The White Road: Journey into an Obsession
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.54 (712 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B00W1HFHDU |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 187 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-06-21 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Which leaves me with my one resentment regarding The White Road: It’s damned unfair that such a distinguished artist should also be such a great writer.” Kevin O’Kelly, The Christian Science Monitor“De Waal reveals the depths and permutations of his life-shaping fascination with porcelain He brings a historian’s ardor for detail and a poet’s gifts for close observation and radiant distillation to this exquisite chronicle of his extensive porcelain investigations De Waal’s passionately and elegantly elucidated story of porcelain, laced with memoir and travelogue, serves as a portal into the madness and
. He lives in London with his family. Edmund de Waal is one of the world's leading ceramic artists, and his porcelain is held in many major museum collections.His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes has been published in thirty languages and won the Costa Biography Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. It was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, the Jew
"A Welcome Detour from Chaos" according to Pamela Mccorduck. Readers of "The Hare with Amber Eyes" have complained that this book isn't the page turner "Hare" was. I agree. But I found its pursuit of the history of porcelain, de Waal's meditations on the material, the people surrounding it, and his own journey of discovery, a lovely balm for troubled times. My reaction is idiosyncratic, I know, but I recommend going along on this journey as a welcome detour from so much that's repellent in the world r. "A luminous, pleasing, slightly obsessive book" according to David P. Chandler. A luminous, pleasing, slightly obsessive book about the history of porcelain, de Waal's life as as a potter and his travels to China, Dresden, Devonshire, North Carolina and (disturbingly) Nazi Germany to explore and illuminate key moments in the history of porcelain. Since his teen age years de Waal has has been enchanted by its translucent whiteness, elegance and fragility. He has made thousands of elegant objects with it, Like his earller. df said Like Ms. Miller you will miss the point entirely. I almost passed on this book after reading Laura Miller's mundane review in the New York Times, but thankfully I did not, as I understand how an obsession with porcelain can lift it off the ground. If you are not a romantic you will have a hard time here. Like Ms. Miller you will miss the point entirely. You will miss the poetry and the insight into the emotions described and shared, past and present.This is a book of fascinating history and
In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with the Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of "the spectrum of porcelain" and the mapping of desire.. In The White Road, bestselling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold." A potter who has been working with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about, refined, collected and coveted-and that would help him understand the clay's mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three "white hills"-sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain's creation. An intimate narrative history of porcelain, structured around five journeys through landscapes where porcelain was dreamed about, fired, refined, collected, and coveted.Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and bestselling international sensation, The Hare with the Amber Eyes. Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft, and purity. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth