Chicken With Plums is the newest work by Marjane Satrapi that I have read. She is best known for Persepolis which is in turn best known for being a movie, rather than a graphic autobiography.
If I were to try and put my finger on what aspect of Marjane Satrapi’s work is her greatest achievement, it is that she has made the most alien of cultures the most warm and inviting place. It is one of the greatest banes of our times that we are simultaneously expanding horizons while shrinking perceptions meaning we are probably as bad or worse than preceding generations when it comes to knowing neighbouring cultures.
India and Persia (or Iran, which is where she comes from and where she writes about) are joined at the hip in many ways, more than just playing Prince of Persia. Yet I feel I know so little of the country, and am guilty of holding the same stereotyped images of countries in the middle-East as anyone else. This is where Marjane Satrapi comes through with a metaphoric serving of chicken with plums for her readers.
What do I mean by that?
Have you ever eaten chicken with plums? I haven’t. But now I know that somewhere in the world there exists such a dish and that is loved by many. I also know that just as there is a chance it will not appeal to my taste buds, there is a chance that it might. The important thing is to know that some people like it, just as they like cigarettes and music, low cut dresses and celebrities, and teenage crushes and, well, you get the picture.
The idea of literature is to share. Simple. We don’t write to conceal but to reveal. And the idea of reading is to understand. We don’t read to just not let what is being said enter our brain and mind and soul. This is why it is important to read a book like this. Learn about Naseer Ali Khan and his wife and children. About Iran’s cultural revolution. And about Marjane Satrapi who is the greatest myth-busting, a-stereotypical comic book creator that I have come across.
And try chicken with plums someday. If I try it before you I will tell you how it is.
If I were to try and put my finger on what aspect of Marjane Satrapi’s work is her greatest achievement, it is that she has made the most alien of cultures the most warm and inviting place. It is one of the greatest banes of our times that we are simultaneously expanding horizons while shrinking perceptions meaning we are probably as bad or worse than preceding generations when it comes to knowing neighbouring cultures.
India and Persia (or Iran, which is where she comes from and where she writes about) are joined at the hip in many ways, more than just playing Prince of Persia. Yet I feel I know so little of the country, and am guilty of holding the same stereotyped images of countries in the middle-East as anyone else. This is where Marjane Satrapi comes through with a metaphoric serving of chicken with plums for her readers.
What do I mean by that?
Have you ever eaten chicken with plums? I haven’t. But now I know that somewhere in the world there exists such a dish and that is loved by many. I also know that just as there is a chance it will not appeal to my taste buds, there is a chance that it might. The important thing is to know that some people like it, just as they like cigarettes and music, low cut dresses and celebrities, and teenage crushes and, well, you get the picture.
The idea of literature is to share. Simple. We don’t write to conceal but to reveal. And the idea of reading is to understand. We don’t read to just not let what is being said enter our brain and mind and soul. This is why it is important to read a book like this. Learn about Naseer Ali Khan and his wife and children. About Iran’s cultural revolution. And about Marjane Satrapi who is the greatest myth-busting, a-stereotypical comic book creator that I have come across.
And try chicken with plums someday. If I try it before you I will tell you how it is.
thanks Sumit...literature is indeed meant to share..but i dont quite agree that it is always meant to reveal...several times it is meant to conceal a lot and reveal only to deceive...the written word always requires a cautious approach...thats what i feel, watsay?
ReplyDeleteThat is also an interesting thought. Often people put a hardbound volume of thoughts that are only meant to create an image that they wish to see, but isn't really there. So the revelation value of literature is not always authentic. But having said that it is still a form of revelation, that needs to be measured by every individual reader and then accepted at the value she/he assigns to it. Sometimes it becomes possible to see the extent of concealment as well, and that tells us a lot as well.
ReplyDeleteIn this specific case one again does not know how much of Satrapi's work is unadulterted. Perhaps there is a lot of embellishment. But the joy of reading is unaffected.
I haven't read read the novels... I have only seen the film... so my comment may seem a little inadequate...
ReplyDeleteI agree what you say about how we tend to develop stereotypical images or perceptions about people and places... It is only recently that I have had a chance of discovering a lot about a country like Turkey or Iran... mostly through the films and documentaries... otherwise the image was at first limited to grouping together all the middle eastern countries as one, having no individual identity at all...
it has been through literature that I was introduced to the life and culture of one of the middle eastern countries, Turkey... Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk's book... which I'm still to complete... My Name Is Red... after that it has been a continuous search to quench the thirst for knowledge, stumbling upon films and other books...
reading and watching such works has had this immense impact upon me... my own search for an identity... being nothing is good enough but knowing all the things which lead to you being whatever you are still lay somewhere just waiting for you to discover is a knowledge that if it does not kills you makes it much more difficult to continue living by ignoring the knowledge... well that's another matter altogether...
I will try and get the copies I guess... and try chicken with plums too...