The other day I reported on the death of Marjane Satrapi, comic book creator (she preferred that term to “graphic novel”), film producer, and author.  She was only 56, and her family reported that she became depressed and “died of sadness” about a year after her partner, Mattias Ripa, died of cancer.  Wikipedia outlines her accomplishments, headed by the comic book Persepolis, which came in two volumes:

Her best-known works include the graphic novel Persepolis and its film adaptation; the graphic novel Chicken with Plums; Woman, Life, Freedom; and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.

The success of Persepolis established Satrapi as one of the most widely read Iranian authors in the world, and her role in co-directing the film adaptation led to her becoming the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Yesterday I finished the first volume of Persepolis, and was greatly moved by the illustrated account of Satrapi’s life in Iran, both under the Shah and thereafter.  Her disillusionment with 1979 Iranian Revolution is the centerpiece, and the illustrations are instrumental in conveying her feelings.

Below, the volume I read; click to go to the Amazon link, where it’s only about eight bucks. The publisher’s website is here, where you can buy both volumes in hardback.

Since I started reading this book, which won many awards, I’ve been surprised at how many people also know of it and have read it.  Besides Maus, which I thought was a masterpiece, and two volumes of The Rabbi’s Cat, which was also superb, this is the only “graphic novel” I’ve read.  I recommend it highly, and have asked Interlibrary Loan at the University of Chicago for the second volume.

Here are two pages from the book as reproduced by Emma Knopik , who gave it a favorable review on Medium.  Knopik’s explication of each page is indented:

I found page 43 particularly interesting. After a series of massacres and revolts, the Shah finally fled Iran and sought refuge with Anwar Al-Sadat in Egypt. Satrapi’s parents explain that although the Shah has left, people’s celebration will be ephemeral as long as the Middle East has oil. In this panel, her father’s expression shifts from his regular reassured, pleased look to a more cynical, concerned expression. Satrapi achieves this shift by raising his eyebrows, lowering his eyes and simplifying them, and turning his mustache downward as in a frown. The black background of the panel intensifies the unfortunate realization. Perhaps the most compelling panel on this page is the bottom left panel, that depicts Satrapi and her parents along with a dragon figure. The dragon represents the former Shah, and even though Satrapi’s parents are glad that the “devil” has left, this dragon figure exerts an invisible claw before the family. The dragon’s body acts to outline the panel, suggesting these figures unclenching control over Iranian’s lives.

This page below made a big impression on me. It depicts the death of many Iranian boys, age 14 and up, who were used as cannon fodder and trotted through minefields to find the mines (by being blown up, of course). Some of the boys were given plastic keys to wear around their necks, and assured that if they became “martyrs,” the key would let them into Paradise.

Knopik:

Additionally, page 102 illustrates the complex political situation in Iran that Satrapi was forced to process while also experiencing the staples of adolescence. The two panels on this page break from Satrapi’s smaller, more grid-like panelled pages. The top panel occupies a majority of the page, and it illustrates the young, impoverished children who were convinced to sacrifice their lives for religion. The figures are shown with the keys to paradise around their necks as they are dying in explosions. The figures are blurry and dark, with no distinguishing features, which illustrates the high degree to which they were robbed of their lives. The bottom panel depicts Satrapi going to a party and experimenting with a punk rock style that many teenagers cycle through. Unlike the children in the previous panel, Satrapi and her friends have distinguished facial features. Her friends’ poses while they dance mirror the children who are dying in the panel above.

The book is sad and moving in recounting Satrapi’s disillusionment with both the Shah and the mullahs, and the tales of her friends and relatives she lost who were tortured and executed. It’s a short read, and I recommend it highly.

Here’s Satrapi talking about Persepolis (she could speak six languages).

Although Satrapi was doubtful about whether her work could be made into an animated movie. In 2007 it was, directed and written by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, and it’s supposed to be good. It certainly got a lot of awards and acclaim, including the Jury Prize (tied) at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007.

Here’s the trailer.

In the last week I’ve finished watching an excellent movie and reading a mediocre book, both of which were recommended by readers or friends. I rely a lot on such recommendations because, after all, life is short and critics can help guide us through the arts.

The good news is that the movie, “Hamnet,” turned out to be great. I had read the eponymous book by Maggie O’Farrell in 2022 (see my short take here), and was enthralled, saying this:

I loved the book and recommend it highly, just a notch in quality behind All the Light We Cannot See, but I still give it an A. I’m surprised that it hasn’t been made into a movie, for it would lend itself well to drama. I see now that in fact a feature-length movie is in the works, and I hope they get good actors and a great screenwriter.

They did. Now the movie is out, and it’s nearly as good as the book. Since the book is superb, the movie is close to superb. That is, it’s excellent but perhaps not an all-time classic, though it will always be worth watching. Author O’Farrell co-wrote the screenplay with director  Chloé Zhao, guaranteeing that the movie wouldn’t stray too far from the book. As you may remember, the book centers on Agnes, another name for Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway, a woman who is somewhat of a seer (the book has a bit of magical realism). And the story covers the period from the meeting of Shakespeare and Agnes until Shakespeare writes and performs “Hamlet,” a play that O’Farrell sees as based on the death from plague of their only son Hamnet (another name for Hamlet; apparently names were variable in England).  I won’t give away the plot of the book or movie, which are the same, save to say that the movie differs in having a bit less magic and a little more of Shakespeare’s presence. (He hardly shows up in the book.)

The movie suffers a bit from overemotionality; in fact, there’s basically no time in the movie when someone is not suffering or in a state of high anxiety.  But that is a quibble. The performances, with Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Shakespeare, are terrific. Buckley’s is, in fact, Oscar-worthy, and I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t win a Best Actress Oscar this year.  The last ten minutes of the movie focuses on her face as she watches the first performance of “Hamlet” in London’s Globe theater, and the gamut of emotions she expresses just from a close shot of her face is a story in itself.  Go see this movie (bring some Kleenex for the end), but also read the book.  Here’s the trailer:

On to the book. Well, it was tedious and boring, though as I recall Mother Mary Comes to Me, by Indian author Arundhati Roy, was highly praised. Roy’s first novel, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize and I loved it; her second, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, was not as good.  I read Mother Mary simply because I liked her first book and try to read all highly-touted fiction from India, as I’ve been there many times, I love to read about the country, and Indian novelists are often very good.

Sadly, Mother Mary was disappointing. There’s no doubt that Roy had a tumultuous and diverse live, and the autobiography centers around her  relationship with her mother (Mary, of course), a teacher in the Indian state of Kerala. The two have a tumultuous connection that, no matter how many times Roy flees from Kerala, is always on her mind.  It persists during Roy’s tenure in architectural school, her marriage to a rich man (they had no children), and her later discovery of writing as well as her entry into Indian politics, including a time spent with Marxist guerrillas and campaigning for peaceful treatment of Kashmiris.

The book failed to engage me for two reasons. First, Mother Mary was a horrible person, capable of being lovable to her schoolchildren at one second and a horrible, nasty witch at the next.  She was never nice to her daughter, and the book failed to explain (to me, at least) why the daughter loved such a hateful mother. There’s plenty of introspection, but nothing convincing. Since the central message of the novel seems to be this abiding mother/daughter relationship, I was left cold.

Further, there’s a lot of moralizing and proselytizing, which is simply tedious. Although Roy avows herself as self-effacting, she comes off as a hidebound and rather pompous moralist, something that takes the sheen off a fascinating life.  Granted, there are good bits, but overall the writing is bland.  I would not recommend this book.

Two thumbs down for this one:

Of course I write these small reviews to encourage readers to tell us what books and/or movies they’ve encountered lately, and whether or not they liked them. I get a lot of good recommendations from these posts; in fact, it was from a reader that I found out about Hamnet.