Netsuke are Japanese miniature sculptures, who became very popular in the 18th-19th century Europe, at a time when Japonaiseries were entering the houses of European bourgeoisie. Took out of their original cultural and narrative context they became part of a different cultural register and story.
That´s the story of objects sometimes, able to co-exist in two different stories and family narratives.
The Hare with Amber Eyes, Winner of 2010 Costa Award, by pottery artist and writer Edmund de Waal retraces minutiously his family story through 264 netsuke inherited from his late uncle in Japan. From Paris to Austria, Odessa, Englad and Tokyo, the small figures is the red thread bringing together the more or less known episodes from her family, the once European famous Ephrussi.
When one revisits the past, there are present-day fragments that are actually re-written with the words and eyesight of the present. It is an essay in re-imagining other people past, but although it may reproduce the stories, it misses the real feelings and the excitement of the moment.
But a netsuke is ´hard to break: each one is made to be knocked around the world´. His documentary journey through centuries of family history De Waal keeps discovering hidden things and memories.
When the book was published and documented, there were scarce news about the situation of looted Jewish art from the Austrian Nazi authorities. As in many other countries when it comes to Jewish properties, it looked like the laws were made having in mind the prospect that one day, those works of art would be requested back. The situation is far from being solved, although one step at a time may be victoriously announced in the media. The dramas of the sudden changes of fate and often, dramatic fatal encounters, are for ever encrypted in the DNA of so many Jewish families.
I particularly loved the tone of the story, curious yet careful in bringing up the facts and permanently confronting the unexpected results to the already known/confirmed memories. A delicate work, as delicate as the making of pottery.
Rating: 5 stars
