The White Road by Edmund De Waal is about porcelain;a love affair between a potter,Edmund De Waal and porcelain and his journey to China and other countries,England and Germany to visit the villages and people who make the porcelain.H e openly shares his many personal moments in this very very detailed diary of his travels and his many encounters are simply memorable and intimate.He begins his journey in China page 38.."There are a mass of poor families...many young workers and weaker people..the blind and the crippled who spend their lives grinding pigments........18,000 families,possibly 100,000 people making a living from porcelain...walking through this densely packed city with it's narrow streets was like being in the middle of a carnival..."
He talks about the weather and how it affects the porcelain..it so cold in the winter that it freezes and is useless.He calls this his "white hill"..he spends 10 days here,he has a driver who takes him allover and .he comes down from the mountains into the city of white porcelain,Jingdzhen. Everyone here makes porcelain and his/her children and his /her parents and their parents and so on.They begin with each morning rolling ropes of porcelain and the potters make petals and so on..This is a famous city and is where his story about porcelain begins"It is the city of secrets,a millennium of skills,fifty generations digging and cleaning and mixing white earth,making,knowing porcelain,full of workshops,potters,glazers and decorators. H e talks even about the food,you really feel as if you are in china in this village covered with white powder,walking through the factories and the streets where people know nothing else but a life which begins and ends with the making of porcelain.There are so many stories about the commissioned pots and those who commissioned them.
This is a 400 page book so I am trying to simply post what I take away from reading it,what impresses me and what surprises me.Well, everything surprises me about this book because I was totally ignorant about porcelain,the making of anything porcelain.
The book dedicates some pages to some stories about those who made"white pots"I feel I would be remiss to not retell at least one or maybe two....
There is a story of an emperor who loved white porcelain and the story goes something like a Muslim ruler gave a gift of jade bowls but the emperor refused the gift because he said this..."The Chinese porcelain that I use everyday is pure white and translucent, and it pleases me greatly.There is no need to use jade bowls"page 79.This was the Yongle emperor born in 1360,there are many stories told in this book about him.Many pages dedicated to his leadership and achievements as this author continually includes historical accounts in these chapters.He talks about the rain and the rain and how he cannot sleep in the rain...."The rain comes down....""So it is three in the morning and I try to count post that is what I do when I cannot sleep and it rains....now let us move on to Dresden,"it is my Second Porcelain City"he says....and he goes on and on again about the rain....He talks about the city and his sightseeing adventures there in the city of king Augustus II who kept those Chinese kilns going all night and due to his obsession with porcelain.He goes on and on for pages about King Augustus,his mistresses and habits etc...and all the money he spends and all of his women..then he says"and now he spends on porcelain".... so the author talks about the porcelain in the royal collections.so by the time the king dies he has collected...35,798 pieces of porcelain.page 151.He says he has "porcelain sickness" and that he could never get enough of porcelain,it is a sickness."He is the emperor of white".He goes on and on about how Dresden is affecting him.he discusses the Albrechtsburg castle which is high above Meissen where Bottger was a prisoner and where the king's madness grew due to his obsession with porcelain.This is a castle on cliffs 7 stories high on a bluff "it is perfect for keeping secrets,but as a study in how time and motion work and of course how to make and decorate and fire the very delicate porcelain.page 196."The white clay comes down the river from Colditz,mined in the Erzberg mountains, and is carried up the hillside to the lowest of cellars to be washed of impurities....Wet clay is kept in another cellar and then is brought up to the throwers and the modellers on the top floor,up a dramatic Gothic spiral staircase......."This book is so very visual I picture everything which is described in such detail....."But try carrying a basket of kaolin up 200 steps on your shoulder.Then try going downwards and round,with a board of pots"page 197..he discussed the making of porcelain in great depth.."The porcelain recipe is a secret" so he says that broken pieces even have to be thrown away in secrecy."Meissen becomes the white hill...I stoop,and embedded in the compacted floor are crescents of white"page 198.
Next.... England,his home and to find "his third white cup"....so England and porcelain is where we will end this summary. De Waal discusses the Quaker ,Cookworthy (who practically suffers a mental breakdown due to his constant and De Waal does find his first piece of porcelain ever made in England.I have to stp even thoughI could go on and on..I leave you with this thought.."thoughts of whiteness"page 260
"What is white?It is the colour of mourning,because it folds all colours within it.Mourning is also endless refraction,breaking you up into bits,fragments".....The End....Yes this book has moved me and yes it is now is in my head and yes it is now in my heart and his words will come now into my work....
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