Edmund de Waal

This being the 78th review of The Hare here on LT, I am sure I cannot do it justice, but the sentence that has been rolling around in my mind goes like this: You know a book is special when even when you don't want to read any more of it you keep on reading..... Edmund de Waal inherits 264 netsuke, those charming, witty, sensual and intricately carved ornaments, once worn as part of a formal Japanese costume, up to the Meiji times when old-fashioned dress was discouraged - and not just any show more netsuke, but very good ones collected originally in the late 19th century by his great great uncle Charles when the fever of Japonisme caught on among the aesthetes and intellectuals with a bit (or a lot!) of spare cash, in Paris. The netsuke are among the few surviving treasures of a vast fortune, truly unimaginably vast, and it is through the medium of the netsuke that de Waal gingerly approaches the rise and fall of his father's maternal family, the Ephrussi bankers of Odessa, Vienna, Paris.... To tell this story, de Waal adopts a slightly distant style of writing, and surely he can write it no other way, for to get any closer would be too dangerous, too painful, for it is a story both breathtaking and terrible. While I've read widely about world war 2, I am constantly brought face-to-face with new angles on the perfidy (and I don't use that word lightly) of the Nazis. The image of a priceless Louis XVI desk being heaved over the railing into the courtyard below is as appalling as anything I've read. Of course, things are just things, but .... in this case the irony is knifelike, these brownshirt louts claim to be cleansing Austria of 'dirt' but too stupid to have any idea what they are destroying. de Waal manages to convey too, with utmost tact and humility, his amazement that he could have come from a family that rose to such wealth and privilege only to have it taken from them in a matter of days. And yet, here he and his brothers and cousins are, de Waal, makes clear, prospering and letting the past be what it is. And here are the netsuke, these exquisite, intimate objects, overlooked when the Nazis ransacked the house - rescued by Anna, the austrian servant, Anna of no last name, kept under her mattress and returned to de Waal's doughty grandmother after the war. What a symbol. What a powerful book and a necessary one to the memoir literature of that war. ****1/2 show less

When I plucked this lovely looking book* from the shelf in the bookshop I assumed, for no accountable reason, that it was a novel. I realised my mistake as soon as I started reading, but within a couple of paragraphs I was completely hooked. Who could possibly imagine the history of porcelain to be so interesting? A marvellous book, full of historical information and fascinating anecdotes. De Waal's enthusiasm and passion for his subject is undeniably infectious, despite the fact that show more reading this book is as close as I'll ever come to throwing a pot of any kind!

* hardback, well bound, good quality paper, excellent typeface, nice bookmark - all these add multiple bonus points for reading pleasure. show less

This is a book which reminds you why physical bookshops are still so important. I wouldn't have necessarily come across this book on an Amazon search for new titles, but I was mesmerised by it when I started flicking through it in a bookshop and I remain mesmerised by it having now read it.

What Edmund de Waal has achieved in this book is a thing of beauty. His forebears were distant relatives of the Camondo family, living in the same impressive Parisian boulevard, and working his way through show more the elaborate home of Count Moïse de Camondo (now a museum) and the archives he's allowed access to, he writes letters to Camondo as he begins to uncover his life and his legacy.

De Waal is a potter when he's not writing, and in his hands the Camondo family story is handled with the same delicacy, respect and artistry as a piece of fragile porcelain. Like a piece of art he builds up the layers. We're not sure where he's going to begin with; is this a book on art / decor? Why should the average reader care about the life of this privileged rich banker Jew from Constantinople? But this is the mastery of de Waal's artistry. Using the objects in each room and his letters to Camondo he begins to reveal the full picture of this family. As the story of the family's life develops and ends so finally in the tragedy of the Holocaust, we step back and see the full picture of the tapestry that de Waal has been weaving. This book is a homage to the Camondo family name, an attempt to put right the besmirching of not just this family but of every other Jewish family whose legacy was sullied with untruths and the whitewashing of their contribution to the society in which they lived.

It's such a beautiful book. Sprinkled with photos of various objets from the life of this family, it feels like a wondrous piece of intimate art which touches you deeply in so many different ways.

4.5 stars - a very special book which I will not be in a hurry to tuck away on a bookshelf any time soon. show less

Using the conceit of his great-uncle's prized collection of Japanese netsuke (small art objects which also serve as a type of worry-stone/object of interest), the author examines the history of his family, the Ephrussi, who built a fortune exporting grain in Odessa and became one of the foremost Jewish financier families in Europe with banks in Paris and Vienna. He explores the Belle Epoque in Paris with its delight in Japonisme and Japanese art objects and Vienna, where the netsuke were show more beloved story-objects and playthings of the Ephrussi children. He takes us through the waves of anti-Semitism in Paris during the Dreyfus Affair and the hardships of the family in the aftermath of WWI and the rise of Nazism. Until finally he returns to the story of his great-uncle Iggie, who ended up a businessman in Tokyo after WWII.

It's a fascinating look at the rise and fall of a family, and I enjoyed the personal, the intimate and the feeling of getting to know the author's family. I was less enamored of the author's discussions about his porcelains or his own travels (even though that was the catalyst for all this) as he didn't seem, honestly, to be as interesting as his other family members. The sections where he talked about himself were actually a bit awkward as he didn't reveal enough about himself and his own relationships with his family (Iggie or his grandmother) to make those asides interesting or rewarding. He played his personal attachments and those of his family (to Jiro, for instance) very close to the chest (as is his right) but in doing so he feels a bit like an incongruous add-on to his otherwise fascinating family. show less