Review of HARE WITH THE AMBER EYES
An original work of literature and memory ...
Drop dead masterpiece … just like the blurbs say on the cover, it is utterly original, absorbing, and instructive. The writing is as clear and smooth as the netsuke that inspired this man to ramble into his family’s history. This book qualifies as one of the best written and researched memoirs I have ever read. It is a poignantly intimate portrait of being Jewish (and rich) in Europe in the late 19th & 20th century. Most profoundly, it is a visceral description of an end of a way of life and the fragility of all that we rely on. All of this and so much more is conveyed with a maturity and a restraint that gives the book the texture of a piece of art as much as a work of literature.
THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES
Edmund De Waal
2021 368 pages