Many of you have already discoveredThe Hare with Amber Eyes (Picador, $16), a rich book of memory and history, due to be released in paperback next week. In it, Edmund de Waal, a highly regarded British ceramicist and potter, retraced his family history through a large collection of netsuke, small Japanese figurines carved from ivory and box wood.
A few weeks ago, during my own family trip to London and Leeds, my cousins Davina and Larry Belling enthusiastically recommended the book to me. I dropped what I was reading and became passionately engrossed. The hardcover was published in the US in at the end of Carla’s illness. If she had read it, I know that we would have conversed about it for many hours and days.
The Hare with Amber Eyes tells the story of the Ephrussi family, a major force in grain, shipping and banking. From Odessa, they expanded their operations to Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg and London. Second to the Rothschilds in influence, reach and wealth, this Jewish family quickly assimilated and mixed with the larger society. The heart of the book takes place in Paris from 1871 to 1905 and in Vienna from 1900 to 1938.
