The Carpet Makers (original 1995; edition 2006)

This book has to get five stars from me because it's the first book in quite a while that I would've stayed up late into the night to finish, even if I was exhausted. From the first chapter, it weaves a compelling mystery and builds a whole new world. The writing itself is beautiful; the translation is excellent, with no sense of a gap between me and the text, which I often do get with translations. I think I'm going to have to parcel it up and send it on a round of my friends to read.

I'm not actually saying it's flawless. The structure, however, keeps it strong: each chapter is a self-contained story, which adds a link in the chain to eventually get to the heart of the mystery. But once I got there, after all that build-up, it felt unsatisfying -- but that didn't take away from the power and mystery of the rest of the book. And the epilogue was another strong link in the chain, a perfect way to finish the story.

Usually, I'm interested in characters, in any given book. That's not the case here, and I didn't even feel a lack because of it. It's a totally bewildering, bewitching book.. ( )

Okay, so there's this planet, see, whose entire economy is based on these carpet makers who each spend their entire life making one carpet out of the hair of their wives and daughters. And they send the carpets to this sort of god-emperor in space...but then it turns out that there isn't an emperor any more, and maybe there are other planets making these carpets, and I won't tell you how it all turns out, but it will BLOW YOUR MIND, MAN.
( )

At first this seems like a simple, but unusual, story of a planet whose whole purpose is the creation of carpets made of hair to sell for their Emperor-God. The carpets are made from the hair of the carpet makers wives and daughters and will take their entire life to create just one. As the story unfolds you gradually learn all is not as it seems and something quite sinister is happening.

This was a mesmerising tale which kept me glued to the pages so much I read the whole book in a couple hours. I just had to know what the truth was and I have to say I didn't see it coming. The twist was pulled off superbly.

There were some negatives though. The way the book was told was very disjointed and often jarring and disorientating from one chapter to the next. You'd never know how much time, if any, had passed until later on. I also felt there were a few plot lines that were never resolved. They just disappeared.

Overall though this was a great book. I highly recommend it. ( )

Nella prefazione si legge che sarà indimenticabile, in effetti difficilmente mi scorderò alcuni degli episodi raccontati, probabilmente anche a causa della totale mancanza di lieto fine.
Il libro è costituito da diversi racconti che si intrecciano (quasi come i nodi dei tappeti di capelli) fino ad arrivare alla spiegazione finale -che un pochino mi ha deluso-.
Complessivamente è un romanzo interessante, anche se a tratti i collegamenti tra i racconti si perdono.
Una fantascienza forse ai limiti, infatti di fantascientifico c'è solo l'ambientazione su diversi pianeti, mi è parso più concentrato sulla sociologia e sulla religione. ( )

This book has a weird premise, which is why I bought it to begin with. On a planet, there is an entire system set up around one produced good: Carpets. Carpet-Makers are the most honored members of society. They spend their entire lives making a carpet out of human hair. They use the hair of their wives and daughters. They’re the only people in society allowed to have multiple wives - so they can have multiple colors from those wives as well as producing more colors/hair through their daughters. They are allowed one son, to continue the carpet making tradition. They toil away at this task day and night, every day; the work is so intricate that it takes their entire lives to produce one carpet. When the carpet is completed, it is sold, and the price of that hair carpet sets up the next generation (no really, it’s enough money for the family to live off on their entire lives), with the son of the carpet maker marrying and starting his carpet, to toil at until his son is ready to marry and begin the cycle all over again. That is their entire lives. And the economy and society of the entire planet revolves around these precious hair carpets. This is how it has been for untold generations.

They make these carpets to honor their God-Emperor, or at least that’s what they believe/know to be true. These carpets are supposedly shipped off world to adorn the palace of this immortal emperor who has all power and has ruled for however-many millenia.

And then it all changes. And the mystery of the hair carpets is discovered.

This book was interesting - not just in the actual story, but the way it is told. It has amazing writing - each chapter is a short story (so the book is basically a series of short stories) with a one or two (or whatever) character/thread link carrying you from one to the next. It’s usually a pretty tenuous link, but the book is about the story, about human nature - not the characters themselves.

But even without the book being about the characters, most of the chapters encompass something about the main character from the story that is so strong and shocking that at the end of the chapter, I’m left with a “WTF/Whoa/OMG” moment. Some of these chapters just break my heart.

Actually, this whole book pretty much kills me. Eschbach gets more said, more done, more story told, and more emotions out of my gut in 10-15 pages than most authors can get in whole trilogies. It’s a very short book, and it covers a story that takes place over 80,000 years and it’s absolutely amazing. ( )