Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood [Paperback]

 

 

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"Persepolis" marks the third book in the almighty triumvirate of great autobiographical graphic novels that examine injustice. Joining the ranks of "Maus" by Art Spiegelman and "Palestine" by Joe Sacco, "Persepolis" has garnered a remarkable amount of attention. Positive attention, that is. Suddenly it's getting high marks in everything from "Entertainment Weekly" to "VOYA: Voice of Youth Advocates". I wonder to myself whether or not author/artist Marjane Satrapi has been surprised by the mounds of attention. I also wonder how it is that she was able to take her own life story and weave it seamlessly with the history of her own country, Iran. This book is like an illustrated version of "Midnight's Children", but far darker and far more real.

The first image in "Persepolis" is the same image you see on its cover. Marjane sits wearing a veil in 1980 for the first time. As the story continues, Marjane explains her own beginnings as well as the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution". In her own life, Marjane was an only child of middle class intellectual parents. She experienced the usual childhood ups and downs. Sometimes she believed she was God's next chosen prophet. Other times she wanted to demonstrate with her parents in the street against the Shah. Over the course of her childhood Marjane learns more about the limits of class in Iran as well as the secrets behind her family history. She finds that her grandfather was a prince, her uncle a political prisoner for years, and her parents far braver than she ever expected. Marjane deals with the danger of challenging authority under the rule of religious extremists while growing up as a normal girl. By the end, her parents determine that the only thing left to do is to send their only daughter to Vienna and Marjane must face a future without them by her side.

Before I read the book I scanned the illustrations and found them lacking. I thought (originally) that they were too simplistic to effectively convey a deep plot and deeper discussion of the human propensity for violence (and good). After reading the first page I discovered that this assumption, while normally correct, was wrongdy wrong wrong wrong. Yes, it's certainly true that Satrapi's style is simple. At the same time, it's also the ideal companion to the piece. In a book such as this you do not want to draw attention away from the narrative voice with inappropriately overdone illustrations. As for the writing itself, it's engaging to even the most reluctant reader. And what better way to teach people a little Iranian history? Quite frankly, I was baffled by some of the things I discovered here. I consider myself a lightly educated middle class individual. I know a little more world history than joe schmoe down the street, but not much more. Nonetheless, after reading roughly five pages of "Persepolis" I discovered, to my chagrin, that I know jack squat about Iran. Were you aware that Iranians are not, in fact, Arabs? How about the roots of the Cultural Revolution? How much do you know about that? Or the day to day routines of people living in Iran in the 1980s? No?

Today we the American people live in a country where our rulers like to toss about phrases like, "Axis of Evil", and condemn entire countries with a single blow. What "Persepolis" does so (apparently) effortlessly is to put a human face on inhuman suffering. Iranians have been through more horrors than can be recounted in a single book. I think what struck me the hardest about this story was the little things. The stories about girls in school skipping class to flirt with boys. Discussions with other kids about farting from kidney beans. Punk rock and Michael Jackson. All this took the book from being a personal voice of a nation's struggle to the point where your average reader identified deeply with the characters. The final image in this book is heart breaking. I only hope I have the guts to get "Persepolis 2" and read it cover to cover.

The Autobiographies/Memoirs have it this year, i haven't read one i didn't like. "Persepolis" is at the top of the list of spell binding, well written gut wrenching truth and honesty.
Other books to read are: Nightmares Echo, Dry,Reading Lolita,Running With Scissors

Cultural relativists as far back as Sextus Empiricus or Michel Montaigne, or as recent as William Graham Sumner or Gilbert Harman, often make compelling arguments that there are no objective standards for judging other societies/beliefs. Yet Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis achieves in 153 pages what cultural relativists deny as possible and what most political pundits can never fully articulate: an informed and justifiable criticism of an existing cultural paradigm. Satrapi's method is deceptively simple: by using her own life stories as the premise, Satrapi builds an argument for criticizing culture.

Satrapi's autobiographicalized[1] self and society act both with wisdom and foolishness both before and after the revolution. The Iranian revolution meant to replace an unpopular government with one more responsive to the people's will. Until reading this book, I was unaware of any particular details of Iran during their revolution - mostly because I am a Westerner and generally not privy to accounts of day-to-day life in the Mid-East. On that basis, the cultural relativists may be right that I have no foundation on which to critically analyze the current state of Iran. Thankfully, however, Satrapi can criticize - using both an insider's and outsider's perspective. Satrapi undermines the denial of standards posited by cultural relativists by showing the reader that standards of comparison do indeed exist: standards related to varying degrees of freedom of expression, of decision, and from coercion. Satrapi's criticism is much more subtle than "old way good, new way bad." Instead, she draws for the reader situation after situation where real people are swept along with the flash flood of a revolution. Satrapi, having come of age in the midst of such a flood, is able to compare her pre- and post-revolution home and draw for the reader how the people she knew dealt with that change and what they thought of it.

Satrapi's art maintains a consistent, iconic style throughout the book. This allows the reader to identify more fully with the story's characters and makes for a gripping narrative flow. This iconic style is also important in reaching an audience unaccustomed to graphic novels and the myriad ways in which their authors approach narrative (Art Spiegelman's Maus is a prime example of an iconic style's appeal). What really makes Persepolis an artistic tour-de-force, however, are the more experimental panels that Satrapi intersperses into the basic narrative frame she establishes. These larger, and more visually stunning, panels interrupt the narrative, slowing (in some instances stopping) the reader in his or her tracks, drawing him or her into the intricacies of the panel. This interspersion is a type of reader manipulation especially featured in comix. There are an abundance of examples of this technique in Persepolis - panels 15.2, 29.4, 42, 102.1, and 116 are but a few. Panels 10.5, 11.1, and 11.2, in particular, defy, yet wholly contain, prosaic description, poetic symbolism, dramatic interaction, and cinematic imagery.

Satrapi seems to suggest in this work that the way to bring peoples together is to allow an exchange of their cultural ideas. At times, it may appear that the unrestrained steamroller of Western culture threatens anything in its path. But is that really the case? Satrapi seems to hint that a people left free to first experience, then to choose, whether to accept or reject another culture's offerings are always better off than a people punished for experiencing other cultures. She presents with compassion her life in that earlier Iran and draws it for the reader through the filter of her current life in Western culture. She doesn't champion one culture while condemning another. She shows, through autobiography, what works and doesn't work when it comes to governing groups of human beings.

[1]- This phrase refers to the separation of the author as an entity from the literary self they create for a reader through autobiography.

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5.0 out of 5 stars words cannot describe my love for this book!
I was hesiatant to read persepolis, thinking, that despite it being a graphic novel, it would be dry. and even boring at times. but i was very wrong. Read more

Published on Jun 9 2009 by Laura Tobin

4.0 out of 5 stars Captivating!
Persepolis is the first and only graphic novel I have read but I found it to be really enjoyable! A great read which uses humour and sarcasm to construct Sartrapi's... Read more

Published on Jan 15 2009 by J. Pollock

5.0 out of 5 stars Accurate and honest
This is one of the very few historicallt accurate books written about Iran by authors living outside of Iran. Read more

Published on July 25 2007 by Banafsheh

5.0 out of 5 stars For a school book it was pritty good.
I read it al in two days. it was good. I enjoyed it. Probably the first school book I liked.

Published on July 29 2005 by Alex

5.0 out of 5 stars deep, and honest
As an iranian who has lived in similar years as Marjane is talking about, I could totally relate to what she says... Read more

Published on July 18 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the best
I have grown up in the same neighborhood and experienced the very same stories that Marjane has shared with us. Read more

Published on Jun 29 2004 by Popak

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Style that won't let Go
It amazed me when I started reading this book. I just couldn't put it down. Thank you Marjane. Beautiful work. Keep it up.
Amir

Published on Jun 16 2004 by Amir A. Forati

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful book.
Definitely one of the most unique and interesting books i've ever read. There are a lot of ways to tell a story, and this was actually one of the most touching perspectives on the... Read more

Published on April 23 2004 by pepperminta

5.0 out of 5 stars A view of Iran's revolution with the wisdom of a child
This graphic novel is a masterpiece along the lines of Maus. The medium helps convey the naive views of a child living through the Iranian revolution. Read more

Published on April 19 2004 by therosen

5.0 out of 5 stars A heroic book
This book tells the story of a young girl growing up in Iran variously under the Shah and then the Ayatollah. Read more

Published on Mar 23 2004 by Seth J. Frantzman

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