By Aidan O’Sullivan
Andreas Eschbach’s science fiction novel, The Hair-Carpet Weavers is an initially fragmentary tale about what it means to live in a society whose structure and beliefs have become questionable for its inhabitants.
The book, originally published in German, takes place on a distant planet part of a Galactic Empire that has long since been cut off from the rest of the universe. Its society and culture is driven by, and around the creation of intricate hair woven carpets, made from the fine hair of women. The carpets themselves are treated with a sacral religiosity, made for a distant Emperor. However, when rumours begin to emerge that the Emperor has abdicated, the characters are forced to question whether the system, and their faith placed in it is correct.
Despite its isolation, the system, part-imperial and part-patriarchal, supports itself. The embedded values of faith and work for the Emperor, regardless of how they demand and constrain the characters’ lives are self supporting. The book explores what it means for a system to be embedded in a society.
The book is split into multiple perspectives, each chapter featuring a different character of this world. As their lives glance off each other in increasingly overlapping and intricate ways, the plot slowly unravels for the reader.
This is done well, with each character exposing every bit more the crisis facing those who live in this system. Whether it be the teacher punished for questioning the values his society preaches, the former soldier ashamed of his engrained obedience, the women trapped in an unfulfilling and cruel society, or the sons who suffer the fate of disobeying their fathers. The book makes good work of exploring not just those who don’t fit into the system but also those who believe in it whole-heartedly but are now faced with its potential irrelevance. Does it matter if our work and lives are meaningless?
At times, however, the short glimpses we are given into a character’s life can feel over-monologued Where a better writer may have hinted at the developments fermenting within each of the characters these can feel overstated. This may be due to a poor translation rather than a failing on the part of the author themselves.
As part of the genre of sociological science fiction, The Hair-Carpet Weavers delivers a compact and thoughtful story.
The book is available from Penguin Book Publishing house and is a part of their science fiction classics series.