★ 09/14/2015
Artist de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes), a potter by trade, blends art history and personal travelogue in this immersive hands-on study of porcelain and its commercial and artistic appeal over the centuries. Beginning in Jingdezhen, China, where porcelain was first fired 1,000 years ago, de Waal gradually works his way west to 18th-century Europe—specifically the German city of Dresden, and Plymouth on the South Coast of England—and eventually to Ayoree Mountain in what is now North Carolina. He enlivens his account with portraits of the people whose quirky personalities and entrepreneurial zeal advanced the manufacture of porcelain across Europe, among them mathematician Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus, who partnered with alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger to develop “a porcelain body for a pure white clay through which light can pass.” De Waal punctuates his chronicle with descriptions of his own work in the medium and poetic reflections on the art form: for example, he describes the cobalt used in designs on porcelain pots as a pigment “that allows the world to be turned into stories,” and the quest for a porcelain “so white and true and perfect, that the world around it is thrown into shadows.” The book transforms an otherwise esoteric subject into a truly remarkable story. Agent: Felicity Bryan, Felicity Bryan Agency. (Nov.)
09/15/2015
Porcelain is primarily white earthy minerals, but it's also alchemy; dust changed to a mystical substance that is hard, translucent, and capable of being formed into the simplest or most extravagant of shapes. Noted potter and author (The Hare with the Amber Eyes) de Waal has written an immensely enjoyable meditation on what happens when the right mix of stone and clay enter the incandescent heat of a kiln. The intricate steps involved in mining, refining, shaping, and firing first took place in China well over 1,000 years ago. The products of the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen were as precious as jade and coveted worldwide. Journeying to Jingdezhen, Dresden, South Carolina, and southwest England, de Waal tells the story of determined experimenters who reproduced the magic the Chinese had mastered. Each episode is tied to a particular personality who is traveling the white road, enthralled by the beauty of porcelain. Bankrupt Quakers, overworked Chinese clay slaves, headstrong German royals, protective Cherokee, and the anxious author all revolve through a study that culminates with an exploration of the porcelain workshop run by the SS in the concentration camp at Dachau. VERDICT This page-turning account, both sweeping and intimate, will appeal to a broad audience. [See Prepub Alert, 6/1/15.]—David McClelland, Andover, NY
★ 2015-07-15
A lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation.Ceramic artist de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss, 2010, etc.) is obsessed with white porcelain, "thin as silver…white as driven snow," a material so exceptional that it invites comparison to "smoke coiling up from a chimney, or from incense on an altar, or mist from a valley." Porcelain gets its quality from two kinds of mineral: petunse, a fairly common stone, which yields amazing translucence and hardness; and the rarer kaolin, a soft, white earth that imparts plasticity. In short passages of allusive, radiant prose, the author chronicles his journeys in search of both the materials and the history of porcelain, discovering along the way men as obsessed as he. In 14th-century China, the Yongle emperor coveted porcelains of the purest white—"white as transcendence," de Waal writes—with finely drawn decorations under a lucent glaze. In 17th-century France, Louis XIV built the Trianon de Porcelaine, filled with Delft imitations until a porcelain industry began in Rouen, Saint-Cloud, and Limoges. In early-18th-century Germany, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, "philosopher and mathematician and observer of how the world changes," pursued his investigations in Dresden's Goldhaus, a laboratory for natural philosophers and alchemists. In Cornwall, the Quaker William Cookworthy and the enterprising Wedgwoods perfected porcelain manufacture. Shockingly, in 1940, the Allach Porcelain Factory moved to Dachau, where inmates made figurines beloved by Nazis. Amassing a cache of kaolin, each with idiosyncratic properties, de Waal created an installation of 2,455 porcelain pots, glazed in white. For the author, white has mystical resonance: "White is truth; it is the glowing cloud on the horizon that shows the Lord is coming. White is wisdom….White brings us all into focus….It reveals. It is Revelation itself." De Waal's poetically recounted journey is a revelation, as well: of the power of obsession and the lust for purity.
"The history of porcelain, as told in The White Road, is a constantly surprising, sometimes absolutely staggering, coming together of art, craft and commerce, politics and religion, national identity, larger-than-life characters and wild, sometimes ruinous obsession . . . A terrific book. If you read it, you’ll never look at porcelain the same way again." —Geoff Nicholson, Los Angeles Times
"The White Road is a unique book by a unique person. Polyglot, steeped in art and literature and history, able to throw a pot and turn a sentence with equal skill, endlessly curious and stupendously diligent, aesthetic to his fingertips but also deeply moral, Mr. de Waal brings a lot to the table, and with The White Road he goes all in." —Ben Downing, The Wall Street Journal
"It is rare for someone to write as well as Edmund de Waal, all the more since it's his secondary vocation . . .The White Road is the story of how objects, through the accumulation of intent, labor and the patina of history, accrue a sense of self." —Brian Thomas Gallagher, The Seattle Times
"[A] shimmering paean to porcelain . . . De Waal digs deep into the substance of his live, and what he shares is precious." —Jean Zimmerman, NPR
“De Waal is a master of telling stories through material objects. He can see a vase and not only imagine the kind of room it once inhabited but the type of woman who might have brushed her fingertips across its lip . . . It’s de Waal’s own obsession—the man counts pots when he can’t sleep at night—that infuses the narrative with a true sense of the hunt . . . He is wonderfully manic in his research . . . He allows himself to get lost for weeks, to travel someplace only to return empty-handed—which makes for a true adventure and a pleasure to read.” —Thessaly La Force, The New Yorker
“The White Road is filled with marvelous examples of storytelling, and de Waal has a gift for inhabiting his characters. Also, the historical material is interleaved with stories from de Waal’s own life as a ceramicist, which adds an extra and very welcome dimension to the tale.”—Christina Thompson, The Boston Globe
“At once meditation, memoir, and travelogue as well as history, The White Road is one of those unclassifiable books that simply astounds with the author’s infectious love of his subject . . . De Waal’s prose is both elegant and powerful . . . Despite covering so many places, so many historical periods, and so many themes, de Waal’s beautiful narrative voice and his love for his subject manage to shape this book into an almost seamlessly formed whole. 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 transcendence of our covetous obsession with beauty.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
“A lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation . . . In short passages of allusive, radiant prose, [de Waal] chronicles his journeys in search of both the materials and the history of porcelain, discovering along the way men as obsessed as he . . . De Waal's poetically recounted journey is a revelation.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[De Waal] blends art history and personal travelogue in this immersive hands-on study of porcelain and its commercial and artistic appeal over the centuries . . . He enlivens his account with portraits of the people whose quirky personalities and entrepreneurial zeal advanced the manufacture of porcelain across Europe . . . A truly remarkable story.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An immensely enjoyable meditation on what happens when the right mix of stone and clay enter the incandescent heat of a kiln . . . Journeying to Jingdezhen, Dresden, South Carolina, and southwest England, de Waal tells the story of determined experimenters who reproduced the magic the Chinese had mastered . . . [A] page-turning account, both sweeping and intimate.” —Library Journal
De Waal’s journey to “three white hills” of porcelain clay—in China, Germany, and England—offers a personal look at the use of porcelain in science and art. Narrator Michael Maloney is de Waal’s match for this wonderful work. The author’s career as an artist who has worked in porcelain for three decades informs his travels. He is no simple craftsman but one who expresses himself with erudition in the poetry, philosophy, and history of a half dozen cultures. Maloney’s honed acting skills offer a smooth, easy-to-follow narration. His cultured English accent suits de Waal’s worldly perspective, and he adeptly handles names and phrases in French, Chinese, German, and Italian, as well as technical jargon, without a hitch. A great, informative performance. F.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
