Embroideries

Wow! This book is very sexually explicit!. After dinner with friends, the men go off into one room and the women into another. Basically, the whole book is in one setting: the Satrapi home. The time frame is set sometime after Persepolis 2, and Marjane is an experienced divorcee. Because of this, the women (who are all older than Marjane) feel free to discuss past marriages and sexual experiences. They also are comfortable with relating anecdotes of others' experiences.

One of the stories I personally found most horrifying was that of Parvine. When she was 13 years old, one of her father's acquaintances was 69. He was General Mafakherolmolouk, and her parents thought the union was fine. They were married a month later. Fortunately, on her wedding night, Parvine decided this was out of the question and said she had to go to the bathroom. She sneaked away to her aunt's house, who was more progressive. Parvine stayed with her aunt for the next four years, until he kicked it.

When I first read this story, I was so shocked at her parents that I just sat there for a minute. How could loving parents do something like that to their daughter? Why would anyone in Iran think that it was okay, and have it actually be legal? Since to me this is very much a moral issue, I checked from where Muslims get their ethical standards: Muhammad. Apparently, Muhammad's third marriage around 622 was to a girl named Aisha, who was only six at the time. He was 53. Considering this historical backdrop, I would find it hard for a Muslim to explain to me how the Koran doesn't repress women. I think the whole thing is disgusting, and my heart goes out to that young girl.

Another segment I found interesting was on nose jobs. When Marjane was young, she and her friend Payman decided that her grandmother's nose was so ugly, that the two of them should go into business to buy her a nose job. According to grandma, "Their solution consisted of buying cigarettes and biscuits at the supermarket and reselling them a little more expensively in the street." I guess they must have been pretty cute then, because they ended up making 750 tumans. However, since the operation cost 7,500 tumans, Marjane's mom took them to the toy store, where they blew it all in one glorious spree.

I think it's interesting how we talk about appearance being such a big issue here in the US, but here are two Iranian girls working all summer to get Marjane's grandmother a nose job! I wonder if she was at all offended, but I guess the age factor of the two girls outweighed the inappropriateness of their business venture.