Book 9 – “The WHITE Road” – a history and a travel book

I read Edmund de Waal’s family memoir The Hare with the Amber Eyes some years ago and enjoyed it a lot. As a result of that, I sent away for a secondhand copy of his book The White Road – I note from Amazon’s records that this was in 2018. This book has obviously lingered for far too long on my to-be-read piles and would be there still had the title not included the word “white” – like quite a few books that I have read this month ! My copy is a hardback with dustcover which is actually signed by the author and has a ribbon bookmark attached to the spine. It was a special edition from Waterstones and cost me less than £3.00 secondhand including postage ! It’s a large and heavy book, which probably accounts for the fact that I haven’t read it before.

The author is an artist and a potter. He makes beautiful items and creates installations as well as curating exhibitions and museum displays. In this book he sets out to trace the history of porcelain by visiting important sites. This makes the book a history and travel book with a touch of personal memoir included.

Porcelain is made by the combination of two naturally occurring earths. It was developed originally in China and the author visits that country to see the industry as it is now and to find items in museums. The secret of making porcelain was restricted to China except for references in letters by a French Jesuit which were interpreted in Germany when Dresden became the centre of the European industry. The author tells the story of the men involved in its development and the patron who paid for it. The third section of the book is about the introduction of porcelain to England, and eventually to Stoke which was the centre of the pottery industry.

I didn’t know any of this history, or the science of producing white porcelain. The author, obviously, knows this not only as history but as part of his work and he explains it well. There are also interesting facts about other aspects of the industry including negotiating with Native Americans about access to their sources of materials and how concentration camp labour was used in Nazi Germany to make dinner services and other items for the Nazi hierarchy.

I found this a fascinating book and enjoyed the mixture of travel and history. The author did include some thoughts about the importance of white and what it signifies in art which I found less interesting and I also thought that the narrative might have been enhanced with more pictures included.

Despite the fact that this is a signed copy and that I enjoyed reading it, I have decided to part with my book. I have a few books on art but they are all about painting and I am not particularly interested in starting to collect books about pottery and porcelain, even if I had the room on my shelves. I shall pass this onto Oxfam to find a new home, where maybe the new owner will read it sooner than I did !