Book Review – The Root of Wild Madder

An American journalist living in Greece, Brian Murphy, had considerable and travel experience in Iran and Afghanistan when he became interested in the mysteries inherent in Persian carpets. This led to a quest to become more knowledgeable about the spiritual aspects and the significance of Persian carpets for those involved in making and trading them. This book is also a record of what are undoubtedly vanishing skills and ways of live for carpet weavers, dyers and carpet traders in a part of the world that is increasingly cut off from the west. The madder root of the title is the source of many of the oranges and reds found in Persian carpets made from naturally dyed materials.

The book is a mixture of many things: a travelogue through Iran and Afghanistan, a political analysis of their regimes, a socio-anthropological treatise of their people, but most of all, it is a book about carpets, and about those who weave them, those who dye them, those who trade them, and those who adore them. Brian Murphy uses a very poetic language to present all the above. And the book itself is a pleasure to read, with lots of stories, information, human conditions, and knowledge.

Whenever I come across a passage or phrase that catches my attention in a book, I tend to dog-ear the page so that I can come back to it. I’ve dogged-eared quite a few pages in this one. Rarely have I read a book that so readily captures the magic of what fuels the fiber enthusiast. These textiles are about stories captured in fiber and structure. Meanings and symbols may or may not give up their secrets outside of the carpet weaver’s mind and hands. Here is such a passage:

“My grandmother made this carpet when I was a boy…I must have been very young, because I can remember only little fragments of her making this carpet. There was a big pot where she made the dyes from different things. There were some leaves and dry plants. I remember the colors so well. I had never seen such things. It was from nature, the world where we walk, but also—how can I say?—part from somewhere else….When my grandmother died, I was still young. I remember whispering into the carpets, thinking my grandmother could hear me….I think what we make, what we say, what we do are all little parts of our soul. We leave these things for others to find and collect. This carpet was from my grandmother’s hand and her mind. It is now with me and my family….Life is in this carpet. So why is it wrong to believe that my grandmother is not still connected to this carpet she made; that she can feel the love we put in keeping it clean and repaired?”

I got caught up in the author’s carpet education and the insight he gained for appreciation of the poetry and imagery of Persian carpets.

Book review for The Subversive Stitch

This book is a history of embroidery from the mostly English point of view. Written in 1984, it is a study of women’s history and women’s role in society as it is reviewed through the shifting notions of femininity and the roles ascribed to women through samplers, decorative arts and dress and a touch on modern fiber art, though this aspect could due with a more recent look at current artists who use stitching as a medium for expression.

In the middle ages women worked alongside men in embroiderers’ guild workshops as apprentices, designers, and stitchers of gold, silver and silk and embroidery was thought to be equal of painting and sculpture. But, by the eighteenth century embroidery was considered to be a task exclusively suited to women, and by the nineteenth century the fine stitchery expected of women of the upper classes and the skill work extracted for slave wages from working-class women, had become both a symbol and instrument of female subservience.

Drawing on household accounts, women’s magazines, letters, novels, and the art works themselves, Rozsika Parker discovered pockets of resistance: paradoxically, while embroidery was employed to define femininity in women, it also provided a way to negotiate the constraints of the feminine role. “Polly Cook did this”, one eighteenth century child’s sampler states, “and hated every stitch she did in it.” Good for Polly.

The images of the embroideries were amazing work. The writing itself was a bit dry and academic, which I suppose is to be expected given the subject matter.

Book review - Things I Didn't Know

I first heard of Robert Hughes some years ago when I was watching a PBS television series, American Visions. He struck me then as a brassy Aussie who knew his art stuff but was also quite bombastic at times in his tendency to get carried away. His memoir is oddly compelling and frustrating at the same time. Here is a review that I mostly agree with so I will try to not repeat the same stuff.

http://www.powells.com/review/2006_10_30.html

It opens with the horrendous car crash that nearly killed him several years ago. This was an opening story that really grabs you. Then it proceeds to his childhood, which was not too awful except for losing his father early and for the requisite catholic boarding school which seems to be an excellent way to turn most people who are exposed to that particular brand of education off of religion in general.

His personality is oversized and he has made his share of enemies as well as a ton of friends. The description of his first marriage is blunt and apparently was such a train-wreck that I felt sorry for his baby son who was stuck with parents who clearly should not have been parents at that point in their lives. To later find out that he and his adult son were estranged prior to the son’s suicide is very tragic. But Bob has no fear in exposing his less than endearing traits as well as his talents and strengths. I think that writing about one’s own life must be incredibly challenging and making it readable even more so.

My main complaint about the book is that it took so long to get to his arrival in America (this book is 395 pages) that it suddenly ends in the early 70s. So we don’t find out anything about him for the past 35 years of his life except for the car crash that was at the beginning of the book. He was an art critic for Time magazine for 30 years. Where are the rest of his stories?

This book left me wanting more.

Books, books and more books

Well, I’m making some progress on #16 Reading the Current Books on my Nightstand. I even managed to finish a couple (see below in red). However, I have also added two new books to my growing collection but haven’t listed them here yet. I’m missing the whole point of this goal, aren’t I? Not supposed to be adding one for every one read.

What can I say? I’m hopelessly in love with my books. It’s a sickness . I even added up the number of pages for my journal group a few weeks back and was startled to realize that these books alone add up to 8,752 pages. That would mean I would have to read something like 10 pages every night in order to catch up just these books. I don’t know about you but I can’t always get to my book time before conking out to sleep every night. So this goal will be a real challenge but I am enjoying it nonetheless. BTW, its not hard to guess what my primary interests are either is it?

I’ll give each book its own separate entry as I finish reading them as a book report. Didn’t you hate doing those in school? Strangely now I think its fun (I grew up I guess) and love reading book reviews because it helps me determine whether I’m going to add that book to my stash or not.

Stay tuned for my first report next.


Things I Didn't Know - a Memoir by Robert Hughes
The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker
The Root of Wild Madder by Brian Murphy
Audubon and his Journals by Maria Audubon
Weaving New Worlds by Sarah Hill
Mark Twain-An Illustrated Biography by Ken Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
The Original Illustrated Mark Twain by Mark Twain
Sculpture in the Age of Doubt by Thomas McEvilley
Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama
1000 Places to See Before Your Die by Patricia Schultz
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
JR by William Gaddis
Matisse The Master by Hilary Spurling
Silk and Religion by Xinru Liu
Bauhaus Textiles by Sigrid Weltge
Carpets Techniques Traditions & History by Jacques Anquetil
Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up by Beverley Jackson
Women Travelers by Mary Morris
Pictures of Nothing by Kirk Varnedoe
The Hidden Life of Art by Clare Gibson
50 Essays-A Portable Anthology 2nd edition, Samuel Cohen
Ikat II by Lydia Gelder