Chicken with Plums (Pantheon)

Marjane Satrapi, the award-winning writer and artist of Persepolis, weaves another fairytale about a member of her family, the great musician Nasser Ali Khan. Humor, heartbreak, and the consequences of his life’s choices play before his eyes in his quest for peace-and death.

 

 

84 pgs. B&W; $12.95 softcover

(W / A: Marjane Satrapi)

 

Marjane Satrapi, author and artist of the award-winning graphic novel autobiography Persepolis, allows the everyman into her extended Iranian family once more in Chicken with Plums. This is the tale of her great-uncle Nasser Ali Khan, a famous musician who vowed to die after his favorite tar (a guitar-like instrument) is broken, and in fact does so after eight days. Nasser Ali’s story is more fairytale than fact, complete with forbidden love, nearly-magical musical instruments, angels, and a man’s quest for peace. This is Satrapi’s gift, however, to tell the truth in fiction in such a spellbinding way. Her true genius is how she weaves the gritty and mundane in with the fanciful, making her great-uncle’s tale ultimately a revelation about the compromises we sometimes make in our lives, and the regrets we may later come to have. In Chicken with Plums, Nasser Ali and the others he impacts become real people who lead real lives in a place and society different than many others. Satrapi honors them by allowing their memory and stories to be shared with her readers, and bringing a bit of Persian culture into the limelight. Each person mentioned becomes someone you care about, and want to know more about. Even though this entire tale is fictional, she brings the oral histories of her very real family alive on the page.

Satrapi works in black and white with deceptively simple lines. Her characters can have a cartoonish quality to them, but sometimes that is the point, especially if she is poking fun at them. However, with only a few deft strokes her characters’ facial expressions can change sublimely, and she is able to capture an astonishing range of emotions. It may take some readers a bit of getting used to this seemingly "unsophisticated" style, but when you do the entire world will literally open up. Satrapi does not always draw entire nor detailed backgrounds, but it usually isn’t necessary for her panels. A piece of curtain flutters on the edge, or the curve of the sidewalk vanishes off the page, and it is enough to give the reader a sense of placement. Silhouettes make frequent appearances, but far from being  a cop-out to drawing faces and details, they are mood indicators in their simplicity, and you can still determine exactly who each outline belongs to.

Chicken with Plums is a wonderful addition to Satrapi’s collection of works about herself and her family. It is definitely an interesting stand-alone piece, though readers will probably benefit and get more meaning out of it if they read her Persepolis collection first. Conversely, if one is considering starting on Persepolis but isn’t quite sure what to expect, Chicken with Plums makes a great introduction to her writing style, humor, and background.  I would definitely recommend this book. | Elizabeth Schweitzer

Click here to read Comics Editor Jason Green’s interview with Marjane Satrapi regarding Chicken With Plums.