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Book Review Amirrezvani, Anita, The Blood of Flowers This first novel of Amirrezvani was a nine-year labor of research, involving three trips to Isfahan, all initially inspired by an carpet given the novelist by her Iranian father. She chose to place her tale of a young woman weaver during the latter part of the reign of Shah Abbas, 1571-1629; Abbas moved the Persian capital to Isfahan and was responsible for its handsome cluster of architecture. The novel unfolds largely as a personal narrative of the heroine; her name is referred to only indirectly at the end. Amirrezvani places her heroine on the brink of adolescence, a late-born, only child of southern village Persians. Skilled in rug making, she seeks information of the local weaving master, inviting possible Muslim censure in her village. While she manages to avoid such effects, she and her mother lose father and husband to what seems to be a massive heart attack or stroke. The two women are plunged into progressive penury as they suffer from the diminished wheat harvest and the necessity of gradually selling or killing their livestock. The heroine’s father has a half-brother in Isfahan, Gostaham, a weaver in contract to the court of Shah Abbas, who is willing to assume responsibility for the women. The two travel to Isfahan, becoming back room domestics in a household dominated by Gordiyeh, Gostaham’s amply-fleshed wife. Two or three threads provide a silver lining for the women in their dependent position. Foremost is the heroine’s passion for rug-making which provides an alliance and mentorship with Gostaham; he gradually schools her in color, pattern-making and other matters relating to rug-making. The heroine is also introduced to Naheed, a young woman her age in love with a polo player named Iksander. Naheed, whose mother is named Ludmilla and apparently from Russia, teaches her the fundamentals of reading and writing; in exchange, the heroine is obliged to accompany Naheed to the polo fields, both suitably cloaked in the traditional chador. The third thread is that the heroine’s mother, mostly referred to as Bebi, is skilled in the curative use of native herbs, a source of sale and certainly of self-respect, along with another gift; story telling. The novel’s narrative is interspersed with some six or seven such tales, adding richness to the tapestry. Into this structure come conflicting strands. Soon after being introduced to custom of chador, the heroine impatiently reveals her face in the presence of Fereydoon, a horse trader who has come to commission a rug from Gostaham. Naheed becomes bolder in her pursuit of Iksander and reveals her face to him; notes begin to be passed. In the hammam, or collective bath, apparently the equivalent of a modern spa, the heroine’s gradual physical maturity begins to demonstrate itself. From Feyerdoon, Gostaham and her mother shortly receive an offer of sigheh, a three-month, renewable contract of union not quite a binding marriage. The heroine is prepared for the union in the text which echoes the preparatory practices included in A Beggar At The Gate. With the heroine’s increasing sensual skills, the sigheh is renewed. Naheed’s schemes to marry Iksander run afoul of his family’s station and she is wed to Fereydoon. This prompts the heroine to reject the second renewal of the sigheh, and sends the heroine and her mother into the streets. Their survival and the heroine’s ultimate mastery of weaving and commissions from Shah Abbas’ zenana cover the remainder of the novel. Amirrezvani’s capacity to record texture, sights, sounds and taste conjures the image of a crowded, complex and sequestered existence of women, evoking not only empathy but amazement at the contrast of women’s existence in today’s U.S. The novel is punctuated by images which might have been painted by eighteenth and nineteenth century artists depicting the customs of the Mysterious East. Besides its pleasurable read, it certainly assists in understanding the life surrounding the objects in the Museum’s collection. Anita Amirrezvani lives in the San Francisco Bay Area; at one time she was the staff critic for dance for the San Jose Mercury. She currently is teaching creative writing in the California College of the Arts new Master’s Program. |