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The House of Fragile Things James McAuley

The House of Fragile Things By James McAuley

The House of Fragile Things by James McAuley


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The House of Fragile Things Summary

The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France by James McAuley

A powerful history of Jewish art collectors in France, and how an embrace of art and beauty was met with hatred and destruction

The depths of French anti-Semitism is the stunning subject that Mr. McAuley lays bare. . . . [He] tells this haunting saga in eloquent detail. As French anti-Semitism rises once again today, the effect is nothing less than chilling.-Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal

Elegantly written and deeply moving. . . . [A] haunting book.-David Bell, New York Review of Books

In the dramatic years between 1870 and the end of World War II, a number of prominent French Jews-pillars of an embattled community-invested their fortunes in France's cultural artifacts, sacrificed their sons to the country's army, and were ultimately rewarded by seeing their collections plundered and their families deported to Nazi concentration camps.

In this rich, evocative account, James McAuley explores the central role that art and material culture played in the assimilation and identity of French Jews in thefin de siecle. Weaving together narratives of various figures, some familiar from the works of Marcel Proust and the diaries of Jules and Edmond Goncourt-the Camondos, the Rothschilds, the Ephrussis, the Cahens d'Anvers-McAuley shows how Jewish art collectors contended with a powerful strain of anti-Semitism: they were often accused of invading France's cultural patrimony. The collections these families left behind-many ultimately donated to the French state-were their response, tragic attempts to celebrate a nation that later betrayed them.

The House of Fragile Things Reviews

Engrossing. . . . Traces the long, vexed relationship of these families with materiality, their faith that they could 'create something beautiful in an increasingly hostile environment,' their attempt to control works of art as they could not control life.-Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times

A moving portrait of a glittering, doomed world.-The Economist

Ghosts from the pages of Proust and the paintings of Renoir wander through sumptuously appointed salons and galleries, charmed to life by James McAuley in his alluring and disturbing history The House of Fragile Things. . . . The depths of French anti-Semitism is the stunning subject that Mr. McAuley lays bare. . . . [He] tells this haunting saga in eloquent detail. As French anti-Semitism rises once again today, the effect is nothing less than chilling.-Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal

A comprehensive and accessible account of one of the great communal acts of generosity-and then betrayal-in modern history.-Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian

Deeply researched and elegantly written. . . . Astute and perceptive. . . . McAuley's nuanced narrative leaves the reader with a range of villains from which to choose.-Ori Z. Soltes, Washington Post

Provides a new narrative that is at once rigorous and sensitive [and] endows these 'houses of fragile things,' which are still standing today, with a new solidity and life.-Vincent Delieuvin, Art Newspaper

This group portrait re-creates the milieu of fin-de-siecle French Jewish dynasties like the Rothschilds and the Camondos through the art collections they amassed. . . . McAuley chronicles how many of his central figures were deported by the Vichy government and describes the fate of their collections. A study of 'obsessions with objects' becomes a darker tale.-New Yorker

McAuley's book provides not just an insight into the gathering and displaying of these collections, but into the lives of the men and women who put them together, and the extent to which they saw themselves as intrinsic members of the French establishment.-Caroline Moorehead, Times Literary Supplement

Unsettling. . . . As much as McAuley seeks to recover histories effaced by the Holocaust, [he] emphasizes that these histories persist in our present.-Chelsea Haines, Art in America

Elegantly written and deeply moving. . . . A meditation on the shaping and expression of identities through the acquisition and donation of beautiful things, a glimpse into a world blasted to dust by the horrors of the twentieth century, and a tragic story about the unrequited love of men and women for a country that savagely turned on them. . . . [A] haunting book.-David A. Bell, New York Review of Books

A well-judged investigation.-Julian Barnes, London Review of Books

[McAuley] has a tenderness for his subjects framed by a beautiful moral register. His conclusions are chilling.-Helen Elliott, The Monthly (Australia)

A superior book must convey a message or present ideas. It must contribute to enriching understanding. This work certainly meets these criteria.-Jay Levinson, Jewish Tribune

McAuley delicately revives the collections and stories of those the Nazis sought to annihilate. The result is compelling.-Christie's Magazine

An enlightening and deeply moving book. . . . As hard to put down as an exciting novel.-Harriet Devine, Shiny New Books

A riveting and devastating account of a battle between the cultured and sophisticated fin de siecle Parisian art world-mostly but not exclusively Jewish-and the brutal greed of the Nazis, aided by the long-standing antisemitism of their French collaborators.-Anne Sebba, Jewish Quarterly

Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award, History category, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council

Winner of the Sixth Annual French Heritage Society Book Award

French Heritage Society Book Award Short List

This is the book I have been waiting for. A magisterial account of aspiration and loss. Please read it.-Edmund de Waal

A haunting and melancholy book that brings to life a wealthy but beleaguered Jewish milieu that was determined to demonstrate its loyalty to France.-Philip Nord, author of France 1940: Defending the Republic

A remarkable book. I've finished reading with a sense of wonder at the unknown world its author recreates for us, and with shock at how senselessly that world was destroyed.-Alice Kaplan, author of Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic

Fascinating, sensitive and heartbreaking, deeply researched and elegantly written, filled with flamboyant dynasties of art collectors, McAuley guides us between the chic glamourous sophistication of the Paris art world and the murderous greed of the Nazis and their collaborators.-Simon Sebag Montefiore

Beautifully written, astoundingly researched and penetrating in its gaze into an irrecoverable world, both Parisian, European and Jewish, James McAuley vividly revives a past now on the brink of escaping living memory. The House of Fragile Things is a book about art, France, the Holocaust and what it can mean to be a Jew, that will haunt you long after you have read it.-Ben Judah, author of This Is London

About James McAuley

James McAuley is the Paris correspondent for the Washington Post and a contributor to the New York Review of Books. He recently received his doctorate in French history at Oxford.

Additional information

NGR9780300264692
9780300264692
0300264690
The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France by James McAuley
New
Paperback
Yale University Press
2022-01-25
320
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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