Embroideries (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This slight follow-up to Satrapi's acclaimed Persepolis books explores the lives of Iranian women young and old. The book begins with Satrapi arriving for afternoon tea at her grandmother's house. There, her mother, aunt and their group of friends tell stories about their lives as women, and, more specifically, the men they've lived with and through. One woman tells a story about advising a friend on how to fake her virginity, a scheme that goes comically wrong. Another tells of escaping her life as a teenage bride of an army general. Satrapi's mother tells an anecdote of the author as a child; still others spin yarns of their sometimes glamorous, sometimes difficult, lives in Iran. The tales themselves are entertaining, though the folksiness and common themes of regret and elation feel familiar. Satrapi's artwork does nothing to elevate her source material; her straightforward b&w drawings simply illustrate the stories, rather than elucidating or adding meaning to them. Characters are hard to distinguish from each other, and Satrapi's depictions of gestures and expressions are severely limited, hampering any attempt at emotional resonance. This work, while charming at times, feels like an afterthought compared to Satrapi's more distinguished work on Persepolis and its sequel. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Satrapi follows her acclaimed youth memoirs Persepolis (2003) and Persepolis 2 [BKL Ag 04] with some tales her grandmother, mother, aunts, and their bosom friends told her about sex and men--stories that are frank, funny, occasionally sad, and utterly credible. Thrice-married Grandma recalls the friend who took counsel on how to convince her husband she was still a virgin--with hilarious, wince-inducing results. Another woman confides that, despite her children (all daughters), "I've never seen or touched anything"--male, that is. Arranged marriages, a potion to bind a lover, cosmetic surgery, "embroidery"--by which is meant another means of "restoring" virginity--and more are revealed, assessed, and resolved, all within the context of a women-only tea-bibbing circle in which young Marji is cook (not brewer, she explains), decanter, and enthralled listener. In line with the book's aura of abandoned constraints, Satrapi dispenses with panel frames; she also elides most background detail; and those choices make the book less graphic-novelish than cartoonish a la, say, Jules Feiffer. The sparkling verbal content, however, triumphs. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (April 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375714677
• ISBN-13: 978-0375714672
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #178,017 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Women, April 24, 2005

By	Genevieve S. Gibson (Seattle, Wa United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Embroideries (Hardcover)

Embroideries is a short book by the same author who wrote the two part graphic novel memoir "Persepolis" about her childhood in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution. I enjoyed those books because it showed real life in Iran and it wasn't just a scary state of being that is often presented to the American public. (she showed people doing their best to maintain their dignity despite extreme circumstances) I think her latest book is an extension of that. This time the author Marjane Satrapi shares the stories the women in her family tell about love, life, sex, marriage and their place in it all. Many of the stories are absolutely hilarious and others are just plain heart-breaking. The heart-breaking ones make me think of Flannery O'Connor short stories for their slightly macabre tone and people going on with living despite such experiences. It was captivating because if it wasn't for the setting I think some experiences could be universal or common for many women in the world. Again the author shows Western readers that life in Iran isn't all veils and misery as we are often told. Women often get a raw lot there but there is also gentle beauty, broad humour and a close sense of family; where these women share their stories of wild living, love and even the joys of being a mistress. The illustrations are very simple black and white drawings but they reveal much more in subtle moments.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A fly on the wall listening to old crones, October 9, 2005

By	therosen "therosen" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Embroideries (Hardcover)

Marjane Satrapi, who earned her fame writing the graphic novels Persepolis and Persepolis 2, continues in the genre, retelling the stories overheard from the women in her family. Reading it is like being transported to her parlor, as they gossip about the good and bad (mostly bad) of the men in their lives.

The book's primary strength is Satrapi's relentless honesty in reporting what she sees. Weakness of characters as well as strength is portrayed. What is essentially a book of feminine sisterhood across generations also highlights personal fraility.

That said, the brevity and shallowness of topic make this significantly less moving and worthy than either Persepolis novel.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love and marriage, Iranian style . . ., March 19, 2007

By	Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In this graphic-novel style book, several women gather over after-dinner tea to "ventilate the heart," that is talk about the trials and tribulations of courtship and marriage in a culture where the sexes are far from equal, as well as to dish the dirt on some friends and acquaintances who are not present. Each woman has a story to tell that illuminates the sexual politics of a certain class of modern-day Iranians by revealing the secrets hidden by their socially respectable behavior. Marjane, the young, unmarried narrator of the book, lets them have their say, and what we get is a kind of memory play, sometimes poignant, often hilarious, with an all-female cast.

The title is a euphemism for a surgical procedure, which figures in a story or two in which a lost maidenhood is restored. In another story, a razor blade is put to use to similar effect but with unexpected results for the groom. There is discussion of nose jobs and the relocation of fat cells from a lower part of the body to a higher one. Young wives married to emigrants already living abroad find their hopeful expectations dashed in various and sundry ways. A marriage prevented by a prospective husband's tyrannical mother leads to a visit to a psychic, who prescribes a potion that backfires. And so on. The lesson of this enjoyable book is that for a clever and resourceful woman, there's often a way to get what she wants, even when the cards are stacked against her.