The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss

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The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 9,000 ratings · 1,325 reviews

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 of the 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.

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Hardcover, 368 pages

Published August 31st 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2010)

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May 10, 2013 Kalliope rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-english, history, biography, history-european, austro-hungary

I would have enjoyed this book more had 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 déjà vu (or déjà lu) for me.

But Edmund de Waal easily escapes the clichés when he relies on well-known cultural episodes. As the...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Cheryl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: art-history, family-memoir

Suppose you inherited a collection of Japanese miniatures that have been in your family for a century. What would you do with a treasure of 264 exquisitely carved wood and ivory nutsukes that had been Ephrussi owned for five generations?

Edmund de Waal began THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES: A FAMILY'S CENTURY OF ART AND LOSS with, "I realize how much I care about how this hard and soft, losable object has survived." And with the permanence of the netsukes will come the story of de Waal's ancestors and...more Suppose you inherited a collection of Japanese miniatures that have been in your family for a century. What would you do with a treasure of 264 exquisitely carved wood and ivory nutsukes that had been Ephrussi owned for five generations?

Edmund de Waal began THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES: A FAMILY'S CENTURY OF ART AND LOSS with, "I realize how much I care about how this hard and soft, losable object has survived." And with the permanence of the netsukes will come the story of de Waal's ancestors and the history of art, literature, architecture, politics, wars and migrations that have lead him to his home in England.

Besides the artistic appreciation of the intricately carved netsukes, they served a practical purpose when invented in 17th century Japan. Pockets were absent in traditional kimonos, so netsukes were made to store tobacco, money, or medicines toggled on cords hanging from the waist of the robes. But to de Waal who enjoyed turning them over in his hand and carrying a favorite in his pocket each day, the netsuke was beyond the practical. They linked him with his descendants, where they had lived, how they had thrived and eventually what they lost.

The collection was acquired by Charles Ephrussi in 1870. The 23 year old bought the entire nutsuke collection while experiencing the Grand Tour through the canon of Renaissance art. Charles lived in Paris at 81 rue de Monceau at the family owned Hotel Ephrussi. Charles' priviledged life included invitations to the principal salons of the day despite his young age and ethnicity. He was a friend of Marcel Proust and was the probable model for the Charles Swann character.

Charles witnessed the Dreyfus Affair unfold with fabricated evidence finally dismissed after Dreyfus served twelve years on Devil's Island. Emile Zola and others were accused of overthrowing natural justice and being Jewish first and French second. Zola fled to Great Britain, an escape from the growing anti-Semitism in France.

In 1899 Charles gave the netsuke collection to his cousin Viktor and wife, Emmy as a wedding present. The gift was delivered to the Palais Ephrussi on Vienna's Ringstrasse just 400 yards from the front door of Freud's apartment. Franz Josef proposed the majestic avenue, home to an opera house, theatre, museums, a Parliament and university. It was on "the grandest public space in Europe" that Viktor and Emmy lived. It is also where the young Adolf Hitler spent hours painting the great buildings around the Ring.

Hitler would return to Vienna in triumph, riding in an open car around the Ringstrasse. The Anschluss would be legitimized by the citizens, and a time of terror for the Jewish people would begin with the loss of liberty, possessions and their lives. As de Waal re-lives this horrific time, he weeps.

What happened to the netsuke collection during the Holocaust? Who survived the conflagration, and to what ends of the earth did they wander? The family memoir continues in Mexico, Japan, the US, Russia and finally England. This powerful story of a Jewish family over a century satisfies on many levels. It is a reminder of the horrors of fascism, the consequences of innocence lost and what remains, and a detective story of five generations of a family.

As de Waal says, "Netsuke are small and hard. They are hard to chip, hard to break: each one is made to be knocked around in the world." These words describe a beautiful art object and a noble people. Highest Recommendation!

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May 01, 2013 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography-biography, bookclub-reads, history, war-works

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...more 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 journey from fabulously wealthy bankers forming alliances and business deals which involve massive amounts of money and floating in social circles involving the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and assorted high related royals and politicians to the hideous reversal of fortunes with the anschluss, the arrival of Hitler and the betrayal of the family along with all the other jewish men, women and children who had been so useful in some situations but now necessary as the traditional scapegoat.

Edmund de Waal has a simple technique of relating his family history through their relationship to these small ornaments. Each one tells a story but each one's story is incomplete, open-ended; His family history shows that. The ornaments rest in a cupboard in Paris, fabulously wealthy...here they are complete but no they are sent as a wedding present to an equally wealthy austrian branch of the family. Here they rest in a beautiful showcase, their journey ended....no the horror of viennese pogroms threaten them as it destroyed the family. And saved by the maid servant they move on again but as a perfect symbol of the family's implosion they move from their enthronement in walnut, glass and velvet to their hiding place inside a servant's straw mattress.

After the war she hands them back to surviving members of the family, a small fragment, almost all that is left of the ridiculous wealth enjoyed by this family prior to their undoing by the foul action of the Nazis.

Nevertheless one small side of me is saddened by the fact that the devotion and fidelity of the servant who, at risk of her own life, preserves this wealth, is just accpeted by the family as their right. The cruelty and degradation perpetrated on the family in the 1930's and 40's was monstrous but prior to that the family themselves struck me as heartless, egocentric libertines. Living lives of wasteful opulence and insensitive gluttony. They did not deserve the terror of course but perhaps their servants and those who saw their flaunting of their wealth did not deserve their poverty either and the family seem quite unable to acknowledge that and indeed the gratitude that they owe to the loyalty of their servants.(less)

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Jan 03, 2012 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: auto-biographical

'How objects are handed on is all about story-telling. I am giving you this because I love you. Or because it was given to me. Because I bought it somewhere special. Because you will care for it. Because it will complicate your life. Because it will make someone else envious. There is no easy story in legacy. What is remembered and what is forgotten?'

The author claims, toward the end of this book, to 'no longer know if this book is about my family, or memory, or myself, or is still a book about...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Peter Clothier rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 époque Paris or Wiener Werkstatt Vienna;...more
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 époque 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 Europe from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. Read it even, also, particularly, as a personal journey, an exploration into the complex world of family heritage—and inheritance.

I came to the book as the result of reading a column by Roger Cohen in the New York Times before we left for Europe last month, and ordered it in time to take it with us on our trip. But I didn’t get to actually read it until this past week. The column was called “The Netsuke Survived”, and Cohen’s description of the book intrigued me. It was a story of the survival—not only of a collection of Japanese netsuke, but of the European Jewish family through whose various hands it passed, the family of which De Waal, brought up as the son of an Anglican minister, was the barely informed scion. His research soon turned into an obsession that sidetracked him for two years from his own work as an artist.

The story, as it eventually revealed itself to him—and now, in turn, to us—is at once absorbing and increasingly moving as it progresses. The Ephrussi family, originally from Odessa, worked its way to fame and fortune in Paris and Vienna in the late 1800s. The fortune derived from its prodigious success in the banking business—a success that initially gave its members access to the social elites and the cultural salons. This part of the story involves associations and friendships with artists Renoir, Degas and others; with giants of the literary scene like Proust and the (virulently anti-Semitic) Goncourt brothers. Until “l’affaire Dreyfus,” and its opening of that deep vein of envy and distrust of Jews in French society—a time at which the family seemed suddenly to have outlived the welcome they had worked so hard to foster since arriving from the East. Once great and powerful social hosts and patrons of the arts, they found themselves all too soon personae a lot less grata. De Waal’s descriptive narrative places us there, in the center of it all, at this turbulent time.

The scene, along with ownership of the netsuke collection, shifts to pre-World War I Vienna and its social whirl, where another branch of the Ephrussi family has also established a foothold in the banking business; their massive mansion occupies a significant site on the Ringstrasse, and their role in the business and socio-economic establishment seems assured. They have become the proverbial pillars of society, living a life of extraordinary privilege and wealth. Patriots, too, they give generously of their wealth and power to their adopted country, serving with distinction in the military, supporting the war effort in every way, and sharing in the humiliation of defeat. They could scarcely have foreseen what the next decade would bring them in return: increasing distrust, suspicion, isolation and, all too soon, the arrival of the brutish Nazis and persecution, not only at the hands of the Gestapo but also those of their compatriots. We watch, aghast, as the family is brought to ruin. It's a dreadful lesson in impermanence

In the chaos, it is Anna, a faithful family retainer, who saves the netsuke collection from the hands of the invaders. They, with impunity, steal everything else—the art, the beloved books, the mansion, the bank, and eventually all traces of identity, dignity and security. One of the great strengths, I think, of De Waal’s account, is not to disguise the classism of the nouveaux-riches, not to minimize the extent of their wealth and privilege nor the excesses--and sometimes the frivolity--of their way of life. We understand, perhaps, a little more—though without in any way condoning—the angrily envious attitudes of the have-nots that laid open the way for an Adolph Hitler and his gang of murderers. (We also understand a little more about the problems that we face today, a century later, and their origins in a capitalist economy and its detractors.) But never, as we read, are we allowed to share that “got it coming to them” rage that led to the horrors of the Holocaust.

The penultimate chapter in the netsuke’s journey is in the country of their origin, Japan, where De Waal’s great uncle goes to take up residence after World War II and, along with the author, we reflect on that far country’s culture and the aesthetic that produced these tiny, intricate and meticulously crafted works of art. By the end of the book he himself is in possession of this family treasure—all that remains, aside from brittle letters and documents, of a great family and its history. It is a poignant end. In the course of his search, the author has found some important piece of his own humanity and a renewed sense of the value of those closest to him in their London home.

In all, this is a very rich and satisfying read. When in England, we felt compelled to make the pilgrimage to see "Splash," the current installation of De Waal’s art work at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The elegant, simple, even minimal shapes of his pure white pots, dozens of them in a staggered, uneven row, occupy the entire “whispering gallery,” the circular base of a dome on the top floor, in the museum’s wonderful ceramics department.

The installation requires a sharply raised head to gain even a distant glance at them. At this remove, they offer the viewer a sense of serenity, an appreciation for the beauty of form for its own sake, a stillness as remote as Keats’s Grecian urn. Their cool, insistently formal, abstract beauty contrasted curiously, I thought, with the intricate carving of the netsuke he describes in his book, and with its emotional intensity. Placed so far from the viewer’s eye, they do not invite the touch that clearly means so much to him in his relationship with the netsuke; on the other hand, the touch of the artist’s hand is clearly what defines their shape and presence, and their denial of it to the viewer is perhaps as powerful as the permission. Certainly, it brought attention to my own desire to know things in this way, through first-hand experience; and yet, as de Waal’s book shows, time alone deprives us of that possibility. There is much we must be content to know only at a distance, and through the mediation of one who cares enough to show us the way.(less)

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Oct 02, 2010 Cynthia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2010

This is a wonderful blending of history, biography with a sprinkling of art. The Ephrussi were a prominent Jewish family who originated from Odessa Russia. Part of the family emigrated to Paris and another part to Vienna. Along the way they collected beautiful things including a collection of Netsuke which are miniature decorative figures used to hold a money case in traditional Japanese dress.

The netsuke were originally collected by De Waal’s great great uncle Charles and were one of the few tr...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Andy rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: nobody

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, survived more or less as well as anyone else did in the 2nd world war and on to his gay uncles exploits in Japan.

With such wonderful chapter starters as "It wasn't just Renoir who hated the Jews..." (note no justi...more

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Jun 08, 2013 Jan Rice rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: keep-a-suitcase-packed, history

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...more

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Jan Rice In response to td's comment, I called "the log in one's own eye and the splinter in the other's eye" and "loving the neighbor as oneself" "scriptural...more
7 hours, 29 min ago

td Whittle Jan wrote: "In response to td's comment, I called "the log in one's own eye and the splinter in the other's eye" and "loving the neighbor as oneself"...more Jan wrote: "In response to td's comment, I called "the log in one's own eye and the splinter in the other's eye" and "loving the neighbor as oneself" "scriptural cognitive psychology". Why?

Because it's been..."

Well, in my experience in that field (that's my background, actually) couples and family members vary a great deal on who's to blame. Mostly, they see injustice bent against themselves, that's true. However, there are quite a few people who suffer from deep and chronic levels of shame and blame of the self, and who tend to agree that they are making life difficult and that everything is their fault -- including things that no rational person would blame them for --- while feeling helpless to do anything about it. Having said that, though, the "ledger system" is much more common, in which each member of a couple keeps a running tally -- in their heads, not literally (though I have known some spouses to come to sessions with lists of grievances) -- of who owes what to whom, with the scales generally perceived as far out of balance. And you are right, too, that walking around with that kind of mindset and the attitudes that accompany it is good for no one, and can only create further harm.

That's why I think it's an ideal to stop worrying about unfairness, about getting a verdict out of some hypothetical jury that may not exist, or, if it does, isn't rational.

Yes, I believe so too. Precise "fairness" is an elusive goal, like perpetual happiness, and depends entirely on the eye of the beholder. I think the best the international community can do, and can advise, is to encourage and help to create a just way for us to all live together -- or near one another -- sharing space and things, with tolerance and without violence. I don't know whether it's "realism" but it's certainly sensible and more helpful than the anger and violence.

The trouble, as I see it, is that people are inherently tribal and we are still learning to suppress the instinctive fear -- and potential loathing -- of whomever we perceive to be the "other." That is both a primal thing and an emotional one. A lot of what people argue about, claiming to be reasonable, is really almost entirely emotion-based. Of course, emotions are important, but when we make emotional-based decisions whilst pretending to ourselves and everyone else that they are based on balanced reasoning and a sense of justice, well, the result is usually neither balanced nor just for the others involved.(less)
updated 35 minutes ago

May 27, 2011 Sherwood Smith added it

Shelves: biography, history-20th, history-19th-c

Beautifully evocative and elegiac, a history of a family. You know it will not end well, as this family is Jewish and the history begins a few generations before WW II, but de Waal is determined to bring the family to life through his descriptions of their homes, their idiosyncrasies, and above all their passion for art.

De Waal traveled to all the places this family had lived, and did his best to walk in the spaces they walked, look out the windows they did, and endeavor to imagine their lives....more Beautifully evocative and elegiac, a history of a family. You know it will not end well, as this family is Jewish and the history begins a few generations before WW II, but de Waal is determined to bring the family to life through his descriptions of their homes, their idiosyncrasies, and above all their passion for art.

De Waal traveled to all the places this family had lived, and did his best to walk in the spaces they walked, look out the windows they did, and endeavor to imagine their lives. It builds slowly as he paints in the family's background, and how Charles Ephrussi collected the netsuke that bind the entire narrative together, but as he moves toward 1900 there are more records, and the individuals take on shape and color and personality.

This is also the story, in a microcosm, of how Jews gained the right to do business and even own land in the latter 1800s, some (like the Ephrussi) becoming quite wealthy. The Ephrussi patriarchy had enough clout to call a halt to the latest Russian pogrom by threatening to effect the price of grain. So the pogrom was halted, but the fallout was an increase of antisemitic resentment.

But this is not just another Holocaust tale, harrowing as that might be. It is also a thoughtful, painterly, sometimes elegiac examination of how human beings relate to things, especially art things. Like the netsuke.

That sets up the scene for the painfully vivid account of Austria's fall to the Nazis, and the horrors of having your house invaded, first by angry young men with their new swastika armbands who bully their way in just to smash things and take what they want. But when the Gestapo comes, the real horror sets in, as they deliberately, with a semblance of legal exactitude, proceed to catalog everything they are stealing from this family.

The story of the netsuke binds everything together, as de Waal brings the story up to the present.

Near the end, one of his neighbors says, "Don't you think those netsuke should stay in Japan?"

No, I answer. Objects have always been carried, sold, bartered, stolen, retrieved and lost. People have always given gifts. It is how you tell their stories that matters.(less)

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Apr 29, 2013 Marla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, memoire, research, genealogy, jewish-themes, world-war-2, biography, book-club, mystery, re-reading

The Hare with Amber Eyes is one of my favourite books of all time. It is beautifully written and grabs the reader and takes them on a fabulous ride through a family's history as it reflects world events writ small. Basically, Edmund de Waal, a ceramicist, recounts the story of his family (the Ephrussi), who had been a very wealthy European Jewish banking dynasty. The book covers the rise and fall of the Ephrussi, through a collection of netsuke, Japanese miniature carvings, that were passed down...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Chrissie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: austria, art, bio, history, japan, kirkus, religion, soviet-union, france

NO SPOILERS!!!

ETA: I changed this to two stars. For most of this book I struggled to keep turning the pages. I think it is wrong to judge an entire book by the last 100 pages. Back to two stars, which reflects my feeling for the majority of the book.
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On completion: So how can I complain so much about a book and then give it 3 stars? (See ETA!) The answer is simple, this is how I felt when I finished the book. I have been discussing this book with Amy...more

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Jul 02, 2012 Claire Datnow rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In March 1938, the Ephrussi home was invaded by men in swastika armbands. Only the netsuke marcaulously survive from the once vast Ephrussi collections of paintings, furniture and bric-a-brac. Edmund de Waal eventually inherited the collection, and it links the chronology of his memoir as he traces how the netsuke, passing from one family member to the next. Such stories grow every day more vital with the passing of time. For more information see my Blog at: http://www.mediamint.net/page7/files/...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Maggie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Maggie by: Julia

Shelves: library-book

Fascinating book. Hard to describe: meanders from Paris in the late 1900s to Vienna to Japan to today, following a collection of netsuke and telling tales of their owners, and how they're passed from generation to generation, and the political/social history along the way.

Two quotes that struck me:

How objects are handed on is all about story-telling. I am giving you this because I love you. Or because it was given to me. Because I bought it somewhere special. Because you will care for it. Becaus...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Vivian Valvano rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this for my library book review group. It was great. Edmund de Waal is a descendant of the (once) fabulously wealthy Ephrussis family, a Jewish family who made a Rothshcild-like fortune in banking. Originating in Odessa, they were integral parts of Paris society in the nineteenth century and Viennese society up to the Nazi takeover of Austria. Avid art appreciation and art collecting accompanies their financial prowess. The book is a superb history, as gleaned and researched by the cerami...more I read this for my library book review group. It was great. Edmund de Waal is a descendant of the (once) fabulously wealthy Ephrussis family, a Jewish family who made a Rothshcild-like fortune in banking. Originating in Odessa, they were integral parts of Paris society in the nineteenth century and Viennese society up to the Nazi takeover of Austria. Avid art appreciation and art collecting accompanies their financial prowess. The book is a superb history, as gleaned and researched by the ceramicist and Professor of Ceramics de Waal, of the family - and its devastating losses at the hands of Hitler and his minions and accomplices. Especially shattering are the details of the anti-Semitism rampant in France and Austria long before Hitler. In late 19th-century Paris, one of the most intriguing and artistically inclined members of the Ephrussis family, Charles, knew the likes of Renoir, Monet, Manet, Pisarro, Degas, and others. He not only bought their works but found sitters for some of them when money was scarce for them. He can even be seen in a corner of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party." Perish the thought that such a position would shield him from the anti-Semitism of his time, notably from Renoir and Degas. Charles Ephrussis was also close to Proust and served as a model for Swann. Not surprisingly, the information about the Anschluss in Austria and the aftermath of its horrors on the family is heartbreaking, but what is especially disgusting is the awareness that once Hitler barreled into Vienna, so many of the Austrian (read "Christian") population simply gave vent to their anti-Semitic persuasions and joined in the attacks. The more I read of WW II, the more I realize that it was ever thus throughout so much of Europe. The author's grandmother was a marvel, a lawyer and poet who married a Dutchman, gaining Dutch citizenship, and eventually settled in England. Thanks to her, some members of the family who would certainly have been killed were able to emigrate from Austria, but she couldn't prevent her own mother's suicide. By the time her grandson Edmund de Waal comes along, his immediate family is Christian, his father a minister, but his Jewish roots run deep. Immensely close to his great-uncle Iggie, who settled in Japan after WW II, he became fascinated with the netsuke, a collection of wood and ivory carvings that were essentially all that remained of the once mighty Ephrussis art treasures. The netsuke had been gathered by Charles, an ardent lover of Japanese art during his Parisian years. The route that they took, from Charles's 19th-century Paris to Edmund's 21st-century England, with a long layover in Iggie's Japan, is fascinating(less)

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May 02, 2013 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: art-history, non-fiction, biography

What a beautiful book, written in a sort of continuous present tense, in spare, elegant, and very moving prose. Towards the end, the author writes that he longer really knows if what he is writing is a book about his family, or memory, or about himself, or if it is still a book about Japanese "small things."

The small things he is referring to are the netsuke, intricately carved objects made of ivory or wood that his great-great uncle Charles Ephrussi, an art connoisseur and patron turned art hi...more What a beautiful book, written in a sort of continuous present tense, in spare, elegant, and very moving prose. Towards the end, the author writes that he longer really knows if what he is writing is a book about his family, or memory, or about himself, or if it is still a book about Japanese "small things."

The small things he is referring to are the netsuke, intricately carved objects made of ivory or wood that his great-great uncle Charles Ephrussi, an art connoisseur and patron turned art historian (and apparently the inspiration for Marcel Proust's Swann), collected during the 19th-century when he lived in France and everyone in the art world, friends of Charles's like Degas and Renoir, were avidly collecting Japanese art.

The Ephrussi are a wealthy Jewish banking family, and the book traces their history from a shtetl in Poland to the port city of Odessa in Russia and from there, as they opened up branch banks in the great cities of Europe, to Vienna and Paris. The story follows the netsuke as they pass form Charles to his cousin Viktor, the author's great grandfather, as a wedding gift and the collection comes to reside in Vienna. There they are apparently lost when the Euphrissi business, home, and possessions are confiscated, "Aryanized," as the Nazis called it, including their books, paintings, furniture and even their clothes, leaving them two small windowless rooms in the back of their palatial residence to live in. But I won't recount what happens next and spoil this for others.

There are a number of YouTube videos you can find of interviews with the author, but there is one, a short one, in which the author talks directly into the camera about the netsuke that shouldn't be missed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMci7etxN8U&noredirect=1. He describes them as these extraordinarily expressive, highly individualized, three-dimensional works of art small enough to fit into the palm of your hand that are meant to be held, touched, turned over and over. And that it's only really by touching them as you turn them over and over that you feel, for instance, the spiny back and pronounced ribs of the snarling wolf and realize, in this very tactile way, how hungry it is, and then in turning it over again realize why this is such an angry wolf: it's got hold of a tortoise under its front paws, but can't pry it out of its shell. Edmund de Waal has a knack for telling stories, just as the netsuke themselves do. It is an amazing book.(less)

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Jun 02, 2012 Elly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gelezen

Dit boek was voor mij meer dan het lezen waard omdat het wereldgeschiedenis koppelt aan kunstgeschiedenis en wel aan die periodes die mij heel erg boeien.
Het opkomende impressionisme en de groeiende macht van de joden en tegelijkertijd de haat die ontstaat in Europa tegen de joden. De schrijver gebruikt daarvoor zijn zoektocht naar zijn familie naar aanleiding van de kleine beeldjes die hij in zijn bezit krijgt en dat is alleen maar grappig.
Zo interessant is het om te lezen hoe sommige groepen...more Dit boek was voor mij meer dan het lezen waard omdat het wereldgeschiedenis koppelt aan kunstgeschiedenis en wel aan die periodes die mij heel erg boeien.
Het opkomende impressionisme en de groeiende macht van de joden en tegelijkertijd de haat die ontstaat in Europa tegen de joden. De schrijver gebruikt daarvoor zijn zoektocht naar zijn familie naar aanleiding van de kleine beeldjes die hij in zijn bezit krijgt en dat is alleen maar grappig.
Zo interessant is het om te lezen hoe sommige groepen mensen zo rijk en machtig konden worden en dat de verschillen tussen bevolkingsgroepen zo groot konden zijn in die tijd. Wij tobben nog steeds met de overblijfselen daarvan (zie banken crises). Ook hoe gewoon men dat vond en het valt ook op dat de schrijver dat niet als uitzonderlijk lijkt te beschouwen.
Het dandy achtige leventje van de broers Charles en Ignace die niet hoefden te worden opgeleid als bankiers is, maar hun tijd doorbrengen als schrijver van recensies en verzamelaar van kunst respectievelijk als schermer en jockey wordt uitvoerig beschreven. Er is geld genoeg.
Maar wat me bevalt in het boek is hoe beschreven wordt hoe de (relatief arme) kunstenaars ook aan de Japanse kunst komen en dit weer gebruiken ter inspiratie.Dit zie je inderdaad ook in hun werk. Dit beschrijft de schrijver op een boeieende manier. Het lijkt alsof je er bij bent. De contacten van Charles met Monet, Degas, Pisarro en anderen zijn heel direct en concreet neergezet.
Dan volgt de periode van de Jodenhaat. Het is haast ongelooflijk dat zoiets kan ontstaan. Is het nou jaloezie, is het vanwege de verschillen in cultuur, is het vanwege de verschillen in geloofsovertuiging? Hier kom je in dit boek helemaal niet achter. Wat je wel te weten komt is dat het zeker niet iets is wat alleen in Duitsland ontstaan is en ook zeker niet alleen door Hitler aangezet is. Feit is dat het er het was en dat het steeds erger werd.
Het bestond door heel Europa en werd door allerlei bevolkingsgroepen met allerlei achtergronden aangemoedigd.
Het lijkt haast een beetje wat je tegenwoordig in Europa ziet tegen mensen met een islamitische achtergrond.
Met de opkomst van Hitler en de kristalnacht als aanleiding brak de hel los. Het moet vreselijk geweest zijn om in die tijd als jood geleefd te hebben. Niemand die je kon beschermen, geen plaats waar je veillig was.
Wat geweldig van zo'n trouwe bediende die zo loyaal is om haar leven te riskeren en dan een deel(tje) van je familiebezit te redden. Niets wordt overigens in het boek genoemd of zij daar uberhaupt en zo ja hoe zij daarvoor beloond is.
Het laatste deel van het boek over Iggy in Japan had boeiender kunnen zijn. Hij schijnt nog een heel imperium op te bouwen na de oorlog, maar hoe of wat wordt niet vermeld. Ook hoe het de andere zoons uit het bankiersgeslacht is vergaan wordt niet vermeld. Jammer.
Ook de rol van de vader van de schrijver is wat oninteressant.
Maar al met al een lezenswaardig boek.

kk(less)

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Apr 30, 2012 Filip rated it 2 of 5 stars

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...more 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 Ephrussi had been spending their money until then, nor is the reader left any clearer as to how the Ephrussi's fortune was amassed in a few short decades only.
In this romantic vision of "When my family played Downton Abbey in Vienna", servants receive short shrift: Anna, the saviour of the netsuke collection, is quickly dismissed (nobody in the family even remembers her last name); and of course the doorman is blamed for letting the gates wide open for the Gestapo on an inspection visit (as if a closed door was going to stop them).
It would have been easier to warm to the family if the author had come across as less self-absorbed. His pottery activity is mentioned regularly, but is pretty much irrelevant to the book; and some odd choices in vocabulary (a "glaucous" pudding - really?) betray the random use of a thesaurus to impress the readers. Finally, some fact-checking would have been in order, so as to get the spelling and syntax of French and German phrases right. The errors are not only linguistic, but also historical and geographic: Czechoslovakia did not exist before 1918, so the Ephrussi couldn't have had a country estate there (if anything, before WWI they would probably have thought of it as Hungary). Dachau is not on the edge of Bavaria but on the outskirts of Munich. Germany was the land of thinkers and poets ("Land der Dichter und Denker"), not Austria - etc etc.
Overall, an interesting read of a flawed book. The awards for the book seem motivated by compassion for the riches-to-rags family history (coupled with a Goodwin bonus), more than for the craftsmanship of the author.(less)

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Mar 07, 2013 Ken-ichi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: xmas2011, history, learning

"Melancholy, I think, is a sort of default vagueness, a get-out clause, a smothering lack of exactitude," De Waal writes at the beginning. "And this netsuke is a small, tough explosion of exactitude. It deserves this kind of exactitude in return." This is a promising way to open a family history alarmingly described as "extraordinarily moving" on the back cover blurb, a blurb that also mentions Nazis. Maybe this won't be another history to further blunt the worn edges of my horror and outrage. M...more "Melancholy, I think, is a sort of default vagueness, a get-out clause, a smothering lack of exactitude," De Waal writes at the beginning. "And this netsuke is a small, tough explosion of exactitude. It deserves this kind of exactitude in return." This is a promising way to open a family history alarmingly described as "extraordinarily moving" on the back cover blurb, a blurb that also mentions Nazis. Maybe this won't be another history to further blunt the worn edges of my horror and outrage. Maybe it will be something else. Why does this British man have a tiny Japanese sculpture in his pocket?

So I began intrigued, by De Waal and Iggy and Jiro and these weird little sculptures called "netsuke." Charles and the Parisian Ephrussis were interesting, though for much of this portion I just felt bad about not having read Proust, and while the netsuke make their entrance, they are not handled. They are not exact in the sense De Waal clearly appreciates, probably because this section seems the most constructed from research and public documents than the more personal sources he used from his own family. Nevertheless, an interesting portrait of Jews in 19th century Paris. Who knew they were such expert swordsmen?

In Vienna the netsuke encounter De Waal's direct ancestors, including his mother Elisabeth and his uncle Iggy. The family has more personality and the netsuke have a more definite position in De Waal's grandmother's dressing room, where her children would attend her as she prepared for an evening. They would take out the netsuke and she would tell them stories. The brindled wolf in the author's pocket acquires layers of memory with each glancing touch through the years, and De Waal conveys it, with poise and discretion. Elisabeth's return to Nazi-occupied Vienna and impersonation of a gestapo officer tantalizes with drama, real drama, but De Waal grants it only a paragraph, perhaps out of respect for his mother's carefully dispensed recollections, perhaps because appreciating that derring-do is another form of melancholy for things lost to time.

Some of this discretion, these omissions, make the book more interesting. Elisabeth burned many of her correspondences, and De Waal wonders why, but will never know. Iggy is gay but his gayness is never addressed directly. His partner is simply De Waal's Japanese uncle. Doesn't being gay on top of being Austrian, Jewish, and American living in Tokyo or fighting with the Americans in WWII form an essential part of Iggy's experience? Netsuke were originally practical objects that kept a corded pouch from slipping through a kimono sash, and yet they lost their utilitarian value entirely when they traveled to Europe and become purely aesthetic objects. Surely this transition concerns a ceramicist like De Waal, a man so concerned with tangibility?

In some ways I also wanted more about expatriates and assimilation. My parents are expatriates that have never chosen to naturalize despite living in the US for almost 30 years and raising 3 American children, and while I did naturalize and feel American, I still don't have roots in the land stretching back generations. De Waal describes the Jews of Europe and the Ephrussis in particular as perpetual expats, forever suspected by their gentile neighbors despite all efforts to assimilate, but I was more interested in Iggy in LA, Elisabeth in England, Gisela in Mexico, expats who not only left their homes but did so as individuals, creating homes and families of their on in alien places. What drove them? What kept them?

The book is a personal and personalized history that spans numerous cultures and places in ways I was not expecting (there's even a Middlemarch reference in there, Ak). Definitely recommended.

Addendum

My brother got me these amazingly detailed netsuke-like magnets and cell phone charms when he was in Japan last spring:

(less)

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Jun 14, 2012 Kathy Turner rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have just finished The hare with amber eyes. I thought it was one of the most stunning books I'd ever read.

The language is wonderful. The stories in France where Renoir and Proust just pop in as part of the 'scene' - oh what a feel for Impressionist France - I particularly loved finding out that Charles is that figure in the top hat in the background of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party- somehow such a small intimate detail of Charles' life has enlivened that painting for me for ever.

htt ...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Lindz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, memoir, british, genre-bending, read-2012

For me this was a memoir/family history/art history story of moments. It may have suffered a little because of it's hype, as books of this nature tend to do. It is a cool book, it calmly and at times meanderingly wonders around the streets of Japan and Europe, through posh apartments, wide boulevards and opulent palaces. All in search of a tiny figurine called a netsuke.

I did like how the author De Waal inserted himself into the pages. After all this is his family's history, and he was able to...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Jack rated it 5 of 5 stars

A sensational study of the author's family, one of the richest European Jewish families, on par with the Rothschilds. They hail from Odessa, but reign in the salons of Paris and Vienna - aesthetes, bankers, collectors, taste-makers. One of the authors relatives collected 264 miniature Japanese carved figures, netsuke, which are carefully passed from one generation to the next.

The history of this collection of remarkable miniatures provides a framework for examining the family itself, from their...more

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Mar 26, 2011 Gail rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, politics-and-history

If you love history and art—and the melding of the two—that I think you will find it impossible not to be taken with Edmund de Waal's "The Hare with Amber Eyes."

To be fair, this is high-brow storytelling. If "The DaVinci Code" is the McDonald's equivalent of a book that incorporates these two themes, then "Amber Eyes" is the four-course French meal complete with palette-cleansing sorbet.

The book is a biography of de Waal's inherited collection of more than 200 pieces of Japanese netsuke, small c...more If you love history and art—and the melding of the two—that I think you will find it impossible not to be taken with Edmund de Waal's "The Hare with Amber Eyes."

To be fair, this is high-brow storytelling. If "The DaVinci Code" is the McDonald's equivalent of a book that incorporates these two themes, then "Amber Eyes" is the four-course French meal complete with palette-cleansing sorbet.

The book is a biography of de Waal's inherited collection of more than 200 pieces of Japanese netsuke, small carved figurines of ivory and wood (nowadays you might see knock-offs of these in pawn shops and flea markets but the real deal is, as we learn here, worth a small fortune).

The netsuke tie together the story of de Waal's family history, as the author follows what happens to the pieces over the course of 140 years by sharing vivid details of the inhabitants of the three rooms in which the netsuke found their home.

The first is the Parisian study of Charles Ephrussi, an art critic and writer who hung with the likes of Impressionist painters Renoir and Degas (and who owned an enormous collection of their art at one time). The second is the Viennese dressing room of de Waal's great-great grandmother Emmy von Ephrussi at a time when the Austrian capital is being torn apart by war. The third, the Tokyo apartment of Emmy's son (and de Waal's uncle) Iggie.

The way de Waal writes this book lets us imagine ourselves in each of these time periods while, at the same, giving us insight into the hours upon hours he spent in French and Austrian and London libraries, searching for his family's past in the tiny type of newspaper articles and society columns.

de Waal is a a ceramic artist with major installations in Britain's V&A museum and Tate Britain who also happens to be one hell of a fine storyteller. I found myself enthralled reading about the lavish lifestyle of his ancestors and his impressions as he introduced himself to each of the great homes of residence where they lived (one example is the Palais Ephrussi -- just IMAGINE your great-grandparents living here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_E...)

A few of my favorite scenes and/or commentary in the book:
• de Waal's description of the Parisian salon scene of the late 1800s -- imagine sitting in the parlors of well-to society women, in the company of legends like Proust and Renoir and Roudin, talking about art and culture!
• de Waal on his study of Charles in Paris:
" It makes me think of the rummaging that I am doing through his life as I track the netsuke, the noting of other people's annotations in the margins. I vagabond in libraries, trace where he went and why. I follow the leads of whom he knew, whom he wrote about, whose pictures he bought. In Paris I go and stand outside his old offices in the rue Favart in the summer rain like some sad art-historical gumeshoe and wait to see who comes out ... And I find that I have fallen for Charles. He is a passionate scholar. He is well dressed and good at art history and dogged in research. What a great and unlikely trinity of attributes to have, I think aspirationally.
• de Waal's detailing of the rich society life of Emmy von Ephrussi (the hours she'd spend every day preparing to go out for society events; three wardrobe changes every day!)
• There is a great passage in which de Waal talks about a series of letters exchanged between Emmy's oldest daughter, Elisabeth (the author's grandmother) and a famous Swiss poet of the 1920s -- a line from one of his letters that I really really loved about Elisabeth's joint ventures in law and poetry: "I find the great contrast between your two occupations positive; the more diverse the life of the mind, the better the chances are that your inspiration will be protected, the inspiration which cannot be predicted, that which is motivated from within."
• Reading about de Waal's family stuck in Austria when World War II broke out was heartbreaking but I couldn't pull my attention away from the storyline, knowing this all really happened
(less)

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Jul 29, 2012 Marc A. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a beautiful book. However, I must warn that it is not for those who scorn aesthetics, connoisseurship, erudition and the like as elitist. Mr. de Waal, professionally a maker of fine art porcelains, is himself many of these things and, importantly, his book is a memoir of his two year effort to recreate and reconnect with the details of 100 years in the life of his once fabulously wealthy and refined family. As a fulcrum he uses the history of an amazing collection of exquisite Japanese n...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Deirdre Clare rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A brilliant book. Hard to read, so much so that I stopped about 5 pages from the end. Fool! I will try and right this error though before too long. Have to go and stand in Easons and read it! His dry style is a bit hard to take but then when he comes to the descriptions of what happened the family during the occupation by the Nazis the economy of emotion in his descriptions make the harrowing facts so much clearer and devastating somehow. I really respect how this book was put together and the c...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Leslie rated it 5 of 5 stars

The most unusual book I have read in a long time - part memoir/family history combined with lessons in art history/the Jewish experience during the Rise of Hitler/the Japanese experience at the end of the war/vocabulary that sent me to the dictionary more than once and the best description/explanation of how a family can, and must, reinvent itself as the world around it changes. And, all of this unearthed by following the trail of the cherished family collectible, the netsuke.
After reading this...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Mario Rufino rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: com-críticas

Mario Rufino
http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp...

O meu texto, no Diário Digital, sobre este excelente livro

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May 13, 2013 Holly Bean added it

I enjoyed reading this book very much. Though it is nonfiction, it is reads with the same grace and feeling as good fiction. De Waal writes about his family history as seen from the inheritance of a collection of netsuke that have come to him from his uncle.

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Jun 16, 2013 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

In his novel Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust describes how “the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive… in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share ou...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Virginia rated it 5 of 5 stars

At first, I didn't think I was going to like this book, but the story gradually draws you in. It's a book about so many things. It's about Edmund de Waal's love for his family as much as anything. The story of the 264 netsuke - tiny Japanese carvings - which come into his possession from his great uncle is the main theme but it's also a detective story and, at times, a shameful and horrifying story of the growth of anti-semitism in France and Germany. The "anschluss" of Austria in 1938 is follow...more

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May 17, 2013 Cliff rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

The author has inherited a collection of Japanese netsuke, originally assembled by a distant relative who was a patron of the arts in late 19th century Paris. Netsuke are miniature carvings which originated in 17th century Japan as toggles at the end of drawstrings but later developed a purely artistic significance. Friends who have listened to the author's conversation about these items and the history of their passage through the family have urged him to write a book about them.

In the second l...more

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About Edmund de Waal

Edmund de Waal describes himself as a 'potter who writes'. His porcelain has been displayed in many museum collections around the world and he has recently made a huge installation for the dome of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Edmund was apprenticed as a potter, studied in Japan, and read English Literature at Cambridge University. 'The Hare with Amber Eyes', a journey through the hist...more

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“Yangi, a philosopher, art historian and poet, had evolved a theory of why some objects - pots, baskets, cloth made by unknown craftsmen - were so beautiful. In his view, they expressed unconscious beauty because they had been made in such numbers that the craftsman had been liberated from his ego.” — 5 people liked it

“The problem is that I am in the wrong century to burn things. I am the wrong generation to let it go.” — 5 people liked it

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