Scornful wives, sensitive guys

If you’re a man, skip this half of the review. Marjane Satrapi’s new graphic novel, “Embroideries,” isn’t for you. It’s about a bunch of women sitting around a living room, complaining about men. Even though it takes place in Iran, you’re probably very familiar with what these ladies are complaining about.

Satrapi is best known for “Persepolis,” the graphic novel about growing up under the Islamic revolution. “Embroideries” is less epic but just as endearing. Three generations of women, led by Satrapi’s beloved grandmother, exchange stories: How one woman, for instance, had fat suctioned from her buttocks and injected into her breasts to cure her husband’s wandering eye. Of course now, she says, when the “idiot” kisses her breasts, he’s really kissing her behind.

The tradition of women telling subversive stories about men and, in so doing, criticizing the whole culture is an old one. As long as men see women with worldly experience as used goods, it will continue. But unlike “The Heptameron” in the Renaissance or “Thelma & Louise,” Satrapi allows us to see women’s complicity in their situation. Her grandma uses opium to dull the pain while advising friends how to cope. Mothers give their young daughters over to strangers and old men. The ladies complain about needing to be virgins, yet are willing to have an operation called an “embroidery” to “restore” their virginity.

Other stories are told: about marrying a 69-year-old general at the age of 13, about a girl who practiced white magic to deal with her boyfriend’s mother-in-law. Or the story of a sliced testicle: A new wife wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night, so she brought a razorblade to provide the required blood. Only she missed and cut her husband. “At least she’s touched a testicle,” one listener says. “I’ve never seen or touched anything.”

“To speak behind others’ backs is the ventilator of the heart,” Satrapi’s grandmother explains. This isn’t in any way a book for men. However, if you are female and over the age of 13, “Embroideries” is a wicked read.

If you’re a guy, however, the graphic novel “Ordinary Victories” is more for you. French photographer Marco is breaking up with his psychoanalyst, facing commitment issues and doubting his calling, while dealing with his father’s Alzheimer’s disease. Artist Manu Larcenet exploits the innocent cuddliness of cartoon figures to contrast with the plot: The only person really able to help Marco is a mysterious, Zen-like old man who wanders the fields, picking berries and fishing. However, this man, Gilbert Mesrin, is a former Nazi conspirator.

When Marco discovers the truth about the old man, Gilbert puts him in an expert armlock: “Stop that!! Who are you mad at? ... You only saw what you wanted to see.” “I only saw what you showed me,” Marco says. Though Gilbert tries to calm the youth -- “You know the essence of what I am nowadays: berries, pike” -- Marco resists, “You’re also a killer.” Gilbert’s response is powerful: “Every moment of my life is crushed by the weight of who I was.”

There aren’t many books that deal intelligently with men’s fear of commitment, and the number of books that do a good job with the growing-up done in early adulthood seem reasonably few. Larcenet hits both peaks rather well, though not as spot-on as Satrapi. Sometimes you want to hold Marco, such as when his cat, the mean-spirited Adolf, dies. It’s easy to revel with him when he and his brother face down life with nights of video games and, they exclaim, “big, fat joints!!” But when Marco lets his dissatisfaction with life keep him from committing to his very real girlfriend, you want to smack him.

In truth, though, some people deserve more slack; because he is oversensitive, Marco is one of those possibly unlucky few called to bear witness to horror for the rest of us.