The Hare With Amber Eyes

I loved reading this book written by a perceptive and caring artist about his family and their history.  Edmund de Waal writes about the Ephrussi with such attention to detail about their homes, their cities (Paris, Vienna, Odessa, Tokyo) and the objects they owned and clothes they wore.  It was like poetry to read his analyses of why certain objects (a collection of nearly 130 netsuke the author inherited provide a linking cord through the novel) can have meaning and influence.  I've never encountered a book quite like it.  The larger story is the family moving from great wealth to poverty during World War II, but the author has closed in with skill show their daily lives and the art objects they collected, books they read and all the fascinating friends they knew. The Parisian Charles Ephrussi never worked in the family banking business (they were on a par with the Rothschilds), he knew Proust (who had a character in his books based on Charles).  He knew Renoir (and many of the Impressionists).  He is even in Renoir's painting Bathers on the Seine (gentleman in a top hat). I bought the book in paperback at Costco recently.  I am sad that it is over, but the holiday season beckons, nay demands, my attention now.