Saboteur

In some ways, "Saboteur" is as much a poem  (a deeply cynical, dark poem) as a story.  The words resonate:
Mr. Chew (oh I know it's Mr. Chiu but it's also Mr. Chew)

to me, the strength of the story/ poem is that it makes of Mao's (and Hegel's and Marx's)  theory  of dialectical materialism a material counterpart, in fact, a food counterpart
Mr. Chiu
you're a saboteur . . . disrupting public order
 rotten melon
few flies
sallow face

 use your tongue


bulgy eyes, egg of a tortoise
something stirred in Mr. Chiu's stomach, a pain rising to his rib
millet porridge, a corn bun, and a piece of pickled turnip

 heart disease and hepatitis
his flesh .. . must have tasted nonhuman to fleas
liver was swelling up
nausea
bowl of corn glue . . . salted celery
eight hundred people contacted acute hepatitis
Mr. Chew

And worst of all: Party had been propagating the idea that all citizens were equal before the law

Dialectical Materialism

Socrates' dialogues: First recorded dialectics.
Hegel is known by historians as the person who theorized a dialectical view of history.
Marx turned Hegel's ideas upside down and proposed dialectical materialism.


Thesis -- Antithesis -- Synthesis (which becomes the new Thesis)

The following is quoted from "Dialectics" in Wikipedia:

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed Hegel was "standing on his head," and endeavoured to put him back on his feet, ridding Hegel's logic of its orientation towards philosophical idealism, and conceiving what is now known as materialist or Marxist dialectics. This is what Marx had to say about the difference between Hegel's dialectics and his own:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought." (Capital, Volume 1, Moscow, 1970, p. 29).

Ironically, dialectical materialism is the structural and theoretical underpinning of both Persepolis and "Saboteur."

Iran, as Satrapi explains it, goes from thesis to antithesis every few years.  Her own passions similarly go from God to revolutionary fervor, from passion for the government to passion against the government, and so on.  This picture shows herself and her world:

Sharon and Khim's Presentation

You can watch a trailer in English

Today (Monday) Sharon and Khim showed parts of the film of Persepolis, which came out in French and which covers both the book we are reading plus Persepolis II.

Here are some of the questions I am going to ask on Wednesday:




 Why are we reading this book?
  What does Marjane SAY is her reason for writing the book?
What does dialectical materialism have to do with her writing of the book?
What is dialectical materialism?
How would you characterize the politics of her parents?
What do you think is the cause of the way her parents think?
What most surprised you about Persepolis?
Do you think that this book is reverent about Islam?
Do you think that a Muslim would like or dislike this book?
In what way is the writing of the book like the work of a prophet?

What is the effect on the family of their connection to royalty?

Funny and Comic

When I was a kid, very poor, I had no money to buy comics but I would just sit around and surreptitiously read them in the store.  Maybe that is why I read very, very fast -- I'm still afraid that I'll get caught.

Why were they called "comics"?  Even then, almost nothing that I read was funny.  I was mostly into Superman, Supergirl, Spiderman, and all the good stuff.  My Spokane Indian friend, Margie, got me into horror comics -- she loaned them to me to read at lunchtime.

The first really funny comics I ever read were Doonesbury and Calvin and Hobbes.

But more than the three S's, those two "comics" were wise and deep comments on actual life.  So when I first read Maus, then Pedro and Me, then Persepolis, I wasn't that shocked to see actual content.  Even more, they forced me to think.  For example, Art Spiegelman forced me to try to figure out his allegory.  Judd Winick forced me to take reality tv seriously.  What does Marjane Satrapi do?

Why "Fast Fish and Loose Fish"?

The word "fast" in Moby-Dick means that a whale has been captured, while for Melville the word "loose" implies that the whale is still free.   Moby-Dick himself was the biggest loose fish, still loose at the end of the novel.

Then, Melville expands to politics -- which countries in 1851 were fast fish and which ones were loose fish?  Imperialism and colonization were huge issues for him.

 Melville writes:
"What was America in 1492 but a loose-fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish. 



What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? 

What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?"

How does this connect to the memoir Persepolis?   It is the story of Marjane Satrapi's external and internal struggle to decide in what ways she is willing to be a fast fish -- connected to her family and to her religion but struggling always to be loose.  She needs to create her own version of God, her own tastes in music, her own fashion, and her own political beliefs.  "And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?"