at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s, Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Marcel Proust was briefly his secretary and used Charles as the model for the aesthete Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Charles's passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objets were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna.

Later, three children - including a young Ignace - would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them. The Anschluss and Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection, smuggled out of the huge Viennese palace (then occupied by Hitler's theorist on the 'Jewish Question'), one piece at a time, in the pocket of a loyal maid - and hidden in a straw mattress.

In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. And, in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves, he tells the story of a unique collection which passed from hand to hand - and which, in a twist of fate, found its way home to Japan.

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Review:

"...as full of beauty and whimsy as a netsuke from the hands of a master carver"--The Economist

"...this book is impossible to put down. You have in your hands a masterpiece."--Francis Wilson, The Sunday Times

"An intensely personal meditation on art, history and family, told in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves"--London Review of Books

"It is a rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human"--Bettany Hughes, Daily Telegraph

"An exquisitely described search for a lost family and a lost time"--Colm Toibin, The Irish Times

"Both the story he uncovers and the objects he describes are fascinating and startling"--AS Byatt, Financial Times

"Unexpectedly combines a micro craft-form with macro history to great effect"--Julian Barnes, The Guardian

"A book of astonishing originality"--Evening Standard

"An extraordinary and touching journey with a backdrop glittering with images from Proust and Zola and Klimt"--Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

"Every page of Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes gave me pleasure"--Rachel Polansky, Times Literary Supplement

Book Description:

The history of a family through 264 objects - set against a turbulent century - from an acclaimed writer and potter

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