The Hare with the Amber Eyes Day 15

The netsuke, in the final part of the book, travel back to Japan with the author's uncle.  There is a strange sense of even more dislocation - not only has his uncle a escaped from Austria and Germany, to go to Paris, then to go to the USA, but you also feel that he fled from America to go to Japan after the war.  From being a reluctant banker, then escaping to be a fashion designer in Paris and New York, then after fighting in the Second World War in Europe , he becomes a wealthy and respected banker again - but in Japan.  He lives with his companion, Jiro, in a next door flat - they each have a separate front door, but there is an interconnecting door between.  The gentle setting out of this arrangement makes clear that they were a gay couple, but of course in the fifties, and even the 60s 70s and 80s it's not a great idea to be too conspicuous.

The author is the son of a clergyman, his Jewish roots are back in this extensive family, and nonetheless deeply felt for that.  I get the sense of distress he has from the horrible, meticulous documentation of the stripping of all their family assets. And that sense of a smug quiet Austria that represents itself as invaded by Hitler and therefore not responsible for making reparation, despite the hundreds of thousands who cheered Hitler in. But how do you blame a country when there were plenty of dissident voices, anti-Nazi activists who were arrested and beaten as well.  I'm struck by how quickly Austria granted an amnesty for all its Nazi collaborators.  How can you revenge yourself on years of antisemitism?  It's the fantasy that Tarantino takes forward in Inglourious Bastards, and in Django Unchained. See here, he says, if only we were able to take proper revenge on the evil and the twisted, how satisfying it would be. Tarantino was criticised and aggressively interviewed about the violence in Django - his angry answer was that far worse was perpetrated than he shows.  The point is that it reminds who the good guys were, and who the very bad, and that there is a difference between the two, a very great difference.