Graphic History: Chicken with Plums

This is a first, because the English-language version of this graphic novel (the original French edition, Poulet aux Prunes, was published in 2004) hasn't come out yet, and won't until October 2. Pantheon Books sent out advance copies to graphic novel reviewers, and and the fact that I can occasionally be mistaken for one delights me to no end.

[and once again, Blogger Beta is having trouble with images]

Chicken with Plums is by Marjane Satrapi, author of the excellent Persepolis and Persepolis 2. It's the story of her great-uncle Nasser Ali Khan, a musician who, in 1958, suffered the loss of his favorite tar, and died of a broken heart eight days later. The graphic novel covers those eight days. Since it hasn't been released yet, I am going to go really light on anything that might be considered a spoiler. And I'm simply going to say that, while I thought both Persepolis graphic novels were excellent, I thought this surpassed them both. Buy it. You won't regret it.

Small observations:

• The history is worn lightly. Satrapi doesn't shy away from referring to events or people that her Western audience won't know offhand, and that adds to the verisimilitude. Rather than stopping the narrative for explanations, she just drops footnotes, which works better in graphic novels than it does in prose.
  
• Satrapi also plays a lot with chronology. The events of the book take place over eight days, but flashbacks (occasionally repeated) provide context and add layers to interactions we've already witnessed. In many ways, she has structured this like a murder mystery, even though we are watching the death as it happens.
  
• The linework is deceptively simple, and the backgrounds (the set dressing of comics) are minimal. Each detail Satrapi does use is telling enough that the end result is more powerful than if she had laden her backgrounds with endless Easter eggs.
• Like most great historical fiction (and this is historical fiction in the loosest sense -- it's necessarily a fictionalized account of her family, and it takes place before she was born), Chicken with Plums plays with interpretation. We watch the events that lead up to Nasser Ali Khan's death, but she wisely doles out information sparingly, so we don't really understand them until the end of the story. It's the things no one bothers to tell each other that are most important to Nasser Ali Khan's motives.
  

Overall, just an outstanding piece of work. Highly recommended.