The Hare with Amber Eyes

A Hidden Inheritance

By: Edmund de Waal

Narrated by: Michael Maloney

Winner of the 2010 COSTA Biography Award. A total of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his Great Uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined.…

The Ephrussis came from Odessa, and at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s, Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Marcel Proust was briefly his secretary and used Charles as the model for the aesthete Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Charles’s passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objects were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna.

Later, three children - including a young Ignace - would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them. The Anschluss and Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection, smuggled out of the huge Viennese palace (then occupied by Hitler’s theorist on the ‘Jewish Question’), one piece at a time, in the pocket of a loyal maid – and hidden in a straw mattress.

In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. And, in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves, he tells the story of a unique collection which passed from hand to hand - and which, in a twist of fate, found its way home to Japan.

This audio edition also features an interview with Edmund De Waal from the Vintage Books podcast.

©2011 Edmund de Waal (P)2011 Random House Audio Go

Takes you away to a different time and place

What did you like best about The Hare with Amber Eyes? What did you like least?

I liked the sense of history. Also learning about a different times and places was interesting

What could Edmund de Waal have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

It is non-fiction. I wondered if it would have been more enjoyable as a novel. The story follows the objects rather than the people and sometimes I wanted to know more about the people.

A moving family history explored through objects

This is an unusual unfolding of characters through a sensual written exploration of the objects these people, owned and the times and places those items were placed into. Michael Maloney reads with real grace and does not miss the beauty of a word, however archival the text becomes. There is a charming interview with the author at the end. When the emotions break forth, neither writer nor reader miss a trick in showing us stark truths about the human condition in all its horror and also in its tenderness. An important historical text made accessible by love.

The Hare with the Amber Eyes

A fascinating biography extensively and thoroughly researched about a fascinating family spanning both generations from the 18th centrury to present times and countries and cities from Odessa in Russia to Paris, Vienna Tokyo ending the journey in the United Kingdom.
The story is exceedingly well narrated.

Excellent!

A friend recommended this book! What a gem! I recently visited Japan but had no idea about Netsuke - wish I did. Beautifully narrated and so well written - I truly immersed myself in this book.

Hare's eyes start to shine in Vienna

de Waal says "I was a potter who wrote books no one read"and "the moment when I knew I could write was with the Vienna chapters."
In the early part of this book,I asked whether I wanted to hear this detailed account of his forebears in Paris in the 1800s and these netsuke that they acquired but it was being so well read I was carried along into this moving & poignant account of the path through Paris to Vienna and then expulsion in World War 2 by Hitler . This path takes these netsuke to Japan and then to their now life with de Waal's family in England.Go with them.