The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 2 November 2015
by Marjane Satrapi
The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was a turning point in the political history of the Middle East. Here in America, where we are not terribly good at evaluating historical context for world events, the Revolution was a mystery. Why had the Shah of Iran been overthrown in favor of what appeared to be a far more oppressive quasi-religious regime? In fact, the antecedents of the Revolution went back as far as World War 1, when Western powers, particularly Great Britain, smelling the oil under Middle Eastern nations, started meddling in the affairs of these countries, looking for cooperative regimes to help boost a wildly profitable trade in oil. Our unceasing inclination to mess around in Middle Eastern politics continues to cast a long shadow on our international relations. Even today, Iraqis, Iranians, and the frightening Islamic State movement all cite century-old Western colonial history when trying to explain to the West why we just don't get what is going on.
Young Marjane Satrapi, raised in Iran, was ten years old at the time of the Islamic Revolution. This brilliant and spare graphic memoir tells the story of those years, and the Iran-Iraq war that followed, as seen through the eyes of a girl raised in a secular family, and forced to toe a fundamentalist Islamic social line that took away her freedom and much of the hope for her future. As a graphic memoir, there is a lot of art to telling her story. First, there is the spare and expressive drawing style. Then, by necessity of space, there is the spare storytelling style. Between the two of them, Satrapi manages to convey a child's-eye view of world events crashing down upon her and her family. And these are profound events. Her parents were politically active, and thus often in great danger. Her mother's family descended from the royalty overthrown by the first Shah, and so they were in a politically ambiguous position. Friends and family were variously thrown in prison, persecuted, executed. Meanwhile, Marji was required to start wearing conservative Islmamic dress, while many of her social and educational aspirations were essentially taken away from her.
When we're young, we are impatient with the gray-area ambiguities of politics. We don't easily accept the notion of strange bedfellows, or the contradictions between ideals and everyday survival. This is somehow brilliantly conveyed in this book. Along with that, it is an enlightening look into life in a time of violent turmoil as Iran transitioned from one repressive regime to another, and all during an incredibly bloody war. So, one would expect the book to be bleak. And it often is. And yet, at the same time, there is a curiously joyful quality to this view into one girl's young life. There are ominous overtones, to be sure. Dark events and foreshadowings of Persepolis 2. But we feel Ms Satrapi will somehow survive.
See Also: [Sabrina by Nick Drnaso]