Cigarettes + Revolution: thoughts on PERSEPOLIS, by Marjane Satrapi

Slowly but surely, I'm learning how to read graphic novels. It's a complex affair, drawing together words and images. In my head, it's a skill you naturally have as a child, but one you lose as you start exploring fat books full of words. Unless you stick with comics throughout life, which I regret not doing. My first graphic novel was Watchmen - I got too excited and powered through it without really appreciating the story being told in the images. Next I tried a couple of books Neil Gaiman's Sandman series - the art was so great that I couldn't concentrate on the wordy bits.

Persepolis, however, required no work whatsoever. Marjane Satrapi's tale of a girlhood in and out of Iran is a wonderful synthesis of simple text, minimalist imagery and complicated political, philosophical and familial themes. Marjane is the daughter of middle-class, left-wing parents. She is fond of the word 'dialectic', she wishes to be a prophet, she is sad because her maid does not eat with her family. She is a precocious young girl, and though this is an autobiographical tale, the well-read and super-curious novel-Marjane is reminiscent of Hodgson Burnett's Mary Lennox, transplanted from the gardens of Yorkshire to the unsettled landscape of Iran.

Marjane takes us along with her as she witnesses her country change around her. First it is the protests, then comes the new regime, the war with Iraq, the enforcement of religious law, the closure of her school, upheaval, death, travel to Europe and all of a sudden we realise that Marjane is no longer a young girl. She's a chain smoking young woman left confused by her country's transition from liberal nation to extremist state.

People my age have grown up with Iran in the news. We know Iran as the state it becomes toward the end of this novel - a state of unrest, both political and cultural. A state in which Western countries have involvement in, though we may not always understand why. When I first saw 60's images of Iranian women in mini-skirts I was ridiculously confused. I don't profess to know the ins and outs of Iranian politics, and I know even less about Iranian culture, but Marjane Satrapi teaches us about both, from the perspective of a girl who is undergoing many changes herself. In a subtle act of show and tell, we learn about the modern history of Iran, and how its people have influenced and been influenced by this history, whilst learning about the life of one little girl.

I think we all attempt to relate literature to our own lives, it's only natural. In the case of Persepolis, the bits I found most striking were the alien ones. What it's like to live in a war-torn country, for example. What it's like to leave home and be unsure of your return. However, key tenets of the novel transcend political or national specificity - family, perhaps being the most prominent. Personally, I found Marjane's exploration of what it is to be a woman in a restrictive environment fascinating. Even though Marjane's experiences are at an extreme end of the spectrum, the inherent attitudes found in them are very relevant in societies across the world today.

It's touching, dark, funny, and it's as much a tale of growing up as it's a tale of politics and philosophy. A rare treat of a tale, offset with simple and striking illustration. I really think young girls of all nationalities should read this book, especially in the context of today's perceptions about the Middle East. Satrapi is an inspirational writer and woman -  I can't wait to pass her work on.

What are your recommendations for a novice graphic novel reader? Lots of suggestions welcome.

Marjane Satrapi - picture: persianfilmfestival.com

ANIMALS, by Emma Jane Unsworth

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild,

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping

than you can understand.

W.B Yeats, The Stolen Child

Laura Joyce is an occasional writer, a regular drinker, a lover of Yeats and unfortunately she isn’t related to James. Tyler is her best friend, her housemate, a bon viveur and Laura’s enabler. Together they tear through relationships, Manchester, each other, and the pages of Emma Jane Unsworth’s Animals, and we are invited to act as both the intrigued voyeur and the potential participant. What liberty! What liability.

Unsworth’s novel is an exercise in narrative seduction. We meet Laura during a particularly ginny hangover, which is to my mind the peak of human vulnerability. We know the colour of her piss – ‘white piss good, amber piss bad’ - before we know much else – and a bizarrely familiar bond is established. She’s engaged to a teetotal concert pianist, she’s writing a novel about a priest who’s in love with a pig and she’s desperately trying to balance a life of hedonism with an impending life of fine home furnishings. She is every bad hangover we’ve ever experienced and now we’re friends, we’re witnesses, already we are in on something. However, the beauty of Unsworth’s second novel is that the ‘something’, the secret, turns out to be nothing at all. We are all aspiring writers, we are all stuck in dead-end jobs, we are all disappointed and we all of us want to pretend that we are otherwise. And so, we meet Laura and we see ourselves, from the drinking habits, to the Mail on Sunday reading parents, to the secret love for Take Me Out.

The first-person narration superbly draws out this powerful, painful sense of familiarity, whilst the quick-fire dialogue, dirty humour and the assumption of an accomplice-reader keeps us on side through the messiest moments. It’s an obvious statement, but Laura Joyce is a fundamentally enjoyable character to act as a confessional for – not always the case when you’re in someone else’s head for a novel. In Laura, Unsworth has created a character that is part Holden Caulfield, part Bridget Jones, with a twist of Plath, spiked with stolen meth. She is ‘one part optimism, two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bit of Unsworth too, There was certainly a bit of me in there, and probably every other reader who’s downed a bottle of rose because they couldn’t decide between white or red, or told someone to royally toss off for assuming they have a say in your lifestyle choices.

Tyler, on the other hand, is pure legend. Whilst Laura reaches out of the novel, Tyler explodes it. She is a mythological demon-goddess luring in the human child (me, you, Laura, everyone) like one of Yeats’ goblins. She doesn’t belong in this novel, in anyone’s life, in this plane of reality, which is precisely why she is such a perfect foil to Laura. A manic-pixie-nightmare-girl, and make no mistake. Tyler turns a gritty and realistic novel about the (societally-inflicted/bullshit) perils of being thirty and unsettled, into a tale of messy, meth-y, Mancunian magical realism. Well, almost. There’s vomit, sex, drugs and decisions, peppered with literary allusion and classical tragedy - Laura’s love of Yeats is very apt indeed. You need a bottle of something to soften the assault.

Animals explores tricks, trips (both sorts), bad habits, and what-happens when-you-leave-uni-without-a-publishing-deal, but for me it boils down to a sense of disillusion, even down to the reified setting of city famed for it’s 20 year old cultural wealth. What do we do now? Why didn’t my degree get me anywhere? Why should I care? Why shouldn’t I tell you about the time I had a tick in my groin, why shouldn’t I keep my ‘wreckhead friend’, why should I give up drinking, why should I behave, why should I have kids, why should I have you, why should I give a fuck?

I do give a fuck, especially about this book, but I don’t have the answers, and that’s fine. None of Unsworth’s characters do, nor does Unsworth profess to. We’ve all been given a bit of a shit deal at one point or another, and how you make do is your own business, whether it’s ploughing on with that novel you’re writing or easing yourself in with a quick bev or five at the pub. There’s hope at the end of the hangover, o human child. This is a brilliant, prescient piece of writing, and will need to be read twice – you’ll spend the first time texting your mates all the best lines.

         Be sure to read with wine, especially on trains.