Book Review Club: Lipstick Jihad

LIPSTICK JIHAD: A MEMOIR OF GROWING UP IRANIAN IN AMERICA AND AMERICAN IN IRAN

by Azadeh Moaveni

From the publisher's description:

Azadeh Moaveni was born in Palo Alto, California, into the lap of an Iranian diaspora community longing for an Iran many thousands of miles away. As far back as she can remember she felt at odds with her tangled identity. College magnified the clash between Iran and America, and after graduating, she moved to Tehran as a journalist. Immediately, Azadeh's exile fantasies dissolved.

Azadeh finds a country that is culturally confused, politically deadlocked, and emotionally anguished. In order to unlock the fundamental mystery of Iran-how nothing perceptibly alters, but everything changes--she must delve deep into Tehran's edgy underground. Lipstick Jihad is a rare portrait of Tehran, populated by a cast of young people whose exuberance and despair bring the modern reality of Iran to vivid life. Azadeh also reveals her private struggle to build a life in a dark country--the struggle of a young woman of the diaspora, searching for a homeland that may not exist.

Moaveni is a journalist who has written for Time magazine and she's an excellent writer. I found the book very interesting, in part for the insight into what it means to be an immigrant/exile in another culture and also for the portrait of life for young single women in modern Iran. She lived there around 2000-2001 and reported on the tepid reform movement's attempts to make life more pleasant despite the hard-line mullahs. She also experienced the reality of being a woman in a repressive culture where the positioning of one's veil can bring public rebuke on the street if not much worse. She witnessed and suffered police brutality during a riot, but what finally drove her to return to the US was pressure from Iranian intelligence, with whom she was forced to meet on a weekly basis. After Iran was named part of Bush's "axis of evil", the situation became so untenable she left in the middle of the night.

I found the book quite fascinating. It made me appreciate the personal freedoms we have here. No matter how much I complain about my hair, at least I don't have to wear a veil every time I go outside! Still, Moaveni made it clear that no amount of small person freedoms made up for the political oppression. Well worth reading.

Moaveni's newest book, Honeymoon in Teheran, was released earlier this year, and I may have to read it, too.

As always, thanks to Barrie Summy for organizing the monthly Book Review Club.

Linda

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Book Review Club: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

When I started reading Marjane Satrapi's memoirs back in mid-May, I had no idea how timely they would turn out to be. These graphic novels tell the story of her childhood and young adulthood in Tehran under the Islamic Revolution and provide some background for the current political events going on in Iran.

PERSEPOLIS: THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD covers her life from age 10 when the Shah was overthrown until age 14 when she was sent to Vienna. The revolution brought a huge change to Marji who comes from a secular family and was educated in a French school. The young Marji is precocious, fiery, outspoken and utterly adorable. She's also too honest for her own good and has a hard time tolerating the regime's propaganda. Arguments with her teachers and the principal led her to be expelled from two schools, one for a dispute over a banned bracelet and the second time for talking back to a teacher. Her parents decided she wasn't safe in Iran and sent her to to a French school in Vienna.

In ERSEPOLIS 2: THE STORY OF A RETURN, we learn that life in Vienna was no picnic for Marjane. She really was too young to be on her own and had trouble making friends among the Europeans. The teenage Marji is unhappy and angst-ridden, but still as honest and outspoken as ever. After an unhappy love affair left her adrift and homeless on the streets of Vienna at 18, she decided to return home. This transition was also rocky as she fought depression, but eventually came out of it. She attended art school at university, but again had trouble conforming to the strict rules of the Islamic regime. I love the part where she's told by the Guardians of Morality not to run in the street because it makes her butt wiggle provocatively, and she shouts at them, "Then don't look at my ass!"


When Marjane finished school, she left Iran for France. An artist and illustrator, she now lives in Paris. The books are, by turn, revealing, humorous and horrific. I really like her style of illustrating, and I recommend them for anyone who wants to learn more about Iran.

Monday night I watched the animated version of Persepolis, which won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, a singular accomplishment for an animated film. The film is beautifully animated and powerful. I do think I appreciated it more for having first read the books, as it condenses both volumes into about a 90-minute film.

Salon recently published an interesting article, Unveiling The Revolution By Tracy Clark-Flory, about modern Iranian women. I'm checking out two other books she recommended: Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat and Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni.

Linda


The Book Review Club is the brain child of Tween/Teen Author Barrie Summy. Click icon for more book review blogs @ Barrie Summy's site.

Two For Tuesday: Persepolis

I've been following the protests in Iran over the recent election with particular interest since I recently read Marjane' Satrapi's memoirs of her childhood and young adulthood in Iran under the Islamic Revolution. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, a highly-acclaimed graphic novel, covers her life from age 10 when the Shah was overthrown until age 14 when she was sent to Vienna. She followed it with Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.

Here are two sentences from Persepolis about the mood of the country during the war with Iraq:

The walls were suddenly covered with belligerant slogans. The one that struck me by its gory imagery was: "To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society."

Later on, when one of her friends dies, she realizes how empty the slogan is.

I thought this sentence from a recent blog by Steve Clemons at The Washington Note summed up the current situation perfectly. The words are those of a "well-connected Iranian" he met in London.

A gaping hole has been ripped open in Iranian society, exposing the contradictions of the regime and everyone now sees that the democracy that they believed that they had in Iranian form is a "charade."

Perhaps we should send Katherine Harris to Tehran to explain to the mullahs how to steal an election without making it blatantly obvious you're stealing an election. ;)

Another quote I liked is from High Definition Democracy: "The revolution won't be televised, it will be Twittered." This is an interesting analysis of the effect of the internet and social networking sites on democracy.

My heart goes out to the people of Iran in these scary and turbulent times. Iran is an ancient land with a proud history. I hope this will be a turning point for the good of the people, but I'm sure the theocracy will not yield up power easily.

Now for two (or a few more) sentences I wrote. This bit of description is from my historical romance, Rogue's Hostage, set during the French and Indian War. It's in the point-of-view of my hero who was with a raiding party that took the heroine captive the day before.

He took a deep breath of cool, clean air and forced himself to look away. The early morning light slanted across the clearing, catching the sparkle of dewdrops on the grass. There was a special beauty to the dawn. The world seemed born anew, as if nature were trying to wipe clean the violence wrought by man in her peaceful domain. But he could not forget the events of the previous day.

I'm also blogging today at A Slice of Orange on mid-year's resolutions and staying focused.

Linda

Check out the wondrous Women of Mystery blog for more Two Sentence Tuesday posts.