Edmund de Waal - The Hare with Amber Eyes

Reading Journal – Session 12 – 24/01/2017

Edmund de Waal – The Hare with Amber Eyes

In some ways, this book was completely different than what I expected. I have a version with an actual rabbit on the cover, so I expected something from the perspective of a rabbit, to be honest. I’m also not an art person so I didn’t really care for de Waal’s extensive descriptions of Charles’s art collection in the first part of the book. But it was a really interesting topic, to trace his family history via the ownership of this Japanese figurine collection and it addresses a lot of historical events that I had no idea about, especially not from the perspective of a rich Austrian Jew and by taking into account the value of the object during those times.

At points I missed the addressing of the netsuke, once more than fifty pages go by without mention, mostly because that’s what I expected the book to be about as a red threat, but I can certainly understand even de Waal’s confusion about what this book is supposed to be about because it brings together so many different things in an interesting way. And it led me to remember some of my own family history and what they told me about those times.

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