Romance on Brief Hiatus

Hey, I just started back blogging again! Well, my laptop is sick; apparently it has been rather infirm for about two months at least and needed repairs. The speed has been painfully slow as if my computer was straining, trying to go from webpage to webpage. This was even the case if I remained on a site for awhile. Scrolling up or down was difficult. I took my computer to the shop a couple of times, but the guy who waited on me had poor customer service skills, and he went on to blame my internet service as the reason why my surfing online was going at a snail’s pace even though I have broad band. The problems accumulated with me even having my laptop’s hard drive replaced for free since my computer is still on warranty.

I am going to finally put my computer in the shop tomorrow, and they will ship it off. I won’t have internet access for the next 2 to 3 weeks unless I go to the public library and use the computers there. I will go there, but not to blog. I prefer to blog in the privacy of my own home, so I won’t be posting for a few weeks unfortunately. I will be back though once “the world in a box” (my name for a computer) has been cured of whatever ails it.

In closing, my interests may seem to be almost strictly intellectual, but I also like some pop culture. Last week American and world pop culture lost two stars, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. I had a crush on Michael back in his Jackson Five days; I was a little girl then. I watched Farrah on Charlies Angels when I was in middle school, and I just loved her flippy (sic) tresses. It was expected that Farrah wouldn’t make it because of the cancer she was battling, but Michael’s death was an earth shaking and crushing shock for many worldwide even though there had been rumors online in the last year that he was dying. Now two iconic figures of 20th century pop culture and favorites of my childhood are gone. I know I am getting older…

Below are tiny tributes to them.

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)


Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009)

Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis Books

I wonder if it is so in other places, but Iran is certainly in the news here this week because of recent elections and my country’s long time obsession, without real knowledge, with that country. The full story is not being put out there on TV, of course, nor I doubt completely online either. Countries like Iran are moored far more on complexities than the American media can grasp, and I wouldn’t entirely trust the bloggers either because each blogger, me included, has an agenda and a certain point of view that may be reliable or unreliable, biased and unbiased. I am not going to go into an enigma like Iran here and waste my or anyone else’s time. I will just wish the citizens of that country the best, especially the young who may not have become too hopeless or cynical as of yet.

Iran did come into my life through the form of two incredible books that were bestsellers a few years ago, Persepolis I and II by Marjane Satrapi. I tend to tackle bestsellers long after they have faded from the public’s memory. I bought the first Persepolis when it was a bestseller and was only sold in hardcover. I recently read my copy and was very moved by this graphic novel that was the first of its kind that I had read since I was a child. After reading Persepolis I, I then checked out Persepolis II at the public library.

The Persepolis books are the autobiographies of novelist and illustrator Marjane Satrapi (on the left and the second below on the left) coming of age in Iran during the final years of the reign of Shah Reza Pahlavi and the early years of the Islamic Revolution. They cover her living through and surviving her country’s war with Iraq, her being shipped off to school in Europe, her return to Iran, her marriage, her university years, and her departure once again for Europe after the failure of her marriage.

Marji, as family and friends call her, is an only child and is raised by parents who are free thinkers. She learns interesting things about herself, her family, and her country. Out of the blue one day, her parents tell her that she is the great granddaughter of one of the emperors of Iran. She realizes with glee that her grandfather would have been a prince. However, she is told that her grandfather had turned his back on his imperial breeding and had become a communist causing the Shah’s father to confiscate his property and imprison him. Also years before an uncle of her favorite uncle had proclaimed himself president of a short-lived separatist state called East Azarbaijan. That uncle was overthrown, jailed, and executed. The shah had failed to get her favorite uncle who was a communist, but he too is finally arrested and then executed during the Revolution. Marji sees that her family is not immune to the dangerous politics of Iran and that they are also tied to that land’s history.

Marji’s parents send her away to school in Europe because they fear that her sometimes too loose and forthright tongue is going to eventually land her in jail or worse. She attends high school in Austria where she becomes a part of a clique of European outcasts. Before she is taken in by this group she becomes ashamed of being Iranian and tries to hide her identity until bigoted comments about Iranians causes her to re-embrace her ethnicity. The group of outcasts adopts her because she had actually experienced war. She goes through what might be a traumatic time for some while living in Europe, but she pulls through with humor and a stubborn determination to move forward and not become bitter.

Begging her parents to never ask her all that exactly went on during her final months as a high school student in Austria, she returns home. For a time she drifts, taking on odd jobs. She meets a guy who becomes her second boyfriend. This relationship causes more controversy with some of her school mates than it does with her parents because one day Marji is quite blunt with one of her more conservative friends that she takes birth control pills not to regulate her periods but because she is sleeping with her boyfriend. Marji and her boyfriend marry despite the quiet reservations of her parents who really do not think the two are suited to each other and also because her mother feels that Marji is too young. The marriage starts to crack almost from the beginning, but Marji pushes on going against and laughing at the hypocritical system that polices her country. Behind closed doors her family and friends continue to live their lives in a way that is against the laws of the Islamic republic. The young people date, party, make love, wear fashionable western clothes, and drink alcohol. They refuse restricted lives. In the gloom of a totalitarian state they grab for any happiness that they can find.

At the end of the Persepolis II as in I, Marjane Satrapi leaves for a life in Europe. Though she does not fit in completely in either place, she decides that

Europe must be her home. There she can be free to truly find herself.

The Persepolis books are an emotional pair which shows all that is terrible, tragic, and humorous in life. No matter how difficult things get, the message of these books seem to be that one must go on to see what the next chapter in life will be. Never allow circumstances or people to break your spirit and lust for life.

After reading Persepolis I and II, I really wanted to see the award winning film based on the two books. I tried to check it out at the library, but someone else already had it. It was put on hold for me, but I have yet to receive a notice that I can come and pick up the DVD. Maybe there are other people ahead of me waiting for the film.

I've looked at the preview. Yay! I can’t wait!

Links:

Persepolis Film Website

Excerpt from Persepolis I

Persian Fashion and the Origins of Islamic Wear for Women

Iran used to be known as Persia. The people were known as Persians and still are depending on whom you are talking to in the Middle East. The Iranians are a people who are proud of their long history.

On the news this week I saw young people dressed and looking a lot more westernized than many others here would have probably expected. I can’t remember exactly where, but I read not too long ago that the burka, that is worn in Afghanistan, and some other garments that some women wear in Islamic countries are Byzantine in origin. What is now called the burka and is valued by many as a symbol of oppression and repression was actually worn centuries ago by wealthy Byzantine women. What is now the burka was then a status symbol. Islamic culture later adopted items like the veil and the burka from the Byzantines and other sources.

The fascinating subject of Persian and Islamic fashion can be read about in this article that I discovered this week: Persian Dress Through the Ages.

Links:
Historical Perspectives on Islamic Dress

My Favorite Historical Authors

I am a history addict. I fell in love with history while growing up. I loved to play around with the Britannica Junior and Collier’s encyclopedias in our house. When I wanted to escape from the stresses and disappointments of my young life, my drug of choice was reading about some historical person or about some country or its culture. Most of the books I buy now or check out from the library are historical nonfiction. In the last decade I have turned my attention more to trying to find books on Near Eastern history and cultures. I still pay attention to my first love, however, which is European history.

Three of my favorite authors of European history are Antonia Fraser, John Julius Norwich, and Henri Troyat.

Lady Antonia Fraser is a British author and the wife of the late Harold Pinter, who was a Noble Prize winning playwright. I especially love her first book that was written in the late 60s about Mary Queen of Scots. Her historical works have a literary complexity to them but are not boring. She often goes into the psyche of her subjects. Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Marie Antoinette, was based on Antonia Fraser’s book Marie Antoinette: The Journey.

Viscount John Julius Norwich began pursuing a career as an author after leaving the British Foreign Service. He also has a daughter with one of the former wives of American director John Huston.
I have an intense fascination for the Byzantine Empire because of Lord Norwich’s trilogy, Byzantium: The Early Centuries, Byzantium: The Apogee, and Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. Because of this energetic and occasionally humorous group of books, I now think that Rome in the East was more fascinating than the Rome of the West. The Byzantium trilogy is a quick read, almost like three fast paced, exciting novels. The lives of all the Byzantine Emperors are examined. John Julius Norwich admits that he does not write for academia but more for the general public. In this way he succeeds in actually making history come alive.

Of my three favorites, Henry Troyat is deceased. His background is also the most exotic in the group. He is listed as a French author, but he was actually born in Russia. The name he was given at birth by his Armenian parents was Levon Aslan Torossian. He was also of German, Russian, and Georgian lineage. Being a Turcophile (admirer of things Turkish) it is very surprising to me that his middle birth name was actually Turkish. Aslan, translated into English, is “lion.” This is especially surprising since the Turks and the Armenians have long been at each other’s throats and were particularly so just after 1911 when Troyat was born. But the complexities of the Near East… Henri Troyat’s family fled Russia to escape the Revolution. He became a prolific writer with a number of his histories dealing with Russian rulers and literary figures. I especially liked his biographies of Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great. Like John Julius Norwich’s works that I have read, I can say that these two also are quick reads and are written with a dramatic flair like a novel.

If you are a history lover you should try out the works of these three writers. If you are not, try them out anyway. You might like them.

Links:
Official Website of John Julius Norwich

The Telegraph's Interview of John Julius Norwich

Official Website of Antonia Fraser