Why objects are handed on....

Before starting our book I usually check out a few reviews just
to get my mind primed for the read ahead.

I’m recommending Object Lessons, a review by Tanya Harrod
and published in The Times Literary Supplement.
It’s beautifully written and it has really helped me appreciate some of the finer points of our book.

Harrod explains that the netsuke collection was available
for sale in 1880 Paris because the objects had lost their purpose in Japan.

“They functioned, modestly, as a toggle, threaded with cord
tightened with a bead, from which hung useful objects such as tobacco pouches, sake flasks and boxes containing seals or medicines. But when Japanese elites began to Westernize intellectually, industrially and sartorially, a great many objects lost their purpose – most obviously Samurai armour and swords and sword fittings, but also elaborate brocade robes and sashes and the whole world of sagemonon or “hanging things”, suspended chatelaine – like and secured by netsuke.”

Charles Ephrussi enjoys his netsuke collection for awhile
but then sends them on to Vienna, Austria as a wedding gift to his nephew, Viktor and bride Emmy. They are handed on because;

“as small tactile objects…they stood for a fashionable
collecting mania and also, for a love affair.”

Charles had collected and shared the netsuke with a mistress
who has moved on. He is also changing the decorating style of his fashionable home. Japanese objects were new and popular in the 1880’s but in 1899 they were “yesterday” so the netsuke had lost their “purpose” in Paris.

At one point Edmund De Waal, our storyteller, describes each netsuke as a storyteller of Old Edo, Japan;

“…the barrel-maker framed by the arc of his half-finished
barrel; the street-wrestlers in a sweaty, tumbling embrace of dark chestnut wood; the old, drunk monk with robes awry; the servant girl cleaning the floor; the rat-catcher with his basket open.”

These characters are working people, others are animals. Definitely out of place in a wealthy woman’s Viennese dressing room.

The children are allowed to take them out of the virtine and play with them. They are toys and characters in their stories. A new use for the netsuke.

So where will the story take them next?