Customer Reviews

The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Nothing quite so enhances a space as an Oriental carpet, however humble or elegant. Carpets may enliven the spirit and mind as well, and here is the enduring significance of their art, never ending. After reading Brian Murphy's journey among them, newly begun, we join him in our own unending adventures.

There is a spirit to this book reaching out to both the novice and the collector. One also learns a lot about Iran and Afghanistan, their culture and history past and present. This book is an essence of Persia. Murphy was himself a novitiate as he takes us with him to meet carpet merchants, weavers, and dyers, urban and rural. He communicates a searching, often wide-eyed, innocence while meeting with myriad folk. He handles this contrast appealingly, rather as if we were with him, a style greatly effectuating what he wants to tell us. I and our carpets together, will never be the same.

This volume is also a welcome relief from the plainness of so many modern publications. The type styles, the look and feel of the paper, and the designs of the jacket, covers, and end papers are an aesthetic delight and most appropriate to the story.

By experiencing Brian Murphy's trip through Afghanistan and Iran and his search for answers to a number of questions he had and developed about the carpets and the people involved in making and selling them, I learned a great deal. I had no idea what I would learn would be so extensive and interesting. It was one of those books that I didn't want to end. Since the chances of my visiting there are slim, I really am thankful to have seen and experienced the people and culture through Murphy's eyes. His love of the rugs and the people are obvious to the reader, and he clearly wants to share what he knows and has experienced with others. I highly recommend reading this book.

I've been a carpet collector (primarily tribal piece) for well over 20 years; this book spoke to me as some carpets speak to me! I'm especially grateful for the quotes attributed to Hossein Payghambary of Nomad carpet shop in Isfahan. I rarely read a book more than once BUT this has drawn me to do so because of the rich text and the author's compassion for his subject. This is MUST read for anyone with a heart for carpets.

An enjoyable book, but it's been done before and better in "The Carpet Wars" by Chris Kremmer. Murphy provides some interesting insights into carpet collecting, poetry and mysticism that goes along with the folk-art and aesthetics of carpets, and he does give some historical insight, but his writng style is hackneyed and pedestrian, and his historical and cultural insights are only skin deep, nothing you can't read in an encyclopedia. His attempt at wide eyed innocence and naivete seems contrived, overly sentimental and condescending. I often wondered how such a clueless, myopic, provincial person could become a world travelling, intrpid journalist and stringer for the AP. For a great travlelogue and carpet hunting escapades along with hisotrical and cultural insight read Kremmer's "Carpet Wars". Kremmer knows what he's talking about and we learn much more about the history and culture of the area than Murphy provides. Kremmer goes to more places, while Murphy travels to some of the same places that Kremmer does, but his descriptions aren't as deep. I often wondered if Murphy was conciously following Kremmer to the same places. However, to his credit, Murphy does provide more insights into the history and technique of dying and carpet making than Kremmer.

This is an absolutely fantastic book. It is not an academic text filled with facts associated with Persian carpets. Rather, it is the story of a man's quest for understanding how Persian culture is represented by the intricacies of their exquisite carpets. The reader travels with the author on his journey, meeting many people involved in the chain starting with the female weavers working their looms in their nomad tents to the merchants in the Oriental bazaars to the high-end retailer in NY City. For anyone who loves Persian carpets or is interested in attaining an insight into Persian culture, this book is a must read.

Really interesting for anyone interested in Textiles. Brian Murphy, while searching for the dye source (Wind Madder) gives the reader a fascinating view into parts of the world that are now inaccessible for most of us.
His information on the guls (patterns) and how they used to link a fabric to a village then an area then a country is invaluable as this is rapidly dissapearing as modern communications and transportation blur this way of placing a pice of fabric.

Devotees of the Persian carpet have had numerous carpet buyer's guides and histories in the past, but ROOT OF WILD MADDER; CHASING THE HISTORY, MYSTERY, AND MORE OF THE PERSIAN CARPET is something different: a journey which follows the Persian carpet from remote Afghanistan and Iranian villages where they're often woven by young girls to bazaars which trade them, artists which revere them, and US carpet showrooms which display them for sale. Carpets are dyed often by the madder plant which lends them brilliant reds - but the color and dyers' traditions threaten to die back, and reporter Brian Murphy is just as determined to capture the magic, methods and allure of these carpets in his survey of the Persian carpet. The blend of travelogue journey and carpet facts works exceptionally well in THE ROOT OF WILD MADDER, lending it accessibility even to those without a consuming passion for Persian rugs.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The authors love of Persian carpets is evident on every page of this book and we are presented with his travels around the wilds of Afganistan and Iran in his quest for the meaning and arts behind the beautiful carpets he is so in love with.

I feel I've learnt some interesting things about Persian rugs, their makers and sellers that I didn't know before. You also get a view of modern Afganistan and Iran that isn't peopled soley by religious extremists that the western press would have you believe at times. Things do change over time both for good and ill in the life of a people and that is reflected in the Persian carpets we see in the west.

Despite all these things at times I wanted to stangle the author as he rambles on for pages about the beauty and difficulty of the poetry of the Persion author Hafez and its impact on how you view carpets. In short this is an enjoyable, but frustrating book, that for me just misses the mark as something I would read again.

Brian Murphy has given us a reverential yet factual account of his journey through the tradition, construction, and marketing of Oriental rugs. His descriptions of the Afgan countryside are heartbreaking, but the converstions with those in the business of dyeing, weaving, and selling rugs are as affecting as they are informative. An old Turkmen saying conveys the essence of their rug tradition: "Carpets are our soul." Or, as a young woman says as she completes knotting a section of the rug she is working on, "It is like a small world all alone and separate: perfect and peaceful." Murphy explores the debates on authenticity: spontaneous folk art versus commercial product; synthetic dyes versus the natural dyes of the book's title. He does not shrink from showing us the enormous contrasts between the harsh life of the area and the poetic beauty of their rugs. In the end it is clear that he is an unabashed lover of Oriental rugs....and that's not a bad thing. Highly recommended.

Love/Own/Collect Middle Eastern Textiles or Carpet?
Then you are certain to fall in love with this highly enjoyable work.
You will walk around your home and look with news eyes on familiar pieces - hung or on the floor. Even for the "Middle East expert" with knowledge of what and where Murphy writes, every page has a surprise, an "aha" moment and a reason to mark in the book's margins.
A colleague sent this book to me. After a few pages, I emailed her and asked if a carpet trip to Iran and beyond was what she had in mind for the two of us. That's the point. . . where your heart takes you. The other ways of knowing, listening, seeing. . . and where they lead us.
The root of wild madder? Is there still a field of madder somewhere where I might dig some roots? Produces the color red in all its wonderful shades. Leads me to another extraordinary work, Orhan Pamuk's "My Name Is Red" and to other histories of objects. . . like the film "The Red Violin". . .
Come into this work and let it lead you where it may. If you pack it in a suitcase for a summer read somewhere, you will want also to include a collection from Hafez!