Carpet Diem
Tales from the World of Oriental Rugs
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
A colorful tour through the enthralling world of oriental carpets and its unusual characters that is also an honest and often humorous meditation about beautiful objects and our impulse to collect them.
One day, the prizewinning poet George Bradley happened to take note of a carpet that had lain beneath his feet for decades. Carefully studying its weave and pattern, he was astonished by its complexity and allure. He became suddenly fascinated, and his newfound curiosity about oriental rugs sent him on a thrilling adventure, introducing him to a little-known realm in which beauty, artistry, business, and history collide.
Carpet Diem chronicles Bradley’s exploration of the world of oriental carpets, one in which he falls in love with a variety of captivating rugs and learns about the cultural background of the people who made them. A journey from innocence to experience, this entertaining account includes his encounters with the dealers, collectors, scroungers, restorers, and connoisseurs who inhabit an exotic and sometimes shady milieu. As he brings together his own story with those of these characters, he also tells some of the history of what is one of the world’s great art forms. Like Scheherazade, Bradley spins tale after tale about the sorts of gorgeous textiles found on the floors of mansions across Europe and America, in the portraits of Titian and Vermeer, in the faraway caves of Central Asia, and in bespoke shops of Manhattan, the Hamptons, and Westport, Connecticut.
A narrative that combines the mesmerizing storytelling found in The Arabian Nights with the pilgrimage into history that unfolds in The Silk Road and the dramatic compulsion to possess rare elegance that propels The Orchid Thief, Carpet Diem is an unusual and charming memoir that testifies to the intricate beauty woven into our world.
Carpet Diem features eleven full-color photographs throughout.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Bradley (A Stroll in the Rain) unfurls a rich and surprisingly intimate account of his entry into the world of oriental rug–collecting. After his interest was sparked by a Persian throw rug inherited from his great-grandfather, what began as an "absorbing distraction from life's adamantine realities" morphed into a fixation that brought him around the world; into contact with unscrupulous salespeople, devoted artisans, and colorful fellow obsessives; and often into conversation with the past ("An antique kilim" can make "you feel you are shaking hands with history"). What emerge most vividly are the detailed portraits of the relationships he forms (after an Iranian rug salesman he'd been in touch with disappears without a trace, Bradley "keep thinking I've caught a glimpse of him: sitting in the last row of a country auction, hovering at the edge of the crowd at an antiques fair") and his genuine reverence for the meticulousness of the craft ("Weaving is a medium in which one cannot revise. You can touch up a canvas or rewrite a stanza, but you can't... erase your mistakes while making a carpet without tearing it apart"). Elevated by a poet's patient attention to detail, it's a captivating window into the culture and history of an artisanal craft. This will appeal to anyone who's fallen deeply for a new passion. Photos.
