{"id":17,"date":"2010-12-02T07:29:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T12:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2010\/12\/book-review-the-blood-of-flowers.html"},"modified":"2019-01-21T21:34:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T02:34:09","slug":"book-review-the-blood-of-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2010\/12\/book-review-the-blood-of-flowers.html","title":{"rendered":"Book Review : The Blood of Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"Title : The blood of flowers<\/b>
\nAuthor : Anita Amirrezvani<\/b>
\nPages : 384<\/b>
\nPublisher : Little, Brown and Company<\/b>
\nRating : 4\/5<\/b><\/p>\n

This book tells the story of a 14 year old nameless young woman in 17th century Persia (now Iran), who after her father\u2019s death, is forced to seek support from her uncle. Her mother and she, then travel to the city of Isfahan to shelter at Gostaham\u2019s house. As destitute relatives they are the lowest of the low, and treated as such by his wife, Gordiyeh, and family members. Gostaham, a master carpet weaver himself, is kinder, and impressed by the heroine\u2019s artistic talent is persuaded to teach her carpet weaving, despite the fact that women are not taught the skill.<\/p>\n

However one day, the heroine, young and impetuous, damages an expensive carpet, and incurs her uncle\u2019s wrath. Her conniving aunt then forces her into a sigheh<\/i>, a 3 month renewable marriage contract, renewable at the pleasure of the man. As dishonorable as the sigheh<\/i> is, she is forced to take it, knowing full well that at the end of the 3 month term, she might be poor, desperate and considered \u201ctainted goods\u201d- a very dismal situation for an unattached young woman in a strongly patriarchal society. The future looks bleak indeed . . .<\/p>\n

Ms. Amirrezvani has a way with words. This book is very descriptive; it sketches out not only the characters, but also describes the craft of carpet making in great detail. Interestingly told, and carrying it with it the tumult of well placed \u201chooks\u201d (lots of ups and downs), \u201cBlood of flowers\u201d is also engaging because it is a well-developed story, with adequate emphasis to the setting, history and culture which shape the story. The author\u2019s gentle prose describes each person\u2019s particular situations and quandaries, leaving it to the reader to make up his\/her mind about the good and the evil in the characters.<\/p>\n

This is a story told from the female point of view, so it does describe a woman\u2019s life, whether it be the miserable existence of the heroine and her mother, living at the mercy of their fickle benefactors, or the relatively privileged life of Gordiyeh who has a wealthy husband. Each one of the women has very little will and volition of her own; they are swayed by society\u2019s norms and customs, and must be led by constructs that place a high value on a woman\u2019s perceived honor (and dishonor). In that context, what I really liked about the book, is that it creates a heroine with spine and character. Born into a society where women must be attached to a man to demand any respect or acknowledgement, the fatherless heroine is not cowed into submission, but is always looking to gain her independence. You might say that it is the circumstance that decide our actions; one does what one must to survive. While that is true, this story is engaging because it shows the mental and philosophical growth of the heroine, from a young and un-thoughtful girl, to a mature and shrewd woman able to pick her very own path from limited choices.<\/p>\n

This book seemed to finish rather quickly, since I read it in one sitting. A lovely read, this is highly recommended.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title : The blood of flowers Author : Anita Amirrezvani Pages : 384 Publisher : Little, Brown and Company Rating : 4\/5 This book tells the story of a 14 year old nameless young woman in 17th century Persia (now Iran), who after her father\u2019s death, is forced to seek support from her uncle. Her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71,3,9,44,93,24,4,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4_star_rating","category-books","category-culture-and-society","category-historical","category-little_brown","category-recommended","category-review","category-women"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"Title : The blood of flowers Author : Anita Amirrezvani Pages : 384 Publisher : Little, Brown and Company Rating : 4\/5 This book tells the story of a 14 year old nameless young woman in 17th century Persia (now Iran), who after her father\u2019s death, is forced to seek support from her uncle. Her…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4259,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/4259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}