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pattydsf 's review for:
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
by Edmund de Waal
I have been meaning to read this book for quite some time. When it came out in 2010, I read some reviews and thought it was fascinating. Then the illustrated edition came out a year later and that made me even more interested.
However, it seems this was the time I was meant to read this family saga. I needed to read Rebecca Solnit's book Wanderlust to learn about Walter Benjamin and flaneurs. Some of what I had read in The Lost Carving resonated with craft as de Waal talked about it. Even the mystery novel I was reading this month (The Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George) had connections to The Hare with Amber Eyes because of the art work invented for that novel.
Edmund de Waal has the most amazing ancestors. They were bankers and had more financial resources than I can imagine. One relative was good friends with some of the Impressionists in France. Others had incredible influence in Vienna. They were Jewish and so unfortunately they were among the people that Hitler managed to make scapegoats for the economic situation in Europe before World War II.
These are the people that I have only read about in history books. de Waal is related to them and tells their stories in a way that is history and personal. The era and the happenings came alive to me because of the way de Waal told his family stories. The writing, the illustrations and the netsuke are among the most beautiful things I have encountered this year.
I recommend this story to readers of family sagas - this is real, but reads like a novel. Also I believe readers of history and memoirs will also like this.
However, it seems this was the time I was meant to read this family saga. I needed to read Rebecca Solnit's book Wanderlust to learn about Walter Benjamin and flaneurs. Some of what I had read in The Lost Carving resonated with craft as de Waal talked about it. Even the mystery novel I was reading this month (The Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George) had connections to The Hare with Amber Eyes because of the art work invented for that novel.
Edmund de Waal has the most amazing ancestors. They were bankers and had more financial resources than I can imagine. One relative was good friends with some of the Impressionists in France. Others had incredible influence in Vienna. They were Jewish and so unfortunately they were among the people that Hitler managed to make scapegoats for the economic situation in Europe before World War II.
These are the people that I have only read about in history books. de Waal is related to them and tells their stories in a way that is history and personal. The era and the happenings came alive to me because of the way de Waal told his family stories. The writing, the illustrations and the netsuke are among the most beautiful things I have encountered this year.
I recommend this story to readers of family sagas - this is real, but reads like a novel. Also I believe readers of history and memoirs will also like this.