A collection of 264 Japanese netsuke travels from Impressionist Paris through Nazi Vienna to contemporary Tokyo, tracing one family's rise and near-erasure across a century of upheaval.
About This Book
Inheriting a collection of nearly three hundred tiny Japanese carvings, exquisite ivory and wood miniatures small enough to hold in a palm, the author sets out to trace their journey through his own family's history, and that journey opens onto a sweeping saga of a fabulously wealthy Jewish banking dynasty, from the salons of Belle Epoque Paris to the grandeur of Vienna, through the catastrophe of the Nazi seizure of everything they owned, and on to Tokyo, with the little carvings surviving as silent witnesses. De Waal, a ceramicist, writes a beautiful, meditative work of family memoir and history, using the miniatures as a thread to follow his ancestors through triumph, assimilation, persecution, and loss, reflecting on objects, memory, exile, and what endures. The prose is elegant and contemplative, the history intimate and vast at once. This suits readers who want a beautifully written, reflective blend of family memoir, art history, and European history, and anyone drawn to stories told through objects. It fits less well anyone wanting a fast narrative or a single plot, since the book is discursive and meditative. The detail that a collection of tiny carvings survives the destruction of a great family and becomes the thread through their whole history gives the book its poignant central conceit. Elegant, meditative, and moving, it rewards patient readers. Those wanting momentum may find it slow, but its evocation of history through objects is exactly what makes it so admired.
Who This Is For
Best for readers who want their assumptions challenged: books that raise questions without easy answers. The writing rewards attention without being demanding, a good balance of depth and readability. It takes its time, and that's the point. Patience is rewarded. If you want clear answers and a satisfying resolution, look elsewhere.
Best Read When
Best read when you're in the mood for something challenging and thought-provoking, and a read that's slow and deeply immersive.
What It Explores
The Hare with Amber Eyes explores family in all its complexity — inherited and chosen, identity and the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be, and power and ambition and what they cost the people who pursue them.
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