A most interesting book which traces one Jewish family's experience through two world wars and the story of how a collection of 264 Japanese netsuke survived to remain in the family's collection to this day.
First we had a brief discussion on what a netsuke is. Lee's input here was invaluable as she describes how they were originally used to fasten a cord from which a small bag would be attached to a man's robe in the 17th century in Japan. They are very small ( less than 7cm high) and can be made of different materials like ivory and wood. The pictures on Edmund de Waal's website show how intricate the carvings and decorations can be. To see the collection, click on the link below : http://www.edmunddewaal.com/hare_with_amber_eyes/hare_netsuke_gallery.html
The author is a ceramic artist who lives in the UK and is a descendant of the very wealthy Ephrussi family originally from Odessa in the Ukraine. To understand the survival and the story of the netsuke collection, he travelled to places where his family had settled starting with Vienna. Some of us felt at this point that the book drags on a bit with the direction of the novel meandering. However, once we get to the story of how Charles Ephrussi, a cousin of his great-great grandfather's, bestowed this collection as a wedding present to his great-great-grandparents Viktor and Emmy, the story became compelling.
This memoir gives a really good insight into the extraordinary wealth accumulated by the very rich Jewish families in the late 1800s and the horrors of their experience during Anschluss. I found the fate of Viktor and Emmy particularly poignant. This collection would not have survived without the actions of Emmy's maid Anna and it is unfortunate that her identity and fate is still unknown to this day.
Rating this book is a little tricky as 3 of us gave it 10/10 while one gave it only 5/10! I think we were divided into 2 camps-- those who loved the book and those who just could not get into the story.
The weighted average rating of this book is 8.2 out of 10.
We would like to extend a warm welcome to Melissa for joining our group.
Our next selection is Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thorton and our meeting will be on June 13th (Wed) at Sally's.
