Introduction

A New York Times Bestseller

An Economist Book of the Year

Costa Book Award Winner for Biography

Galaxy National Book Award Winner (New Writer of the Year Award)

Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots?which are then sold, collected, and handed on?he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive.

And so begins this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the story of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations. A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

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Excerpt

The Hare with Amber Eyes

1. LE WEST END

One sunny April day I set out to find Charles. Rue de Monceau is a long Parisian street bisected by the grand boulevard Malesherbes that charges off towards the boulevard Pereire. It is a hill of golden stone houses, a series of hotels playing discreetly on neoclassical themes, each a minor Florentine palace with heavily rusticated ground floors and an array of heads, caryatids and cartouches. Number 81 rue de Monceau, the Hôtel Ephrussi, where my netsuke start their journey, is near the top of the hill. I pass the headquarters of Christian Lacroix and then, next door, there it is. It is now, rather crushingly, an office for medical insurance. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1) Edmund de Waal states in the interview above that he found himself particularly charmed
by Charles during his research. Who was your favourite character in the book and why?
2) Much of The Hare with Amber Eyes is about trying to discover who people are by the
objects they own and the objects they value. Do you think this is a good way to find out about people?
3) Do you have any inherited objects? What stories do they tell?
4) What do your favourite belongings say about you, and what conclusions do you think would
be drawn if one of your descendants investigated you in this way?
5) Why do you think Edmund de Waal was unable to trace Anna?
6) In the interview above, Edmund de Waal says, ‘Objects need biography – there aren’t many
books out there that take objects themselves seriously.’ What do you think he means by this, and do
you agree?
7) Some non-fiction history books fill in the gaps in available evidence by reconstructing the
past, for example, by imagining possible conversations and thoughts. Edmund de Waal mainly
avoids this, and concentrates on giving the reader concrete facts or relating first-hand anecdotes.
Which technique do you prefer?
8) Have you ever tried to trace your own family history? If so, what did you find?
9) In his Guardian essay, de Waal closes with a series of questions: ‘What did these small things
mean? Why does touch matter? And what survives?’ What do you think?
10) The online resources listed below give links to galleries of the netsuke. Which netsuke
appeals to you most? Would you have entitled the book The Hare with Amber Eyes, or something
completely different?

From the publisher

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Weblinks

»	Publisher's Reading Guide with Discussion Questions, Author Q&A and more
»	Publisher's Book Info

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 7 of 8 members.

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by sarasikes (see profile) 09/05/13

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