The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance [Hardcover]

Edmund de Waal is a renowned ceramic artist who's work has been exhibited in Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He can trace his ancestry back to a wealthy Ukrainian family who made their fortune from grain exporting and later banking, and who had spacious and luxurious homes in Vienna, Tokyo and Paris. When Edmund inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese netsuke carvings from his Uncle Ignace, he felt prompted to investigate their place in the family history. The Hare With Amber Eyes is the result.

The book opens with De Waal studying in Tokyo in 1991 while on a two year scholarship, visiting his Uncle Iggie (Ignace) in his home in Tokyo, which he shares with Jiro, his partner of 41 years. Ignace has a wonderful collection of netsuke which has been in the family since the late 19th century. Three years later, Uncle Iggie dies, and Jiro writes and signs a document bequeathing the netsuke to Edmund once Jiro himself has gone.

When Edmund eventually owns the netsuke he finds himself greatly intrigued by the history of this remarkable collection, and realises that all he really knows are a few anecdotes, which become thinner in the telling. The only answer is to carry out a proper investigation into their story - and off he sets to visit the locations the netsuke have resided in and to investigate those who owned them before.

The Hare with Amber Eyes is a lovely book. I have read similar accounts of family history where too much is assumed, where scenes are guessed at, conversations created where none could possible be recalled, and personalities are elaborated until they are far too larger than life. Edmund de Waal seems to be a very careful writer. He has only written about what he knows and what he can prove from primary sources. This gives the book a far greater sense of authenticity than many others. In addition, as an artist himself and a creator of fine porcelain objects, he is well suited to trace the course through of these netsuke over the last 150 years - he is wholly equipped to understand the meaning of such things and is adept at communicating his love for them with his readers.

The book is nicely produced and is illustrated with in-text photographs of Edmund's family and the places they lived in. The only omission is pictures of the netsuke themselves. Fortunately a few images of his collection can easily be found online.

This is a mesmerising many-layered book. The fascinating narrative of the fabulously wealthy Jewish Ephrussi family moves through the decades from commercial Odessa to the Paris of the Impressionists and artistic salons to the brutal destruction of the Anschluss of 1938 in Vienna and a familial diaspora over three continents. Parallel to this, we follow with the author his own emotive journey to reclaim the lives lived in the vanished rooms of his forbears. This he does sensitively and successfully, imagining his way there through archives, letters and contemporary fiction. He visits all the great houses and, in Odessa, tasting the dust of the demolished palace rooms, he rejoices in the survival of the Ephrussi family emblem on a last remaining banister.

Such evocative writing and small discovered detail make this a story we want to follow with him and we find that this is not, after all, a tale of acquisition but of loss. The 264 tiny Japanese carvings (netsuke) bought in the 1870s in Paris are all that now remain of the family possessions. We also come to understand another loss: the Ephrussis no longer felt defined by their Jewish origins: artists and socialites passed through their grand salons. It is shocking to discover that even those who enjoyed their patronage were casually anti-Semitic. It is hard to read the vivid account of the abrupt violence of the Nazis as they took (almost) every precious possession from them, leaving them, in the end, only their Jewishness.

The netsuke are the beginning and ending of the story. Their exquisite detail is emblematic of this beautifully crafted book and its touching story of the individuals through whose hands they passed. One or other of them seems, like a rosary, to accompany the writer in his travels: a constant reminder to keep faith with his past.

I am genuinely surprised about how many people love this book. Whilst it does offer a lens on anti-Semitism across a century of European history, 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' also manages to be incredibly tedious.

I should probably offer up a few caveats of my opinions before offering my assessment of what is obviously a much-loved book. I am not a great reader of biography. I can probably count the number I have read on one finger. Despite having read many excellent reviews of this book in the press, I had decided it wasn't my thing at all. But then my book-group (which has a most democratic arrangement) decided to read it. Not being one to duck a book I don't like the look of, I gave it a try.

The novel traces the history of the author Edmund De Waal's family, though an inheritance - 264 carved Japanese netsukes. De Waal wants to trace their history and the meaning they had for their owners. I had assumed from this premise that the objects would be of great significance to their owners, but I don't feel that they ever were.

Originally from Odessa, the Ephrussi family were extremely wealthy bankers. The branch we follow first has relocated to Paris, where they are patrons of the arts. The netsukes were purchased as part of the fashion at the time for Japanese items, and I get the impression it was done without much thought; acquisition was the key. Most of the Paris section of the book is an exercise in name dropping. Ephrussi knew Renoir, Proust, and countless other luminaries of the time. - So what? It's vaguely interesting, but it takes more than a list of famous people to make a good book. The bulk of the first hundred pages, could be distilled as - 'Rich people buy stuff'; hardly a revelation.

De Waal's depiction of the Ephrussi family is lifeless, and perhaps this stems from it being a biography. In a novel, emotions and thoughts can be expressed easily, but I assume De Waal was working through source material that only detailed facts; what his ancestors did, rather than what they felt. The result is very dry.

Where the book is strongest is as a document of social history. The casual anti-Semitism of fin-de-siècle Paris, is something about which I was shamefully ignorant. The factions and politics around the Dreyfus affair was a subject that I was only dimly aware of, but the Ephrussis were at its heart. Interesting, yet the netsukes barely feature.

My impression that the netsukes were a mere bagatelle for the Ephrussi family was reinforced when they are casually given away as a wedding present (I don't think it was because they were much loved that they were passed on). This is how the story moves to Vienna. Here the netsukes become children's playthings, which at last shows some emotional attachment to them.

The Viennese section of the book is by far the strongest. The details of the family's desire to assimilate into Viennese society is interesting, as is the insight into the strong Jewish network in a city that was the cultural and intellectual hub of Europe. As the Second World War approaches the mood becomes stormier and the lives of the family more turbulent. The effect of the Anschluss on the family is devastating.

Interesting though this was, I still found the book lacking. The story of Holocaust is one that can't be told too many times. The plight of the family is of course, deeply affecting but not because of great writing on the author's part. This is a story that has been told many times before and so much better too. I wonder if people's love of this book is because of the emotive nature of its subject matter.

After the war the story trundles on, and to reveal much more would spoil what little surprise the book has. Despite having now been alive at the same time as the major players in his family's history, and having met and conversed with them, De Waal's ancestors still felt flat to me (With the exception of his remarkable Grandmother). There is one tantalising revelation that could have opened up the human side of his Uncle, but it is glossed over in a single sentence.

I seem to have had an adverse reaction to this book, and many will find my opinion unpalatable, but I found `THWAE' to be turgid and putdownable. The netsukes that supposedly form the backbone of this book, for me at least, failed to come alive. If I had to sum it up in single sentence (too late!), I would say it was `Cash in the Attic' meets `Who Do You Think You Are?'. A harsh appraisal, but I think an apt one. Mr De Waal's next book is apparently about pots - This one is about as interesting as watching glaze dry.