The Root of Wild Madder by Brian Murphy

The subtitle of this book ‘Chasing the History, Mystery and Lore of the Persian Carpet’ is a fair summary of its contents. Murphy, a foreign correspondent, journeys to Afghanistan and Iran to discover the roots of the Persian carpet tradition. At the heart of this journey is the rubia tinctorum, the madder plant, whose roots produce a red dye used to create the colour which often dominates Persian carpets. Apparently, when madder is fed to animals from a young age; it dyes their bones red. It permanently stains the teeth and skin of the dyers who pound the roots to produce the dye. The imagery of the permanence of madder relates well to the status and significance of carpets within the cultures of the region. However, Murphy’s focus is not on the social and historical role of carpets in historical and contemporary Iran. He is more interested in the carpets themselves, their styles and the tug of war between machine-made and hand woven as well as natural dyes vs. artificial colours. He investigates these topics by speaking with carpet merchants, middlemen, dyers and weavers. His interest is often in individual carpets and he indicates this in the book, “Every carpet carries its own distinctive voice. Suddenly I wanted to hear them.”

His approach to the subject and people he encounters is one that is marked by humility. At the very beginning of the book, he declares that he knows next to nothing about carpets. His unassuming nature allows him to have revealing conversations with people. In a small Afghan village, he asks a carpet weaver what she thinks about people who feel that there is something sacred about carpets. Here’s an excerpt: 

“If you mean do I think I am special in God’s eyes, then no. That is not right,” she cut me off, clearly becoming tired of my odd questions. “If you mean do I sometimes sense God while I am working, then the answer is yes. There are times when I finish a difficult border or gul and must stop just to look at it. It is like a small world all alone and separate: perfect and peaceful. God must be guiding our hands, I think. This is how he gets us to look beyond this world. This is what I feel sometimes.” I was stunned. This girl, illiterate and unexposed to any culture beyond her village-was mulling the very questions of metaphysics and theology that have occupied such seekers as Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and Martin Heidiger.”

Unfortunately, on the chord that rings as Murphy’s strongest, is also the mistune that derails The Root of Wild Madder. The author tries too hard to place the carpet within spiritual and philosophical contexts. The constant attempts to relate facts and incidents to the poetry of Hafez, becomes increasingly tiring. These deviations into the spiritual are thankfully tolerable because they are couched within the prose of a travel writer. From the perspective of a travelogue, I found Murphy’s descriptions of lesser know cities of the region such as Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh and Mashad, interesting and well written. On the whole, given the nature of the subject, The Root of Wild Madder is an easy and fairly enjoyable read, albeit lacking depth.