SPOILER ALERT: The following review contains plot points that you may not want to know about before reading the book.
PARENTAL ADVISORY: This book contains material inappropriate for children. This review may reference that same material and thus may also not be appropriate for children.
In short: A graphic, and chilling, memoir, in comic book form, of a child growing up in a totalitarian regime, replete with content for mature audiences only.
The author was nine when the Shah of Iran was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. She describes her experiences and emotions during that turbulent time in this visual, and visceral, memoir.
This coming-of-age story also gives us some ancient history of Iran as well as a history of Iran in the 1980’s in a, sometimes, witty and humorous way. Satrapi uses that history as background as well as a metaphor of her coming-of-age, saying, for example, that her mother used the same tactics as the torturers.
“[I] sealed my act of rebellion against my mother’s dictatorship….Now I was a grown-up.”
“At 14 you don’t need your parents anymore.”
Told in comic book frames, the art is simplistic yet expressive. Words are sparse but effective as she conveys the horrors of war including torture, imprisonment and execution.
This is a brutal novel. Dismemberment, threatened rape, torture, profanities and blasphemies are all part of the picture.
“You know that it’s against the law to kill a virgin…so a guardian of the revolution marries her…and takes her virginity before executing her…”
I’m quite sure that the events are understated compared to the reality but still harsh nonetheless.
A verbally graphic description of the threatened rape is particularly disheartening. Although not surprising given the context of war in which it is described, it is, once again, a cheapening of a sacred gift that really isn’t necessary. Can we not understand the absolute brutality and horror of war and totalitarianism without resorting to vulgar descriptions of such?
God is not distant in these proceedings, both in the novel and in reality. Throughout the beginning of the novel the author has conversations with her god. Finally, after some of her experiences, she relates her last conversation with this “imaginary” god.
“Shut up you! Get out my life!!! I never want to see you again…And so I was lost without any bearings…What could be worse than that?”
This could be a great entry point to conversations about God and the “problem of evil”, however, the landmines are too numerous and coarse for anyone except mature audiences.
PARENTAL ADVISORY: This book contains material inappropriate for children. This review may reference that same material and thus may also not be appropriate for children.
In short: A graphic, and chilling, memoir, in comic book form, of a child growing up in a totalitarian regime, replete with content for mature audiences only.
The author was nine when the Shah of Iran was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. She describes her experiences and emotions during that turbulent time in this visual, and visceral, memoir.
This coming-of-age story also gives us some ancient history of Iran as well as a history of Iran in the 1980’s in a, sometimes, witty and humorous way. Satrapi uses that history as background as well as a metaphor of her coming-of-age, saying, for example, that her mother used the same tactics as the torturers.
“[I] sealed my act of rebellion against my mother’s dictatorship….Now I was a grown-up.”
“At 14 you don’t need your parents anymore.”
Told in comic book frames, the art is simplistic yet expressive. Words are sparse but effective as she conveys the horrors of war including torture, imprisonment and execution.
This is a brutal novel. Dismemberment, threatened rape, torture, profanities and blasphemies are all part of the picture.
“You know that it’s against the law to kill a virgin…so a guardian of the revolution marries her…and takes her virginity before executing her…”
I’m quite sure that the events are understated compared to the reality but still harsh nonetheless.
A verbally graphic description of the threatened rape is particularly disheartening. Although not surprising given the context of war in which it is described, it is, once again, a cheapening of a sacred gift that really isn’t necessary. Can we not understand the absolute brutality and horror of war and totalitarianism without resorting to vulgar descriptions of such?
God is not distant in these proceedings, both in the novel and in reality. Throughout the beginning of the novel the author has conversations with her god. Finally, after some of her experiences, she relates her last conversation with this “imaginary” god.
“Shut up you! Get out my life!!! I never want to see you again…And so I was lost without any bearings…What could be worse than that?”
This could be a great entry point to conversations about God and the “problem of evil”, however, the landmines are too numerous and coarse for anyone except mature audiences.
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