andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2006-08-23 10:02 pm
andrewducker) wrote2006-08-23 10:02 pm
Book Review: The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach
Which, you have to admit, isn't a terribly inspiring title. Thankfully the book more than makes up for it, drawing me in so much that it's the quickest book I've finished in the last year.
The plot is simple - on a distant world there live the carpet makers, who each spend their whole life weaving a single carpet from the hair of their wives, forming incredibly ornate patterns from the diverse colours of the hair they choose their wives for. When they are old, and their carpet is finally finished, they sell it to a carpet merchant who carries it (along with others they have bought) to the spaceport, from where it is taken to the palace of the Emperor, to furnish it with the most amazing pieces of decoration they can make. Other worlds, they assume, furnish him with wine, glasswork, and other luxuries.
Only.... one day travellers arrive and tell them that the Emperor has been overthrown, that there is no further use for their carpets, and furthermore there is not a carpet to be found anywhere in the Imperial palace. Leaving them to wonder exactly what is happening to all of the carpets they have spent their lives making (not to mention their fathers and their fathers before them).
Which is much plot as I can give you without spoiling the book for you.
The book is translated from the German and its simple, uncluttered style is a delight to read, never getting between me and the story. The structure is more stylised, consisting of a series of interlinked short stories, each one laying down a little more of the plot, offering a few clues and introducing more of the world that Eschbach builds up. His attention to detail in the worldbuilding is well thought out - I'm frequently annoyed by worlds that fall apart under a tiny bit of scrutiny, and this one felt solid as a rock. It feels, in fact, like he started with the endpoint he wanted and worked carefully backwards, filling in detail and constructing a society that supported it perfectly.
This totalitarian society in which everything people do is laid down religiously in their obesiance to The Emperor is hammered home from the first story, and anyone expecting happy endings all round will be disappointed, but the windows he opens on the lives of the numerous characters that populate his universe reveal a range of fascinating personalities, each given enough background to make them more than mere cyphers to move the plot forward.
Highly recommended.
(and you can read the review that sent me to Amazon looking for it in the first place here)
The plot is simple - on a distant world there live the carpet makers, who each spend their whole life weaving a single carpet from the hair of their wives, forming incredibly ornate patterns from the diverse colours of the hair they choose their wives for. When they are old, and their carpet is finally finished, they sell it to a carpet merchant who carries it (along with others they have bought) to the spaceport, from where it is taken to the palace of the Emperor, to furnish it with the most amazing pieces of decoration they can make. Other worlds, they assume, furnish him with wine, glasswork, and other luxuries.
Only.... one day travellers arrive and tell them that the Emperor has been overthrown, that there is no further use for their carpets, and furthermore there is not a carpet to be found anywhere in the Imperial palace. Leaving them to wonder exactly what is happening to all of the carpets they have spent their lives making (not to mention their fathers and their fathers before them).
Which is much plot as I can give you without spoiling the book for you.
The book is translated from the German and its simple, uncluttered style is a delight to read, never getting between me and the story. The structure is more stylised, consisting of a series of interlinked short stories, each one laying down a little more of the plot, offering a few clues and introducing more of the world that Eschbach builds up. His attention to detail in the worldbuilding is well thought out - I'm frequently annoyed by worlds that fall apart under a tiny bit of scrutiny, and this one felt solid as a rock. It feels, in fact, like he started with the endpoint he wanted and worked carefully backwards, filling in detail and constructing a society that supported it perfectly.
This totalitarian society in which everything people do is laid down religiously in their obesiance to The Emperor is hammered home from the first story, and anyone expecting happy endings all round will be disappointed, but the windows he opens on the lives of the numerous characters that populate his universe reveal a range of fascinating personalities, each given enough background to make them more than mere cyphers to move the plot forward.
Highly recommended.
(and you can read the review that sent me to Amazon looking for it in the first place here)
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