Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi
Alright, this is the last graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi that I have. I read Persepolis and immediately took the others out from the library. Chicken with Plums recounts the story of Nasser Ali Khan who is apparently a wonderful tar player. A tar is a string instrument that somewhat resembles a guitar. We never get to hear/see him play the tar, however, because when the story opens his beloved tar has been broken and he is searching for a replacement. The instruments that he auditions do not seem to speak to him as his old instrument did. He becomes depressed and decides that he wants to die. Taken to his bed the graphic novel replays his last week of life. His family attempts to persuade him otherwise but he is determined. While he waits for death to take him, he remembers moments from his childhood, a lost love and his subsequent marriage to his wife, his time as a pupil of the tar, and other moments both bitter and sweet. There is even a visit by Death who has a sense of humor.
Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
Last week I read Persepolis and enjoyed it so i immediately read Persepolis 2. In this book, Satrapi continues the story of her life where her first story left off. She is a young lady and too escape the war has left her home in Iran at the request of her parents to study in Austria. Her roommate and fellow classmates are quite different from what she is used to. There are some bumps in the road as she tries to belong and as she is gripped by the alienation of adolescence. She is growing up and she eventually finds herself moving again and eventually returning home. She views her time abroad as a failure.
For a child who grew up during wartime, Satrapi’s eyes are dramatically opened during her independence. There are drugs, relationships, new ideals to ponder, and coming to terms with a changing body and a new identity. After returning to Iran, she realizes that her old friends are strangers, and that both she and her country has changed. She has to work hard to pull herself into a new place and start a new chapter in her life-as a woman. She attends university to study art and in true Satrapi fashion challenges the notions held by the women and men there.
Satrapi discusses the search for self and identity, the importance of education and family, and the roles of women as dictated by religion, by society and by the women themselves. She shows that throughout ups and downs family will always provide support and home is a great place for rest and reflection. That you can always start over. I enjoyed the sequel a bit more than the first. I was touched by the experiences that Satrapi had.
Persepolis and Persepolis 2 together make up my first non-fiction work for the Women Unbound Challenge.
Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
The premise of Embroideries is that a group of female relatives has just finished dinner and is sitting down to enjoy tea and an evening of conversation and good company. The women sip their tea and discuss all sorts of things. It is just like you’re sitting there with them. These could be the women in my family, telling stories about their experiences as young women, as wives, mothers, friends and confidants. Some of these characters I recognized from Satrapi’s biographical graphic novel Persepolis-namely her mother and grandmother. Like Persepolis, Embroideries is also a graphic novel but the format is a bit different. Satrapi does not use the traditional comic book panels and the drawings are more free-flowing across the page, sort of like the conversation.
The conversation turns to sexual experiences, arranged marriages, and the pursuit of beauty among other things, all of which serve to illustrate their experiences as Iranian women. Their stories are influenced by the social constraints that govern women during this time in Iran and serve as a sort of documentation of sexuality throughout the lifespan. It may seem that these women should be pitied because of their socially imposed silence but they are not helpless nor hopeless. There is something inspiring in their resolve to openly discuss the ways in which they handle these situations. They tell their stories with humor and their ability to be witty displays a strong sense of power.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
I’ve read about this graphic novel around the blogosphere and wanted to read it after seeing a trailer for the screen adaptation. And I have to say I enjoyed it. I wasn’t sure that I would (I’ve only read one other graphic novel) but Satrapi does a wonderful job telling the story of her life in words and pictures. There are funny moments and some that are heart-wrenching.
Persepolis is Satrapi’s account of her life growing up in a financially stable family in Iran in the 70s and 80s. The backdrop for her story is the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq. Although Satrapi is a young girl during this time she is obviously very bright and inquisitive, she also has no problems speaking her mind and getting answers to her questions. Her parents are fervent Marxists who attend demonstrations and talk with her about the revolution. She struggles with death and prisoners of war (some of whom she knows personally), with religious ideals, and social constructions. She was a little girl that I loved immediately. She has intense conversations with God and was convinced that she was to become a prophet. Her favorite comic book was ‘Dialectic Materialism’ starring Marx and Descartes.
My favorite part is when she realizes what the revolution is about. She tried to understand by reading books but it is the moment that she thinks about the professions of others in her life; porter, window washer, carpet weaver, and the maid that lives in her house that she begins to understand. Satrapi says that she never understood why she felt ashamed to ride in her father’s Cadillac or why Mehri, the maid could not marry who she loved. She realizes that the reasons for her shame and the war boil down to social classes.
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“When I went back to her room she [the maid] was crying. We were not in the same social class but at least we were in the same bed.”
Satrapi gives us the history of her life and her country as she experienced it. Her adventures reveal a lot about the inconsistencies embedded in social structures. I enjoyed this one and was pleased to find out that she has other graphic novels. I will post my thoughts on these books later this week. And I’m going to watch the movie.
Read in 2009
The Yellow Wallpaper-Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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