Title: [Embroideries]
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Genre: Graphic Novel
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 12, 2014
Rating: ****
Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi is an after-dinner conversation between women in a time and place that demands separate spheres, and therefore separate conversations. The product is blunt honesty, crude humor, and pure humanity. Other reviews have berated the subject for being shallow and have dismissed the frequently catty personalities, but I would argue that this is just what makes the text seem honest. This is not the grandmother I would have expected from Persepolis, but rather an opium-addicted woman with a handful of former husbands, and stories to go with each one. There are changing attitudes towards marriage and partnership, men, sex, and virginity. The topic of conversation is not new, and not entirely enlightened, but it is honest and human, and strongly reflects a time and place when things are changing. It made me smile and it made me cringe and it made me consider a life very different from the one I've had the pleasure of knowing. An added bonus is the humor of the title, and all of its implications.
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