Scan barcode
A review by lindzlovesreading
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal
3.0
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 give a resonance to the story, an almost circular narrative. De Waal can woffle on at times, like a child picking on a thread till it comes loose, such as when we are Paris, Impressionist painters and writers are scattered every where.
But then he will throw an image at you. My personal favourite is an image of Vienna, in the Ringstrasse just after the defeat of World War One, which is filled with detritus of a once great Empire.
When he chooses to De Waal can sparkle with emotion and tenderness. From the Ephrussi children playing with the tiny netsuke in their mother's dressing room, to heart breaking accounts of a crumbling Vienna welcoming the Nazis through the Ringstrasse, and the swift and devastating violence that was to follow.
The images of this book stay with me, rather than the whole story, but that isn't always a bad thing.
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 give a resonance to the story, an almost circular narrative. De Waal can woffle on at times, like a child picking on a thread till it comes loose, such as when we are Paris, Impressionist painters and writers are scattered every where.
But then he will throw an image at you. My personal favourite is an image of Vienna, in the Ringstrasse just after the defeat of World War One, which is filled with detritus of a once great Empire.
When he chooses to De Waal can sparkle with emotion and tenderness. From the Ephrussi children playing with the tiny netsuke in their mother's dressing room, to heart breaking accounts of a crumbling Vienna welcoming the Nazis through the Ringstrasse, and the swift and devastating violence that was to follow.
The images of this book stay with me, rather than the whole story, but that isn't always a bad thing.