The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.34 (835 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B007HBZPDC |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 143 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-03-04 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Charles's passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objects were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna. 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. Marcel Proust was briefly his secretary and used Charles as the model for the aesthete Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Winner of the 2010 COSTA Biography Award. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. Later, three children - including a young Ignace - would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them. A total of 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. 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. Later, when Edmund inherited the 'netsuke'
Lolly said It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved this book.. My sister and I have different taste in most things. When I told her how much I enjoyed reading this book, she told me she couldn't get past the first chapter. She loves plot driven books and this isn't that. I on the other hand prefer atmospheric books with interesting characters, which is precisely what this is.The author is not an historian and the less c. Superfluous Details Since We Are Tracing Lineage in Real Time This book is too detailed and scattered for my taste. Moreover, the author ponders on what it was like for his ancestors and the journey of the netsuke he inherited but he never digs deeper. Admittedly, I couldn't read the last few chapters of the book -- it felt like torture. I feel like we are with the author as he traces his lineage in real time instead o. Remembrance of time past This is a mesmerising many-layered book. The fascinating narrative of the fabulously wealthy Jewish Ephrussi family moves through the decades from commercial Odessa to the Paris of the Impressionists and artistic salons to the brutal destruction of the Anschluss of 1938 in Vienna and a familial diaspora over three continents. Parallel to this, we follow with