The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

I extracted a quote from The Blood of Flowers, a story that takes place in the 1620s in Persia (now Iran). One of the story lines I find interesting is the unofficial apprenticeship and learning experiences of the protagonist and narrator, a teenage girl, in exquisite rug knotting and production. In part of the learning exchange, the uncle is describing how rug artisans resisted violent power using beauty:

“When I was about your age,” he said, “I learned a story in Shiraz that affected me deeply. It was about Tamerlane, the Mongolian conqueror who limped his way toward Isfahan more than two hundred years ago and ordered our people to surrender or be destroyed. Even so, our city revolted against his iron hand. It was a small rebellion with no military might behind it, but in revenge Tamerlane had his soldiers run their swords through fifty thousand citizens. Only one group was spared: the rug makers, whose value was too great for them to be destroyed. Even after that calamity, do you think the rug makers knotted death, destruction, and chaos into their rugs?”

“No,” I said softly.

“Never, not once!” replied Gostaham, his voice rising. “If anything, the designers created images of even more perfect beauty. This is how we, the rug makers, protest all that is evil. Our response to cruelty, suffering, and sorrow is to remind the world of the face of beauty, which can best restore a man’s [or a person’s] tranquility, cleanse his heart of evil, and lead him to the path of truth.  All rug makers know that beauty is a tonic like no other. But without unity, there can be no beauty. Without integrity, there can be no beauty. Now do you understand?”

I looked at my design again, and it was as if I was seeing it through Gostaham’s [her uncle’s] eyes. It was a design that tried to cover its ignorance through bold patterns… (Amirrezvani, 2007, pp. 83-84).

Gostaham’s storytelling is a lesson in aesthetics that the never-named narrator applies immediately to the rug she is making. She is able to utilize a different level of aesthetic appraisal. Another layer of the story told by Gostaham concerns not only art as resistance, but art and skilled expertise as prevention for violence and abuse of power—as if even more attention to beauty and the arts helps “save” people or helps them be their best selves.

Reference

Amirrezvani, A. (2007). The blood of flowers. NY: Back Bay Books.



Two News Items on Fukushima and Tsunami in East Coastal Japan

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/11/148398081/japanese-village-marks-disasters-anniversary

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/03/11/148316463/coping-with-tragedy-an-intimate-view-of-japanese-daily-life

Part Two: If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

The entire narrative of this novel revolves around one choice and how a sixty-six year old woman, Tehmina Sethna, comes to make that choice.  She is choosing the place to live out the remainder of her life, whether in Bombay or Mumbai India, by herself in her country of origin, or in Ohio with her son and family and new friends. The book constantly weighs and compares the two places against each other. She "expands the fabric of community in suburban America by stubbornly holding on to her own Indianness" (Umrigar, 2007, p. 9).  Her actions to stay true to her identities is not received well by her family. 

The way our identities shape our major decisions in life is a larger thought-provoking theme for readers. Several moments shape her final decision to go or stay and they all relate back to her identity. One guiding narrative of her life is the Parsi account of how her Zoroastrian Persian ancestors came to India and proved themselves.  

Every Parsi child who had ever drunk at her mother's breast knew the legend of how the small, tired group of Persians fleeing Islamic persecution in Iran had arrived in the small Indian town of Sanjan seeking political refuge.  The Hindu ruler, unable to make this group of Farsi-speaking foreigners understand that he couldn't possibly accommodate any newcomers, had greeted them on the beach with a glass of milk filled to the brim. No vacancy, the full glass was supposed to symbolize.  But the Zoroastrian head priest was a brilliant man. Removing a small quantity of sugar from their supplies, he dissolved the sugar in the glass, careful not to spill a drop of milk. This was his famous answer--the answer that became a source of pride and a blueprint for future generations. Like sugar in milk, our presence will sweeten the flavor of your life, without displacing you or causing you any trouble. And so they were allowed to stay and become the Parsis of India.

The arts around her also bring her words of advice.  Instructed and influenced by the verse-master Omar Khayám, she takes the following lines to heart:

Ah, fill the Cup:--what boots it to repeat

How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:

Unborn TOMORROW and dead YESTERDAY,

Why fret about them if TODAY be sweet! (p. 277)

With her focus on the moment she is within, she is able to work toward her final choice even when those around her impatiently wait for her to make a decision.

 Reference

Umrigar, T. (2008). If today be sweet. NY: Harper Perennial.

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

This book reads so very differently from Umrigar's The Space Between Us (2005), which to me means she writes with versatility.  Check out this critique of U.S. mainstream consumerism and media that appears in the book:

...even the American Dream was beginning to lose its sheen, to look a bit tarnished. All of America was now beginning to feel like a reality show, a Hollywood production. It was no longer enough it seemed, for its citizens to be Joe Blow or Sorab Sethna [the character's name].  Now everybody had to be Tina Brown or Tom Cruise or Steve Jobs. Everything was cutting edge.  Everyone needed an extreme makeover. Everything was now available 24/7; everybody was wired and Bluetoothed; everyone was an American Idol.  It was no longer enough to live your life; now you had to be a Survivor. (Umrigar, 2008, pp. 68-69)

After a difficult interaction at his work, Sorab is thinking to himself that life only gets more obsessive and lacks belonging and also brings out the worst in people while they attempt to be the best, because of  the forms that capitalism is taking.  What is similar to The Space Between Us is the presence of hidden critiques of economics.

Reference

Umrigar, T. (2005). The space between us. NY: Harper Perrennial.

Umrigar, T. (2008). If today be sweet. NY: Harper Perennial.

Part Three: Empress: A Novel

The ending of this book is an amazing account of aging.  Empress Wu remains as long as she can with  all the reins of power for as long as she possibly can, interrupting plots and coups against her life and still basking in beauty and physicality while doing everything she possibly can to keep her health and feel vitality. Her greatest frustration is that her body rebels and declines.  She refers to work ruling an empire as an anti-aging agent.  When she does die, her voice remains as the narrator, and she knows what happens to the country after her departure. It is not as if she died, but as if she separated. Her worn out body separates from her spirit. 

Sa, S. (2003). Empress: A novel. NY: Harper Perennial.