Category Archives: Memoir

January 10, 2013 · 11:48 am

The Hare with the Amber Eyes – Edmund De Waal

The Hare with the Amber Eyes

The Hare with the Amber Eyes

This was recommended to me a while ago and I wasn’t interested, but then it was selected by my book club and I am glad it was I really enjoyed it.

I think what gave me the most enjoyment was Mr De Waal’s writing style – he has a lovely personal anecdotal style.

264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined… The Ephrussis came from Odessa, and at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s, Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Charles’s passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objets were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna. Later, three children – including a young Ignace – would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them. The Anschluss and Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection, dramatically saved by a loyal maid when their huge Viennese palace was occupied. In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century and tells the story of a unique collection.

This is a fascinating story spanning interesting historical times – Paris in the 1870s (Renoir and Degas…), Vienna during WW1 and WW2 and finally Japan. I was intrigued by the craftsmanship involved in making the netsuke and would have liked more on that (although  I might be along in finding the slow, detailed work interesting). I enjoyed the story being told through a group of objects – something tangible that remained after everything else was gone (how Anna saved them and even the fact that she wanted to save them is extraordinary).

More reviews …

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/06/book-review-de-waal-memoir-japanese-netsuke

Review: The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal

 

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September 12, 2012 · 12:02 am

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal – Jeanette Winterson

I saw Jennifer Byrne interview Jeanette Winterson about this book and I was keen to read it.

Here is the synopsis …

 In 1985 Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents. The girl is supposed to grow up and be a missionary. Instead she falls in love with a woman. Disaster. Written when Jeanette was only twenty-five, her novel went on to win the Whitbread First Novel award, become an international bestseller and inspire an award-winning BBC television adaptation. Oranges was semi-autobiographical. Mrs Winterson, a thwarted giantess, loomed over that novel and its author’s life. When Jeanette finally left her home, at sixteen, because she was in love with a woman, Mrs Winterson asked her: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? This book is the story of a life’s work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a tyrant in place of a mother, who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the duster drawer, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an northern industrial town now changed beyond recognition, part of a community now vanished; about the Universe as a Cosmic Dustbin. It is the story of how the painful past Jeanette Winterson thought she had written over and repainted returned to haunt her later life, and sent her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her real mother. It is also a book about other people’s stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life-raft which supports us when we are sinking. Funny, acute, fierce and celebratory, this is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, an identity, a home, and a mother.

This is a touching story full of sadness, abuse and thwarted passion, but told with a light, positive touch. I even had some sympathy for Mrs Winterson (who is a complete monster). It is a story about learning to be loved, finding one’s place in the world, and coming to terms with adoption (ultimately realising that her life is probably better than it would have been if she hadn’t been adopted.

I think this book will lead me back to Winterson’s novels.

More reviews …

http://literaryminded.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/dallas-angguish-on-why-be-happy-when-you-could-be-normal-by-jeanette-winterson-guest-review/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/jeanette-wintersons-new-memoir.html?pagewanted=all

 

 

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February 8, 2012 · 1:56 am

One Pair Of Hands – Monica Dickens

I’ve read Mariana (the Persephone edition), which I enjoyed, so when a friend lent me this I was keen to try it.

Here’s the blurb …

 What does a young, well-off English woman do with herself when she’s thrown out of acting school and is tired of being a debutante? Well, if you’re Monica Dickens, you become a cook. She makes the plunge to a life “below the stairs,” confident in her abilities to be a cook because she once took a course in French cuisine. She quickly learns the difference between school learning and real life. Scalded milk, dropped roasts, and fallen souffles plague her in her domestic career, but she perseveres. What makes this book so delightful is the sense of humor and drama Monica Dickens brings to her work. From dressing up for job interviews in a “supporting-a-widowed-mum look” to eavesdropping on dinner guests, she tackles her work with an enthusiasm for discovery. To her descriptions of battles with crazy scullery maids, abusive employers, and unwieldy custards, she brings a humorous and pointed commentary about the delicate and ongoing war between the wealthy and their servants. Written in 1939, this true-life experience reveals a writer who wasted no opportunity to explore daily lives and dramas. Her keen eye for detail, youthful resilience, and sense of the absurd make One Pair of Hands a deliciously inside look at the households of the British upper-class.

There are some fabulous laugh out loud moments in this memoir. It is worth reading just for the social history and when she tries to act the part at the interview (it always involves a sensible and frumpy hat).

It is written in a really chatty style – you can imagine sitting down with Ms Dickens over tea and being regaled with these stories. The work was hard and long – she arrived early to prepare breakfast and needed to stay to tidy up after dinner parties (which she cooked and served). This was all in a time before dish washers!

It’s definitely worth reading this memoir – it’s light, entertaining and a quick read. And now I know what a Cook General is meant to do.

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June 21, 2010 · 11:41 pm

The Girl on the Wall – Jean Baggott

I read about this book on another blog ( http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles/2010/03/the-girl-on-the-wall-0ne-lifes-rich-tapestry-jean-baggott.html) and thought it sounded interesting. It’s fascintating for some many different reasons; the social history, the embroidery skills, etc.

 

Here’s the blurb …

Jean Baggott is ‘the girl on the wall’ – a 1948 photograph taken of her when she was eleven – whose life was never going to be remarkable and the pinnacle of whose achievements would come from being a wife and a mother. Almost 60 years later, with her children gone, dealing with the loss of the love of her life, Jean began the education denied to her as a girl. Inspired by ceilings of Lincolnshire’s Burghley House and by the History degree she had begun, Jean began to stitch a tapestry which looked back at her life and the changing world around her. It took sixteen months to complete. The tapestry consists of over 70 intersecting circles, each telling some aspect of her life. Some represent extraordinary events such as the moon landings or world historical news stories like the Cuban Missile Crisis; some circles comment on famous people and places she remembers, others about the music she loves – Pink Floyd – and the games she played as a child, and growing up during the second world war with her brothers. Each chapter of “The Girl on the Wall” features a circle from the tapestry and Jean’s accompanying narrative, exploring the circle and the memories it evokes. It reveals an ordinary life in extraordinary detail. The result is a truly unique, touching portrait of a seemingly average British woman’s life. To stand back and look at the tapestry is to be struck by the richness of one human journey – from 1940 to the present day. The girl on the wall would be proud. The book includes a full-colour pull-out of Jean’s tapestry inside the back cover.

This is an amazing memoir if only for the sheer ordinariness of Jean’s life. I really enjoyed reading about her childhood during the war, the rationing (and the fact that it continued for a long time after the war), the terrible winter, that you were expected to be a wife and mother by 21. It is the every day details that make this a great memoir – bits of every day life that historians would consider irrelevant.

I did find the book somewhat repeatitious, but I think this was because each chapter was designed to stand alone (and be about a circle) and some things were told twice.

I’m amazed that the entire tapestry was finished in 16  months! One circle would probably take me that long – what an amazing achievement and what a great legacy to leave for her grand children.

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