The release date for the English version of 'The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss' by
Edmund de Waal is Aug 2010. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
In 19th-century Paris and Vienna society, the Ephrussis family was a prominent banking family that was as wealthy and well-liked as the Rothschilds. They were said to "burn like a comet." However, at the conclusion of World War II, 264 wood and ivory carvings—none bigger than a matchbox—were almost the sole remnants of their ancient kingdom.
This modest yet excellent netsuke collection was passed down to the fifth generation, which included the famous ceramicist Edmund de Waal. Drawn in by their allure and enigma, he made it his mission to follow the path of his family's history via the collection's narrative.
Charles Ephrussi collected the netsuke, which were inebriated monks, almost-ripe plums, and growling tigers, during the height of Paris's wrath against all things Japanese. Charles had turned down the position reserved for him in the family firm in order to pursue his studies of art and luxurious life. He was an early admirer of the Impressionists and may be seen in Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, looking rather formal with a top hat. Charles was sufficiently researched by Marcel Proust to serve as a model for Swann, the lover and aesthete in Remembrance of Things Past.
Charles presented his cousin Viktor with the carvings as a wedding present in Vienna; his kids were permitted to play with one netsuke each as they saw their mother, the Baroness Emmy, getting ready for ball after ball. Her eldest daughter grew up to despise the world of fashion. She started writing because she was so eager to write, and Rilke gave her encouragement for her poems.
The Anschluss completely altered their reality. Ephrussi and his well-travelled family were either dispersed or put in jail, and Hitler's "Jewish question" theorists took over their beautiful Ringstrasse mansion. The Nazis seized an Old Master painting collection and an expensive book library. However, Anna, a devoted maid, stole the netsuke and concealed them in her straw mattress. She would find a way to bring them back to the family she had served, even during their exile, years after the war.
Edmund de Waal tells the tale of an extraordinary family and a turbulent century in The Hare with Amber Eyes. As exquisite and accurate as the netsuke themselves, it is a very unique reflection on art, history, and family that is bothsweeping and personal.