“The Hare with Amber Eyes” is a museum book; and the main characters here are objects: netsuke figurines, archival vaults, spiral staircases. However, unlike classical museums, there are no “do not touch” signs in this one, quite the opposite. De Waal’s book is an entirely tactile text. The author tells the story of his ancestors through their collections, one by one sorting through the exhibits - carefully and carefully - as we sort through our grandparents' things in the attic, wiping dust from the ornaments and rustling the thick yellow paper. The only difference is that de Waal himself is rummaging not in the attic of his house, but in the halls of history - in the archives of the de Goncourt brothers, Marcel Proust, Claude Monet and many other writers and artists with whom his grandfathers and great-grandfathers were friends (Charles Ephrussi, the author's great-grandfather, was the prototype of Proust's Swann). An ardent collector, de Waal is so meticulous that he managed to trace the entire path of his netsuke figurines from Japan to France, to Paris in the 19th century, from there to Vienna in the 20th century, and further through the barbed wire of the 1930s. s and 1940s, when the figures were saved from the brown plague by the efforts of a brave girl - and further and further through time, closer and closer to the reader.

Who is this book for? For everyone who is interested in biographies of extraordinary personalities and family sagas. 20th century history buffsFor those who would like to learn about everyday life in Europe at the turn of the century, during the First World War and the 30s