Am I a total thickie or is the Hare with the Amber Eyes...

[margoandjerry]

Really boring? Posh man reads through catalogues of artworks his ancestors bought. I am waiting for it to become interesting. Persevere or not?

I loved it, but it probably depends on whether you are interested in any of the history and culture the whole thing is tied up with. I guess if you have no interest at all in, say, Japan, or the impressionist movement, or Vienna between the wars, or the treatment of Jews in the lead-up to the second world war, then there might not be much to hold your attention.

Ugh. I was told it was brilliant and marvelous and snored my way through it waiting for it to get good. It didn't.

[philistine]

oh god, exexpat - how can I say I'm not interested in any of those things????? That would really make me sound like a total idiot except that, well, I guess on the evidence so far I suppose I'm not finding any of it very interesting. I am still in Paris going through catalogues so nothing about the Jewish issue yet - and I'm not sure that that would be enough to hold my attention anyway. It's just something about the focus on objects that I'm finding really dry and dusty. OK, I am clearly a philistine.

oh thank god, another philistine on this thread

Sorry, that probably came across as a bit more, um, snobby than I meant it to.

Perhaps I should have put it as that since I am particularly interested in some of those things (lived in Japan, spent time in Vienna, have read a bit about late 19th C France/the Impressionists/influence of Japan), I found it fascinating to read a more personal history linking it all up. But I can quite see that you don't have to be a philistine not to feel the same way - just not as interested in those particular issues or areas.

Perserve with it. The Paris part is dense and not to everyone's liking, but once it gets to Vienna you will just fly along. Brilliant and very moving. (PS should confess here that I know the author and he is so not a 'posh bloke' in outlook and attitude. More so clever that he is on a bit of a different plane. And very lovely. :) )

No it didn't sound snobby! I did stop and think, why the hell am I not finding this interesting? I suppose I'm not particularly interested in art per se so his route into the story is not one that particularly grabs me although I'm sure there have been other books I have read, based around art, that have managed to keep my attention. Hmmmm. Maybe this is just not the book for me.

ok, brilliant and very moving sounds like it's worth holding on for. Maybe I'll stick it out for a bit longer...I just didn't know if it was ever going to move on from describing the gallery his ancestor bought a painting from.

I quite liked it.

I'd say stick it out. I found it a bit dull and hard going to start with, and even having finished it I can't say it's one of my favourite books ever, but I thought it got better as it went on and I ended up pretty moved by it.

Awful. Painful. Pants.
One big yawn from start to errr the middle.

dull dull dull dull.

i ditched it 3/4 through and i almost never do that.

It's one of the most boring things I've ever read. Totally pointless.

I got through it with some major skimming. Got quite interesting in the middle in Vienna but then just couldn't be bothered with the rest. The reviews are astonishing but I have rarely been so shruggy about a book.

Boring in exfremis. Th best bit was the vivid description of Nazi Germany. The rest was dull and self congratulatory. "look how rich we were. "
Ok we get it

I found the bitsnwhere he describes then pettiness and shock of Nazi occupation v interesting and real

I quite enjoyed it but had just read a book about the Wittgenstein family that covered much of the same ground but with a really odd and mainly unpleasant family who were of course thereby more gripping.

But what I found fascinating about the de waals was how this background was hidden. Why?

I struggled with the Paris but but was gripped by the 1930s Vienna for Jewish families section.

It makes me realise how little I fetishise objects, I am interested in social history, not history of objects, and I don't think he really made a great case for looking at the former through the latter.

What's the Wittgenstein book that covers similar ground? I'm a bit of a Wittgenstein groupie so I think I'd go for that.

spendthrift, I don't think their background was 'hidden'. Their whole family knows all the stories. Edmund de Waal wasn't 'famous' until this book, outside his own field (pottery & art). He researched it all in a lot more detail than his family had done previously, and he says in the intro to the book (and when he gives talks about it) that he was astonished by its success and that people found the history interesting. And judging by what most people say here, they don't find it interesting at all!

Perhaps arcticwaffle has hit the nail on the head. It's a similar point that exexpat made earlier. To love this book you have to love the same things that he does and have the same interests and broadly the same world view.

I wonder if it's a bit like A Brief History of Time; one of those books that is swept along by a few people loving it when it's published, but then the vast majority of those who buy it on that recommendation neither finishing nor enjoying it.

I struggled through the first couple of chapters after a friend said it was the greatest thing ever. I wanted to like it but it just never clicked for me.

I think it's more about people than things - what makes something like that collection survive all but intact when everything else disappears? I utterly loved it as history of the grandeur and vileness of the twentieth century from a very singular perspective.

I enjoyed it, but I agree that it only really got going in the Vienna section. I'm afraid that I also got quite puritannical about the early section in Paris, just thinking of all the money that guy was spending on works of art and Japanese netsuke when people were starving. It seemed very decadent. I think it was worth a read, though, and very well written.