Okay, if The Shadow of the Wind is the most elegant and graceful book I’ve read in a long time, The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is certainly the most irreverent.
And yes, that really is a compliment, especially when you see how her criticism of authority and general sarcasm never turns cynical.
Satrapi retains her respect and affection for all her characters, even the ‘bad guys.’ She refuses to paint them as caricatures or monsters, never letting them off the hook by constantly reminding us that these are thinking individuals who make choices.
After all, a monster can’t be held responsible for behaving like a monster and she does insist on holding the people who've oppressed her country to account.
Satrapi doesn’t spare herself either.
At one point, I found myself thinking, ‘wow, what a selfish bitch’ only to find a couple of pages later that her grandma tells her that she’s a selfish bitch and Satrapi openly and apologetically admits that she found herself behaving in an unconscionable way.
I have no doubt that when you read this, you’ll know exactly which part I’m talking about.
We see Satrapi growing up under the Shah, going through the revolution and then experience the disillusionment that comes when the people of Iran find themselves just as repressed as they were before they overthrew the Shah.
What we see here is the end result of too many revolutions in which the ‘liberators’ turn out to be as or more oppressive than the tyrant they fought to overthrow in the first place.
This book also serves as a caution against painting an entire nation of people with a broad brush. Doing so isn’t only naïve, it’s dangerous.
But what stands out is that Satrapi never comes off as sanctimonious or preachy. Any political point of view rests comfortably in this bed of humor and sarcastic irreverence.
Seriously, read this book.
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