Arts If All of Seattle Read the Same—“HE’S NOTHING BUT A SHIT”—Book
posted by on October 13 at 17:30 PM
You may have imagined that the author of Persepolis (recently selected as 2006 assignment for the Seattle-wide reading initiative run by the public library) was an aristocratic type, fluent in French and melodramatically doomed in her decades-long exile from her native Iran.
Well, that, and “I will die like a miserable worm, and rot down to compost!”
This interview is a little old, yes, but it’s wildly entertaining.
Annie Wagner: Very cool.
I have one small objection. Worms were one of the first creatures to evolve. Millions of years later the cerebral cortex, etc. happened, hence emotions like misery.
Being fluent in french is not a sign of being aristocratic anywhere outside of the US. It's generally speaking of having lived in a part of the world once colonized (in the sence of colony not colon), by the hexagonal land of smell cheese eaters and eaters of snails.
If anything about Satrape smacks of aristocracy it's the name. If you've ever been forced to read Xenophon in greek, you'd recognize a Satrap immediately as some sort of big Persian cheese.
I can Satrape now, dying on a hexagonally shaped Minesweeper grid, and then being spoofed in a Brand New syndicated comic (done in No. 2 pencil)by Weird Al Segal, where ancient Kings grow six arms to corral in their wayward daughters; at least they assume them to be.
Being fluent in French is not a sign of aristocratic privilege if you're born in, say, Morocco. But Iran was never formally colonized by any country, and if you must split hairs, Britain has historically had more influence in Iran than France has. Satrapi, however, was born into a very posh family and was sent to the Lycée Français in Tehran for grade school. I rest my case.
On worms, I concur.
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