BLOG ENTRY 1: Edmund de Waal: the potter of words
Imagine you have a gift for pottery. A passion. Since you were a toddler, you have been spending more time at wheels and kilns and clay stores that your classmates spent playing with their consoles. Imagine you grow up, and become one of the most renowned potters of your time, starring solo exhibitions in the best museums in the world: MOMA, Victoria&Albert you are welcome at the best and brightest venues, where your beautiful, magical white porcelain pieces are admired by thousands of people.
What else could you dream of? Maybe you are not completely happy. Maybe you feel that you have things to tell and pottery is not enough; you want to write a novel. Or maybe a biography of your extraordinary family. A reflection on the meaning of things, of art, of life. And you go for it, and you get some unforeseen success that makes you extremely popular and opens you to a new world of possibilities.
Yes, this is exactly what happened to Edmund de Waal. This British artist, born in Nottingham in 1964, reached worldwide popularity after the publication of his first book, The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, in 2010. This book constitutes and amazingly entertaining and well-described biography of the family of the author: the Ephrussi family. Originating from Odessa, this clan of bankers and businessman rose to the top heights of the cultural and intellectual life in Paris and in Viena during the 19th and 20th centuries, losing every last piece of their emporium after WWII. De Waal’s narrative quality is just breathtaking; his philosophic stand, the beauty of his prose and the authenticity of the facts that he describes make the reading of this book a true pleasure.
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance is now available for our club members on e-book, paperback and hardcover. Click here to order.
(Word count: 313)
BLOG ENTRY 2: The photographer’s wife, by Nick Alexander
This is a story about a quiet, dull woman that has kept a secret for most of her life. But it is also a testimony of life in England during and after the war. Not the tragic side of the war, that has already been depicted so many times in so many novels, but on how it affected the daily lives of those who stayed at home, terrified first and sort of fatalistically used to it later. More importantly, it is the story of two generations that do not seem to be able to understand each other, maybe because they have never really tried.
Sophie is the daughter of a famous photographer that died too young, leaving her his passion for photography and a legacy of several award-winning pictures. Even though she is a photographer, she has never held an exposition yet; she concentrates in the commercial side of photography, until she meets an art journalist who encourages her to look for her inner artist an maybe try to show her work. She comes with a brilliant idea: she will organize a show with her father’s most acclaimed pictures, along with some of her own pieces.
This sudden interest in her father’s figure hits an unexpected wall: Barbara, Sophie’s mother, seems more than reluctant to sharing her memories or letting Sophie go through the few belongings from her father that have survived in Barbara’s attic.
As the novel develops and comes to its end, it is clear that Sophie was wrong about many things, not only about her father –or even about her boyfriend– but especially and more interestingly about her mother, the photographer’s life.
The photographer’s wife, along with the previous novels by Nick Alexander, are now available for our club members on e-book, paperback and hardcover. Click here to order.
(Word count: 302)
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