Chicken with Plums

Having read Persepolis I and II, as well as Embroideries, I was excited to snatch up Chicken With Plums as well. And despite some of the negative reviews here (which almost dissauded me), I found this book one of Satrapi's most magical, perfect creations. It's quite different than the autobiographical, child-like Persepolis I, though readers of Persepolis II and Embroideries will recognize the general tone and style. That said, it's a work that takes you by surprise with its directness, honesty, and sheer invention. The book follows the last eight days of Nasser Ali Khan's life, as he decides to resign himself to death after his wife, in an argument, destroys his precious "tar"--an Iranian sitar-like instrument. He is a master musician, renowned throughout the country, and the great love affair of his life (despite one thwarted human one) was with this reciprocating instrument. Unable to find another tar to requite his passion, he loses all taste for life and its joys, and decides to stay in bed until Azrael, the Angel of Death, comes for his soul. While waiting, we get a series of flashbacks and flashforwards as he--and others--recount the stories and anecdotes that frame his life. Reading this book is like listening in on family stories around the dinner table, which by their very nature are fragmentary, interrputed, and from multiple points of view. Though a simple story, the manner of telling it is amazingly complex and mesmerizing. Satrapi's storytelling is at its most concise here, but so much is revealed about the very human passions that shape a life, and how blind we are even to the people we live with. This is a magical book, filled with Satrapi's beautiful characterizations of the people she knew and loved. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Drawn in bold black and white, Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel illustrates the moving and disturbing life and last days of her uncle, Nasser Ali Kahn. He was a famous Iranian musician, loved for his virtuosity, and the sensitivity with which he played his beloved tar. It's a tale of how a man's happiness was gradually eroded by his culture, loss, suppressed feelings, and unrealizable expectations. The story starts with an older man in black walking down a city street. He encounters a slender woman with her grandchild. He hesitates. Asks if her name is Irane. She doesn't recognize him. Wonders how he knows her name. He, Nasser, apologizes and walks on to a friends business where he hopes to buy a replacement for his recently broken tar. We later learn that the broken tar had special meaning for Nasser. When he was a young man, the parents of the woman he'd fallen in love with forbade her to marry him because he was only a musician. Losing her plunged him into deep depression. He had difficulty playing. Nasser's tar master tried to console him by telling him, "To the common man, whether you're a musician or a clown, it's one and the same. The love you feel for this woman will translate into your music. She will be in every note you play." He then gave Nasser his own tar and instructed him to go on playing. From then on, Nasser's joy was his music. His playing thrilled his audiences Since childhood he'd been unable to meet the conventional expectations of others. His mother's, his brother's, his teachers', the parents of the woman he loved, his wife, his children. His mother urged him to marry a woman he didn't love so that he would forget his loss. Although the woman he married did love him, she resented his music. His children, influenced by their mother's attitude, became estranged from him. This drove him further and further into his music. After he failed to find another tar equal to his broken one, feeling that without that tar and his music there was nothing else he wanted, Nasser came to the conclusion, "To live, it's not enough to be alive." He decided to die. This where the novel really begins. Through Satrapi's masterful construction, we are able to piece together what we need to understand who Nassar was, and why he would make this tragic choice. Satrapi reveals Nasser's life and character by skillfully rearranging temporal events - picking up a incident, then dropping it, and then weaving it in later on in the story with new threads. She loops the past into the present, the future into the past. Sometimes, from frame to frame, she switches back and forth between the past and the present, showing how a character's unhappy memories and lingering hurt become emotional IEDs on the path to true understanding. There are many lenses through which to "see" another person, many ways in which to know them. At Nassaer's mother's funeral, a mystic tells him the story of five men in the dark trying to d

This is more than one remove from Persepolis I and II (which I also loved) but well-told, well-drawn, and moving. Reminding me of Persian miniatures and medieval Persian romance, it tells the story of Nasser Ali Khan, a true musician, his love, and his death. There are also some fascinating asides into the lives of other family members. Having lived two years in Tehran, I loved it because it reminded me of the culture I loved. Ms. Satrapi's work never fails to move and surprise me; more, please!

It's 1959, and Nasser Ali Khan, the greatest musician in Iran, has lost all he ever loved. Not his wife, he doesn't love her. Not his children, he doesn't care for them. It's his Tar, the instrument he's played all his life. Try as he might, he can't find another Tar just like it. Bouncing from store to store, city to city, he can't find a Tar that sounds like the one he loved all his life. Too make matters worse, he recognizes a woman he'd known years earlier, bringing back a flood of memories. When he realizes he'll never find a Tar like the one he lost, he lies down to die. In the eight days leading up to his death, Nasser looks back on his youth, and the brother whom his mother favored. He revisits the time his "educated" brother joined the communists, causing their mother to lose everything. He remembers how he bailed his brother out of trouble, then moved away to study music. There he met a women he knew he wanted, but her father refused to agree to the marriage, citing Nasser's musician status as too low for his daughter. Now, all Nasser has is a wife he never loved, two children he neglects, and an instrument that's gone and can't be replaced. For eight days, he lies in bed, visiting the things he once loved, lost, wanted, hated, and finaly comes to terms with what he always feared true; that his sacrifices in life were all in vain.

I have read all of Marjane Satrapi's American releases, and I have been a fan since the first one, Persepolis. In Chicken with Plums, Satrapi tells the story of her uncle, Nasser Ali Khan, a musician overtaken by a sense of meaninglessness over the loss of his tar. Satrapi's straightforward, simple style quickly drew me into the story, which I read in a single sitting. Despite the simplicity of its approach, however, Chicken with Plums packs quite a punch. Like a Greek tragedy, it leaves you feeling stunned, full of joy and a little bitter. Her uncle's tragedy acquires meaning through her telling of it. Another successful effort on the part of Marjane Satrapi!