Review: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi.
Nov. 21st, 2003 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
richardf8I was living in Rego Park, Queens, in New York City when news of a shadow called the Ayatollah Khomeini passing over Iran reached my ears. It was a confusing time, as the news recounted how this force of darkness was unseating that agent of sweetness and light, the Shah of Iran. Things got a little blurry though, when more news reports revealed that the Shah peeled the fingernails out of the fingers of his prisoners. Iranian immigrants flocked to Queens and many of their children were my classmates. Then the American Embassy was taken and its occupants held hostage. Graffiti covered the walls at school that said things like "Fuck Iran." We had become angry. I couldn't help wonder what my Iranian schoolmates thought of all that, what they had gone through to get here, and what they had been through before they left. But somehow, one didn't want to ask; it seemed risky somehow, like it might dredge up painful memories, remind them of things better left forgotten. Now, Marjane Satrapi has invited us into the erudite Iranian home of her youth to explain it all to us.
She tells the story of the revolution, its causes, and its consequences unflinchingly through the eyes of her 11 - 14 year old self. From this point of view, the adult world seems surreal even in the healthiest of cultures and in the best of times. So revolutionary Iran seems doubly so even as it seems frighteningly real. The home she invites us into is led by her very politically astute father, and a cunningly resourceful mother. The Satrapis are no sheep, but a family that has suffered the consequences of changes in the political wind for generations. The result is that we get a very nuanced view of the politics of the revolution, of what different people were envisioning would come of it, and the disappointment at what did come of it.
Satrapi begins her story by discussing the veil. As I laid my eyes on the first chapter title, "The Veil," I braced myself for it being about the oppressiveness of wearing the veil. But what actually followed was what happens when you make a bunch of eleven year old girls adopt a garment they see no reason for. They were playing the usual array of school yard games with them. As the revolution proceede we are invited to share her puzzlement as the the teacher who had, only weeks earlier, told them that the Shah had been appointed by God, instructed her class to rip all pictures of the Shah from their books.
The revolution itself, we learn, wasn't Islamist. The Shah was the common enemy of a wide range of political factions, from secular democrats to communists to the islamists. In the end the Islamists won out because, as Satrapi tells us through the voice of her father, it is impossible to rally an illiterate populace around anything but religion and nationalism. In some ways, as political debate in the U.S. seems to be coalescing around issues of religion and nationalism, it seems almost as if Satrapi is putting us on notice that if we do not use our intellects to choose our government, we will end up no better off than Iran.
Satrapi's art is the perfect vehicle for her story. It is stark and simple: black and white, with no mid-tones, ever. It has the feel of linoleum-printing, and yet it ranges from light hearted and humorous (I am apparently not the only cartoonist in the world who thinks that striking phenomenologists in the head with hard, heavy objects makes a great sight-gag, as she shows Marx pelting Descartes with rocks.) to the dark and moody as she shows the ravages of war. One sees in her settings and backgrounds the richness and beauty of Iranian decor. She renders the full range of emotions very well, and has created characters that have that all important quality of being fun to look at.
Marjane Satrapi is definitely on of the folks who is, to borrow a phrase from Scott McCloud "reinventing comics." She has created a graphic novel with a poignancy that would have been impossible in text alone. I would call this a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what happened then and there, and what is happening now.
She tells the story of the revolution, its causes, and its consequences unflinchingly through the eyes of her 11 - 14 year old self. From this point of view, the adult world seems surreal even in the healthiest of cultures and in the best of times. So revolutionary Iran seems doubly so even as it seems frighteningly real. The home she invites us into is led by her very politically astute father, and a cunningly resourceful mother. The Satrapis are no sheep, but a family that has suffered the consequences of changes in the political wind for generations. The result is that we get a very nuanced view of the politics of the revolution, of what different people were envisioning would come of it, and the disappointment at what did come of it.
Satrapi begins her story by discussing the veil. As I laid my eyes on the first chapter title, "The Veil," I braced myself for it being about the oppressiveness of wearing the veil. But what actually followed was what happens when you make a bunch of eleven year old girls adopt a garment they see no reason for. They were playing the usual array of school yard games with them. As the revolution proceede we are invited to share her puzzlement as the the teacher who had, only weeks earlier, told them that the Shah had been appointed by God, instructed her class to rip all pictures of the Shah from their books.
The revolution itself, we learn, wasn't Islamist. The Shah was the common enemy of a wide range of political factions, from secular democrats to communists to the islamists. In the end the Islamists won out because, as Satrapi tells us through the voice of her father, it is impossible to rally an illiterate populace around anything but religion and nationalism. In some ways, as political debate in the U.S. seems to be coalescing around issues of religion and nationalism, it seems almost as if Satrapi is putting us on notice that if we do not use our intellects to choose our government, we will end up no better off than Iran.
Satrapi's art is the perfect vehicle for her story. It is stark and simple: black and white, with no mid-tones, ever. It has the feel of linoleum-printing, and yet it ranges from light hearted and humorous (I am apparently not the only cartoonist in the world who thinks that striking phenomenologists in the head with hard, heavy objects makes a great sight-gag, as she shows Marx pelting Descartes with rocks.) to the dark and moody as she shows the ravages of war. One sees in her settings and backgrounds the richness and beauty of Iranian decor. She renders the full range of emotions very well, and has created characters that have that all important quality of being fun to look at.
Marjane Satrapi is definitely on of the folks who is, to borrow a phrase from Scott McCloud "reinventing comics." She has created a graphic novel with a poignancy that would have been impossible in text alone. I would call this a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what happened then and there, and what is happening now.
