Persepolis
Though I’d be interested to hear ANY kind of response related to how you think the politics of this literature are playing out, I hope that at least some of you comment too on the form–that is, that it is a graphic novel, that it relies on image sequences and image-text interplay to make its meanings.
Too I think these topics are of note:
war
violence
nationalism
identity (individual and cultural)
gender
family
love
May 20, 2008 at 12:35 am
In my opinion, persepolis is a significant novel. It refers to the social values and the importance of cultural awareness. However, it’s not practical to judge a country and its peoples by reading a story. Therefore, we need to familiarize ourselves with the various concepts of the outside world in order to understand the similarities and differences between us. To sum up, it’s our responsibility to respect different beliefs and broaden our knowledge completely.
May 20, 2008 at 3:12 am
I think Persepolis is a fantastic graphic novel. The minimalistic, yet completely effective display of the character’s emotions, is pure genius. Many times in the story, I stepped back and tried to imagine how much I could be missing if the story hadn’t been done graphically. Each frame is very consistent with the story, the emotions on the background faces are an integral part of the “feeling” that accompanies her dialogue. I loved the way she drew people’s eyes and often a simple slash for a mouth, it gives the reader a thorough look as to the grim state that had hold of people. I was so impressed by her honesty and the amount of insight she divulged to the reader, as to what was really going on inside of her, her country and the people. I relished her details of what it was like wearing the headscarf, having lived in a Muslim country, I could relate to the way women try to figure out other women by scrutinizing the shape of their dress and hijab. I too had spent many afternoons people watching, making my observations and connecting the similarities. Of course, once you are in their homes and they have their “indoor streetclothes” on, it all comes together and you can carry those images with you in public. The way she drew some of the more common female shapes through Superman X-ray vision was an awesome effect. Some of the strongest images for me, were her recounts of television interviews and the details of the various Avenues of Martyrs. It was a big pill for me to swallow, imagining that women had stated on T.V. that they were glad they’re sons had given their lives to the war, who knows whether or not they meant it, but just the very idea of seeing and hearing that in my own living room was shocking to me. What an impact!
I was fascinated with her life, I silently thanked her for sharing such personal details, I found myself hoping she would go all the way with a topic, no matter how humiliating it may have been for her, and she never let me down, never left me wishing there were more to her story. I hated for it to be over. I’ve never been able to get this close to a war survivors story without feeling too overwhelmed by the facts. I felt her style was easy to digest and very effective without alienating the reader in any way. I am looking forward to seeing the film!
May 20, 2008 at 4:41 am
“If women’s hair is so offensive to Allah, why didn’t he make us bald?”
Treating a set of dogmas with humor and simplicity gives ‘Persepolis’ an easy authority over the subject without the didactic, heavy-handedness of most critics. Not that the latter isn’t a necessary technique in addressing subjugations, but they tend to burden readers with caricatures of victims and perpetrators without showing the subtle realities of any culture. Satrapi’s ease with inflecting the work with humor, though, is admirably free from, perhaps, intention or, better, affectation since her comfort and reality is displayed through her nativism and nostalgia. She doesn’t really condemn the deterioration of Iran so much as turn it into a ephemeral circumstance that drives the characters toward their actions. In this way Satrapi brilliantly strips power from those who believe they hold it, suggesting she just might have written an equally successful, equally engaging work on another subject. That’s not to say the political implications behind the book aren’t clear or lacking, just that they’re portrayed in a very clever, disarming way.
The medium (she calls it a comic-book, most say graphic novel) helps reiterate what I said above by using a fresh, modern perspective that wouldn’t have been apparent in just the written form (odd that graphic means both written and pictorial aspects, which created some ambiguities in my immediate word choice that wouldn’t have been effective for this blog). It’s immense success will make it probably the first mainstream graphic novel upon its inception (Sin City, Hellboy, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 300 are all now successful but only after 20 years after their debut and with mostly horrible adaptations by Hollywood). It’s layout of chapters was cool (reminded me of Love and Rockets). However, while the subject matter was certainly new, its style did play it a little safe, but that can be forgiven since its an effective, wonderful read.
May 20, 2008 at 5:42 am
As someone who never appreciated comics, I must say I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The simplistic delivery enabled Satrapi to take on sensitive cultural issues head-on without spiraling into a political diatribe. The narrative was a refreshingly honest reflection of an interesting life lived on the doorstep of historical events that directed the course of her life.
I appreciated how Satrapi resisted any urge she might have had to polish the rough edges when describing who she was as a child. The reality and honesty came through and made me feel that I really knew her.
I just happened to read this book the day after I rented The Kite Runner, which is about a boy who grew up in Afghanistan around the same time (1970’s), and whose father seemed to share similar political leanings as Satrapis. I rented the movie not having a clue what is was about, but everyone in my house, including my eight and ten year old girls, love it despite the fact that a large portion of the movie is subtitled. I would definitely recommend it.
I am currently reading All the Shah’s Men, which seems to give a fairly good historical/political account of Iran since the Persian Empire. It’s sad to see how our government has demonized an entire region so rich in history and culture, and maddening to see how our failed political maneuvering negatively impacted millions of people. It also personalized Persepolis for me by giving me additional insight into responsibility all American’s carry for how our countries actions affected real live people, and how the repercussions continue to this day. We have only to look at the “news” of the past few days to see the continued degeneration of our relationship with Iran.
I could say so much more on this subject, but I’ll just save it for class. There are many fascinating faucets of this story just waiting to be explored.
May 20, 2008 at 5:52 am
My first thought about this book after reading was that i absolutely loved how simplistic the drawing/illustrations were yet they could tell a very intricate and complex story. What i found most relatable in the most strange way was Marjanes love life and how crappy it was for lack of a better word. I can relate to her partially because of Enrique the boyfriend who turns out to be gay (I’ve had that happen twice). I found her other relationships to be much like my past which I wasn’t expecting at all. when I first started reading or more, scanning the pages I fell into the story and thought Marjane was an impeccable young girl. With her obvious bad luck in the man department and the amazing range of friends and acquaintances blew my mind. I had to read some parts again after i was done just to get the characters straight. I loved the refreshing feel of reading a picture/comic book since i had never read a story quite like this let alone one filled with images explaining a slightly promiscuous, violent, childish love story/ with drugs war and a million other tiny details that i most likely missed. In any case i loved the story and thought Marjane’s life and the overall book was enlightening yet confusing with a taste of playfulness. I apologize for my lack of better words.
I believe that this book would not have sent the same message or told the same story had it not been a graphic novel I thought that the pictures alone told the story although without the words it would have been slightly more confusing ( believe me I thought I could just look at the pictures but found that words help very much) the overall simplicity of the pictures still astonish me with such a complex story and such detail yet…..the pictures consist of black and white almost too simple of cartoons.
May 20, 2008 at 6:08 am
I must confess, this is my first graphic novel. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I tended to stray from such novels because I simply thought they were for comic book nerds…actually, I’m just going to come out and say that. Hopefully it wont be offensive to anyone but myself, considering my ignorance and assumptions. In any case, what I am getting at, is that I really did enjoy reading this. It was a short read, which was a nice change from the previous weeks, for I felt I could read it for what it truly was. I loved the fact that it was able to expose me to such cultural differences and detestation, but was also able to keep me entertained and laughing. I also thought the pictures simplicity held the story together. Overall, it was a wonderful story and I admire Satrapi for using such a creative way to convey her childhood stories.
May 20, 2008 at 6:42 am
I feel somewhat of a personal connection to her story. For instance When I was in my early twenties I moved away from family and friends for economic gains and moved to Utah. What a culture shock! Then, after trying to identify with a new culture and adapt accordingly I moved back to Oregon only to find that things here had drammaticaly changed. Including family, friends, and even the general atmosphere of the local people as at that time all kinds of computer and I.T. jobs were popping up all over and bringing in all kinds of outside cultural influence on my homegrounds. The spawning grounds I had left and later came back to settle down in had become the very thing I was wanting to leave. I later then did the same thing all over again by moving to Southern California for a better life, only to realize that I felt as though I had lost the connection with what identified myself and so my now wife and I moved back only to find that things weren’t what they were and we had a hard time with even friends accepting us back as we had not changed but in their eyes we had or that they had become different people themselves (new religion, marriage, kids, rehab, etc…) The use of pictures (although comic bookish) realy helped me as the reader to follow her thoughts, and emotion ithout having to use much imagination that could be left open for different interpretation. I feel that one of the overall political points of this book is that people need to realize that even though we may be well rounded in many ways, not all of our exposures necessarily change the root person that we are. They should also pressing certain values and ideals upon us is not always the best thing to make us socially acceptable….
May 20, 2008 at 2:33 pm
The way that Persepolis uses the graphic novel form to get its message across is highly effective and very well done. The simplicity of the art is also impressive in that it expresses everything that this woman was trying to get across, and felt like this really was this woman’s story. I personally love graphic novels, and have shelves of them, although they are mostly of the Japanese manga variety, so this was a welcome departure from that genre of graphic novel. J Both of the books are intriguing and important in different ways, one could write 1 report on each and it may be hard to realize that they were part of the same book series. I was reading an interview with the author, and she said that the second book was more difficult to write, because in the first one, she had the benefit of being cute, and the things that happened were not of her decision. Whereas in the second one, she is older, therefore less ‘cute’ and instead of all of the bad stuff being the government’s fault (she is not anywhere near the Iran government for a decent part of this book) it is entirely hers, so I can see why that would be more difficult.
I agree that it would not be right to point to this book and state, “THAT IS HOW IT HAPPENED. THIS IS THE TRUTH ABOUT IRAN.” Because there are as many different definitions of a situation as there are people, and while this is only one book, it does give a good insight into the situation. At the same time, acting as an introduction to some of the things that have happened in Iran that is easier to digest.
I have a voice in my head arguing that things are not always pretty, cute or simple and people simply need to deal with it, but if this raises awareness of cultures different than our own, then it is hard to argue.
May 20, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I really really really did try to post this last night at about 8 o’clock, but our ‘net worked only as far as to load this page. and so I lost my post. I guess I’ll try again.
My first graphic novel! and just on a side note, I have read a couple since and this defiantly seems to be one of the best. Also, is this somewhat of a new genre? because as an avid reader, I’d never heard of it until except in passing on goodreads.com until this class.
Another blunder of sorts, is I looked for this in the Childrens book section first! The kind people at powells laughed at me and sent me to the right place, but I thought that graphic novels were for kids! ahhh…how silly I was.
ONWARD-
The thing I personally really liked was the fact that it gave us a story about a girl who lives in a cultural that I would have never otherwise known anything about. And it intertwined it with a brief history of major historical events that I also wouldn’t have known a lot about. To be able to see little Marjane’s expressions brought so much more joy to the reading then say many books from childrens points of view where the childrens dialog and expresses seem cheesy or too forced. A good example of this, is where you can see her crying and know that she is sad, where as a book it actually goes in to describing it “the tears welled up in her bright blue eyes and rolled down her chubby, cherubic cheeks.” you get my point.
I also really loved Marjanes parents. They were a refreshing view on the stereotype that I have of middle eastern people.
umm..I hope this is long enough because these silly macs don’t have a word counter on their text program!
May 20, 2008 at 3:21 pm
“We are focusing on the small details and hiding the misery in the world. Look at the smoker and we miss global warming, war, and the crap we eat–not the bad guys but smoking. I smoke and they talk about cancer, I eat and they talk about cholesterol, I make love, it’s AIDS. Before AIDS and cholesterol and cancer there’s the pleasure of making love and eating and smoking. I have to die someday, so if the thing that gave me pleasure all of my life kills me instead of me going under a truck, that’s fine. Besides, why should I live so that when I die I give fresh meat to the worms? I hope that I am rotted and they don’t want to eat me. F@#$ck the worms.”
— Marjane Satrapi
Interesting lady!
May 20, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I found this book to be thoughtful, amusing, and humurous. However the cold realities of life and living in a war-torn country made the book also heart breaking and sad. I began to feel as if I was a part of her family and felt joy with her and pain with her.
I had never read any type of “comic book” before, however I came to realize that I really enjoyed the change of pace. It was entertaining and easy to keep up with. Learning about the history and culture was facinating to me. I loved how Marjane captures her childhood and her evolution into adulthood. The simplistic nature of what she sees as a child is made more stark and tragic by her drawings. Her and her family’s journey during and after the revolution really caused me to stop and think.
May 20, 2008 at 9:19 pm
The Persepolis graphic novels made me feel sick at my own decadence. This is probably a good set of books to read whenever I start to feel like my life is oh so hard, because this is a welcome slap of reality. It was really interesting to see how things in Iran are for an actual Iran civilian. Before reading this book, I had had no idea just how things were in Iran. Sure, I knew that they were bad, but I had no idea what exactly was going on. The way that the American media circuits portray it, Iran, Iraq, basically everything in the Middle East is portrayed as the same place. I guess American’s do that to pretty much all of the other countries in the world, or at least the people from those countries. People from China, Japan, or Korea are labeled as “Oriental” or just plain “Asian” and anyone with a skin tone that looks like the skin of someone native to the Americas or a Spanish accent is a “damn Mexican”. Guess that American bubble warps our view of the world, eh?
Now, as for the way that this story was presented, I liked it. I think it really helped the audience to know what was going on. Instead of using words that could be misunderstood, Marjane Satrapi used a medium that, while it would not make anyone’s head explode, it showed you what was going on in a way that could not be mistaken, and thus put the reader in the story right along side the main character. Seeing what they saw, thinking what they thought, being where they were.
By the by, I found the website for the Persepolis movie, have fun kids!
http://www.sonyclassics.com/persepolis/
May 20, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I really loved the humor in this book. I think that humor is a very good way to deal with politics. The funniest things are often times the most sad as well. If the novel had been completely dry with the character just telling us straight out what happened, it wouldn’t have been as emotional or as engaging.
I also think it would lose much of its impact if it hadn’t been a graphic novel. It affects us so much more if we can look and see the characters (or at least a stylized representation of them) and visualize what is going on. I think there is a lot that can be done with graphic storytelling that you can’t do otherwise.
Italo Calvino said in a lecture he gave in 1966 “The comic genre, which interests me most, has given our century an entirely new way of drawing and writing… Unfortunately, the study of comic strips has until now been left in the hands of sociologists. A true study of the genre as an art in itself has still to see the light.”
I think comics have come a long way since then and I think Italo Calvino would have loved to see a novel such as Pesepolis.
Also I saw the movie when it came out and it was pretty kick-ass.
May 20, 2008 at 10:46 pm
It is interesting that she decided to use the comic book medium (not gonna touch the Heather dig at comic geeks, or did i?)as her way of telling this story. I think it is extremely effective and I really liked her style of somewhat subtle humor at things that sometimes seemed shocking. I love how universal her portrayal of youth was. This is (please don’t jump all over me yet John) (preface: MY OWN OPINION, highly, highly subjective) incredibly effective satire. This is (see above preface) an incredibly beautiful way to dissent.
I really like how she subtly satirizes the Iranian power structure (post revolution) primarily by illustrating its contradictions. I think she really paints a seemingly more realistic picture of life in that its not constant gloom. I think the assumption of some about people living in potentially bad situations is that it is non stop gloom. The terrible things that happen are dealt with in a seemingly more realistic and less overly (Hollywood) mellow-dramatic way.
Obviously one should not take the life of a single individual to be wholly representative of the lives of everyone else in an entire culture. You have to take her representation of what it is to be Iranian as one of millions. One of the most important things about this book is that it breaks down our Americanized concept of the Iranian people as all being hardcore Islamic fundamentalist who hate the west. This is actually somewhat similar to the Patriotism book we read at the beginning of the term in that like Mishima in regard to his Japanese heritage, Satrapi is seemingly attempting to redefine what it is to be Iranian. She is rejecting the idea that Nationalism is defined by the politics of the ruling government. Her struggle seems to be that her iranian-ness (could not come up with anything better, I tried) is something intangible and that does not exist in Iran currently, but she was turned off by aspects of Austrian (western) culture. She is her own Iran.
May 20, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Like Heather, this was my first graphic novel but I had previously stayed away from them. When I think graphic novel I immediately think of Anime which was one big fad I never let myself get into. I really enjoyed that book though. I think it was partly because since it was a graphic novel there was a lot less words to read and a lot less to take in on each page so they kept turning quickly which made me feel a lot more accomplished. The illustrations really helped me follow the novel also because I ALWAYS have a hard time remembering characters and keeping them straight and seeing their faces when they talked really helped me keep the story straight.
As far as the politics of the book it kind of upset me because the main character seems to be really young yet she knows so much about what is going on around her in the world and she is so involved in it and I am 19 and I have no idea for the most part what is going on around the world right now. I realize that this is for the most part my own fault because I choose not to pay attention and research what is happening politically but it kind of made me feel really dumb to see that there is such young people who know so much about the world around them and who act out their emotions about the politics.
May 21, 2008 at 6:44 pm
So better late than never. I think this book might top my current favortie list. I loved the how the pictures captured the story and spoke things that may have not been as powerful in words. I have never enjoyed a graphic novel like this before. My father was the friendly neighborhood comic book man and he was always trying to get me to read some weird shit! Now I understand. I think that a lot of what we have read this term deals with identity and how it is not control by an individual, but by society, religon, and family. Growing up people tell you that identity is something you own, something you create. The journey in unfolding your identity can be a scary path because you tend to find out just how much of that identity is not something you own. I think this is a big reason why teenage years are so hard.
May 22, 2008 at 12:26 am
I really enjoyed reading your interesting comments.
It would be great if you could bring the literature questionnaire next session since I need to wrap it up as quickly as possible.
Thanks in advance
May 27, 2008 at 3:16 am
This is my third comment, but I was coming to the website tonight (monday) at 8:15 p.m. to see if I could post for the next book (blood and guts) and its not up yet, and I won’t be by a computer for the rest of the night, so I hope I don’t get in trouble for posting late!
May 27, 2008 at 8:40 am
Hellooooooooooo!
Okay. Apparently no posting tonight. *snaps fingers* DAMN.
Blood and Guts in High School ROCKED! I jumped like a giddy schoolgirl when I saw that we were reading this. Kelsie can testify, it’s true.
Later!
May 27, 2008 at 10:56 pm
So I’M a slacker… I still don’t know what to say about Persepolis. I really enjoyed reading it and like a few other people it was also was the first graphic novel I have read. I could definitely relate to Marjane in some parts for instance when she does to Austria and comes back and doesn’t feel Austrian or Iranian. I felt similarly after returning from 2 1/2 years in the land down under. Several of my American friends called me Australian when I came back as though living somewhere a couple of years makes you from there. Also I liked that Lid made the point in class that this is the perspective of one Iranian person and is not indicative of the life and thoughts of all Iranians. I encountered that mentality being a foreigner in Australia as well that somehow because I was American I was the representative for all Americans. I remember eating dinner with this posh family, my mom’s girlfriends parents, and I wasn’t using my knife to cut my food, I was using my fork. The mother person said something about it being interesting that American’s didn’t use their knives like Australians. I wanted to say ‘it’s just us lower class people with no table manners’ -we are everywhere not just in America. Persepolis also made me think of this film I recently watched called “Two Women” directed by Tahmineh Milani, about the lives of two female Iranian college students in Tehran. Awesome film -too bad most of my ignorant-short-attention-span-friends hate subtitles because they’re missin’ out. Just the hoops the film makers in Iran have to jump through in order to have a film released are insane.
May 27, 2008 at 10:57 pm
maybe I should start proof-reading my posts before I post them… oh well