First book of 2011

I started the new year with the perfect read, namely the kind of book you can't put down: "The Hare with Amber Eyes." When writer Edmund de Waal, a distinquished British potter, inherits a trove of Japanese netsuke, he's inspired to trace the history of these whimsical sculptural treasures amassed by a 19th century ancestor, Charles Ephrussi.

A Japanese ivory netsuke: the hare with amber eyes.

The Rothschilds may be better known, but for the better part of a century the Ephrussi family was a major force in the worlds of grain, shipping, and banking. Their reach extended from Odessa and St. Petersburg to Vienna, Paris and London.

Parisian Charles Ephrussi was a patron of the French Impressionists (and even appears in a painting) as well as being something of a model for Proust's famous character, Swann. De Waal's great grandparents were from the Vienna branch of the family and lived in the Palais Ephrussi which required 17 servants to maintain. It was a monumental structure located on Vienna's Ringstrasse not far from Freud's offices.

 

This house — and its collections of priceless books, Old Master paintings and beautiful furniture and objects — was Jewish property and thus commandeered by the Nazis when they arrived in Austria in the late 1930s. They turned the Ephrussi family out in scenes that are are all too familiar to us today, but still retain a sense of terror even on the printed page. The Nazi's transformed the Ephrussi's house into offices where they counted and cataloged its rarefied contents. Later the building served the American military at the end of WWII. 

 

Edmund de Waal

De Waal spent two years reading old letters and documents, traveling about Europe and Russia, searching out his family's history, including how the netsuke survived the Nazi ransacking. Throughout his travels he always had one of the netsuke in his pocket: a worry bead, a talisman, an aide-memoire.

I've long been familiar with de Waal's ceramics which are exquisitely spare to the point of minimalism. His writing, however, is rich and layered. He follows quirky personal byways (a meditation on a yellow chair or glass vitrines) and uses favorite words (flaneurial) multiple times. As an artist who makes beautiful objects and then lets them go (to collectors and museums), de Waal makes a particularly thoughtful guide to the concepts — and realities — of collecting, displaying, appreciating, and letting go of art.

"Things to think with #3" by Edmund de Waal.

 

The history of a family and its collection of Japanese miniature sculptures might suggest that the book is aimed at a small and rarefied audience. Not so; "The Hare with Amber Eyes" continually intersects with the great names and great events of the 19th and 20th centuries, moving easily from art history to mystery, multi-generational stories to the Jewish diaspora. It's a small miracle and as beautiful as the netsuke it chronicles. 

You can read more about the book on de Waal's website here.

Comments

[Lisa at Greenbow]

This book is a perfect start to the New Year also in correlation to the Chinese New Year that begins Feb 3, the year of the rabbit.

[Altoon]

I read a review of this book a while ago in the NY Review of Books; it sounds fascinating. I then looked up de Waal's work, which is incredibly beautiful. The way he makes installations of simple objects is a unique and moving art.

[Julie Siegel]

You are inspiring me to renew my library card!

[S. Adler Sobol]

I read a review of this book along with an interview with the author in the recent past and placed it on my "books to read list". Your post has inspired me to seek it out immediately. Thanks, Linda! Susan

[LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD]

Thanks for mentioning the Year of the Rabbit, Lisa.

I think you would all like the book. It begins a bit slowly but then really takes off. Altoon, I think you in particular would appreciate his musings on art and objects.

[Nicole]

Linda, thanks for posting your first book of the year. Your previous blog of the 52 books you read last year inspired me to try to read a book a week. Just finished my second book of the year, Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life, and my first book of the year was Armistead Maupin's Mary Ann in Autumn. Now to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit with a good read!