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Dec 17, 2009

Bookshop rated it:

They are among the rare books that I give a 5 which means:
a. they will come with me wherever I go
b. I will read them again and again until I remember every single sentence
c. I will not lend them to people :p.

Tita introduced me to these books. I have been very interested on Iran and was even contemplating to read the autobiography of Farah Pahlavi, the Empress of Iran. After repeated visits to the bookshop to flip the pages of this autobiography, I wasn't sure if I w More...

3 comments like (22 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2009

Paul rated it:

Well, having read the book, I went also to see the film last night. But I will probably not wish to go to see the musical or buy the soundtrack of the musical with specially commissioned songs by Sting and Bono and Madonna and Cher and several other rock stars who only have one name, all their other names having been given to their favourite charities to auction off.
I didn't read Persepolis Book Two so was interested that the film incorporates both books. However my joy turned to large More...

18 comments like (23 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2010

Nojood rated it:

I got this book in Arabic. Any one who is interrested could borrow it from me (if you are in Jeddah that is!)
أنهيت قراءة الكتاب ليس لأني سريعة في القراءة و ليس لأنه كتب بالعربية و لكن لأسباب أخرى؛ أولها أننا كنا في الطائرة ننتظر مكان للوقوف لمدة ساعة تقريبا(بسسب الحجاج رعاهم الله) و ثانيا لأن الكتاب مصور! أكثر ما شدني في الكتاب، عدا عن كونه مصور، هو استطاعة الكاتبة أن تنقل لنا أفكار طفلة بتفاعلها مع مجتمعها و سياسة بلدها و إيمانها بربها بطريقة جميلة. أحسست و أنا أقرأ بأني كنت بالفعل أقر More...

16 comments like (9 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

Chandra rated it:

I was really only vaguely interested in this. I had it on my to-read list more out of obligation because it was something I thought I 'should' read....eventually. But truth be told it didn't look all that appealing to me. First, I don't 'do' graphic novels. Second, the art looked childish and unappealing. Third, the subject matter sounded almost unendurably dreary. But, it sort of called to me at the library the other day - sitting propped up on a staff picks shelf. So, I nabbed it and dov More...

6 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2008

erry rated it:

Persepolis adalah sebuah ibu kota kuno dari Kekaisaran Persia, terletak 70 km timur laut Shiraz, Iran. Dalam bahasa Persia kuna, kota ini disebut Parsa. Persepolis adalah bentuknya dalam bahasa Yunani.

Perang, revolusi dan pertikaian internal adalah kata yang biasanya terkesan ‘seram’. Tetapi di dalam novel grafis ini, kita bisa tertawa sekaligus mengerenyitkan dahi. Lucu, apa adanya, sekaligus menyentuh. Penuturan yang unik dari seorang Marjane Satrapi berdasarkan pengalaman pribadin More...

25 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2008

Jason rated it:

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 More...

5 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

drbarb rated it:

I am as middle class (we call it affectionately, the "poor rich" where I live.) I am intellectual. I am like Richard Rodriquez and bellhooks because education took me away from my roots, but gave me who I am today.

So, how could Iranian middle class intellectuals and professionals in the late 1970s have been so different than me and my family? For the young, under the Shah, there was a strong and progressive, very Western group of middle class Iranians. Just like me and mine More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Melissa rated it:

This book was not at all what I expected -- it was so much more. Normally, I have a large amount of disdain for stories told form the child's persepctive, for I find the children to be a little too wise, a little too precoscious (I know it's spelled wrong, but it's late and I'm lazy), a little too learned, a little too in tune with their fate, etc. (think Mary Anton in "The Promised Land" -- to this day, it is the most tedious piece of self-indulgent crap I ever had to read and the on More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2011

Richard rated it:

Rating: 3.75* of five graphic novel, 5* of five film

The Book Report: So this is the lightly fictionalized life story of Iranian emigre Satrapi, as she grows up in the waning days of Shah Reza Pahlavi's rule, the revolution, and the subsequent theocracy. She emigrates first to Vienna, for school at the Viennese Lycee Francaise, and then after a time back in Tehran, off to Paris. We meet her delightfully outspoken grandmother, her neither-fish-nor-fowl mother, her drippily emotional fa More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Joe rated it:

It was a decently told story, with small shining moments. I don't feel it was worth all the hype, though, and I wonder if it would have been such a success if this weren't the perfect time to tap into liberal, anti-war, pro-vaguely-Middle-Eastern sympathies throughout the West.

In the end, I think the marketing was better than the story-telling.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2008

Anna rated it:

This lived up to expectations.

I once lived with an Iranian in exile named Medi, also raised by radical Socialist parents under the Shah - his mother had been a gynecologist running a free clinic in a poor area of the country so their radical leaning s had been tolerated. This so resonated with what he told me of his childhood, and the utter disjunction between the tolerant and intellectual interior life, home life, and what was happening on the streets.

Medi was a wide-e More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2008

Corinne rated it:

Marjane spent her growing up years in Iran, the daughter of wealthy-ish middle class parents. Her formative years were during the Iranian Revolution, in which her immediate and extended family took an active part. Politically, it was a time of great unrest and uncertainty and, if her book is any indication, she spent much of her time mulling over the things she sees and hears as an only child.

She's an interesting character - at times naive and idealistic, and, as she grows older, ver More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2008

Abigail rated it:

A compelling memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis is both a moving portrait of one young girl's life, and a keenly-observed record of the political and religious events unfolding in her country. The author chronicles her family's initial jubilation at the fall of the brutal and corrupt regime of the Shah, their dismay at the growing repressiveness of the new theocracy, and their suffering (along with their countrymen) during the Iran-Iraq War. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 13, 2007

Lacey rated it:

Another graphic memoir, this one about the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the 80s. A look at the complicated politics of the middle east through the eyes of a child who lived it, which makes it digestible -- we get the pieces in "child-size" doses, but what is happening is not child-sized at all. We watch Marjane go through the regular rigors of coming of age even as the world around her changes and her family needs to go further and further underground as the government gets more and m More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2008

Hillary rated it:

Oh, it's surprisingly excellent. Remember when you finally, grudgingly read _Maus_ after hearing it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then it turned out that it was at least comparable to the greatness of bread being already sliced? This is like that. When you see "wise, funny, and heartbreaking," up above in the description, you probably can hear the violins swelling and the announcer saying, "Not since Cinema Paradiso..." but what makes _Persepolis_ so good is More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2007

Nathan rated it:

Am I an ass if I say I got bored?

And yet, this trailer never fails to bring me to tears:

[http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=2032024020]

Cinema > Comic books

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 19, 2010

Harun Harahap rated it:

ni kemaren bukunya sapa yah yang gw pinjem pas di rumah mbak endah??punya indira kayakna negh...yah sambil mereka nonton pelm coraline yang mana gw dah punya..jadi gw mojok sendiri untuk menyelesaikan buku ni..yah komik gitu..bentar doank juga slese...

cerita pertamanya seru n kocak abiz..Satrapi,sang tokoh utama yang masih anak2, ingin menjadi seorang Nabi..hehehehe..parah nia nak..dah gitu dia sering ngahyal gitu klo dia sedang berdialog dengan tuhan..wah parah banged nih bocah..lugu More...

40 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 07, 2008

Jaspreet rated it:

I have been thinking a lot about growing up in two cultures and transitioning from various homes. One of the habits I adopted last year which helped make law school less painful was to read a little every day. If I was feeling cranky about getting out of bed, I would read a few pages to jump start my day. On Wednesday morning, I got up early and decided to read a few pages of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Towards the last few pages of the book, I started crying. By the time I finished, I More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Patrick rated it:

As a child I had problems pronouncing words. My first attempt at the English language was “Rowl” – I was trying to put my all into saying the name of the store down the street “Red Owl.” Later, my favorite thing to try and read was the Peanuts cartoon by Charles Shultz, although I continually mispronounced Charlie Brown’s “sigh” as “see-gah.” That I had grown up in several different countries, spoke different languages, had dyslexia, and was general pretty stupid, didn’t help the situation any. More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Dan rated it:

Fun story about this book...
Back in the day, I used to frequent the message board of writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina). I was something of a regular. Well, back in early 2005, BKV sold or optioned the film rights for Y, and as a treat to the loyal Caballeros (as we were called on the BKV Cabal) he and comic co-creator Pia Guerra decided to use some of their movie cash to buy pretty much everyone on the boards one graphic novel of their choice from a list of ten over-look More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 14, 2008

stephanie rated it:

so the art is simple and perfect for the story. the story, the characters, the setting, the fact that this is a memoir - sometimes i wonder why anyone tries to write a traditional memoir when they could use the graphic novel form.

what i love most about this book is that the art is somewhat true to life - there are no allegorical illustrations of cats and mice, and there's no need to make the story seem more tragic by super depressing illustrations, or somehow more accessible by maki More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 06, 2008

Austin rated it:

Chances are if you're interested in reading Persepolis, you probably already know what it's about. It's this kind of reputation that made me hesitant to read it; how many times have we been burned by something that had been hyped before? It's a lesson we learn over and over in our lives, despite wanting to believe otherwise.

Fortunately, Persepolis is pretty impressive in spite of it's reputation. The style and form of the writing and art is focused with a kind of accuracy that f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2008

Nickie rated it:

I do love a good politically conscious graphic novel. In this one, Marjane grows up in Tehran, before and after the Iranian revolution. Starts off as a girl who believes that she was the next prophet, reads comics about dialectic materialism and can't decide whether she should follow God or Marx. After the revolution in 1979 her liberal family are forced to (outwardly) follow the doctrines of Iranian fundamentalists, she has to wear a headscarf and is picked up by vigilantes for wearing a denim More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 18, 2008

Ellen rated it:

During the same time I was reading "Fun Home, a Family Tragicomic" I was also reading "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi.

It is interesting that both graphic novels are two women looking back on their childhood and the chaos that surrounded it. Granted "Fun Home" is very private and personal while "Persepolis" is looking at Iranian society after the revolution that disposed the Shah.

"Persepolis" caught my attention due its s More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

Ollie rated it:

Marjane Satrapi was ten-years-old when the Islamic revolution took away her freedom and rights, thrusting Iran back into the Dark Ages. Through simple but elegant illustrations, Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in Tehran during this time in her country's history. She shows the horrors and deprivations caused by the rise of religious extremists, as well as the bitter humour and courage that each ordinary citizen found to survive such a period.

The amazing thing about this grap More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2010

miaaa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

8 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2007

cheeseblab rated it:

OK, so I'd been intending to read this pretty much since it was published, but then with the film version coming out in Dec., I thought, "OK, do it now," so I buy it, and it comes w/ a damn "Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture" sticker on it that says, FIRST READ THE BOOK, THEN SEE THE MOVIE. OK, assholes--this is why I don't belong to a book group or a movie group, because I DON'T FUCKING WANT ANYONE FUCKING TELLING ME WHAT FUCKING BOOKS TO READ OR WHAT FUCKING MOVIES TO SEE, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 16, 2008

Dahlia rated it:

Sejarah yang dilihat dari kacamata anak kecil berubah jadi sangat unik. Buku yang sarat informasi, mudah d cerna dan menghibur, walau ujungnya bikin g hampir ngamuk ma yg minjemin!! Untuuuuung d pinjemin lanjutannyah hahahaha...
Thx mi, i luv u baybeh!!

Tambahan :
bintang 1 : untuk cover, g suka bgt liatnya
bintang 2 : gambarnya tegas hitam putih trs marji kecil mirip chibi maruko-chan
bintang 3 : lepas dr apapun kepercayaan marji, g
suka percakapan2nya denga More...

8 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 11, 2010

aashka[: rated it:

i really liked this book, because the drawings were really unique and great i liked the story over all because of the fact that marijane stands up for what she believes in and she does what she wants and she does not follow others. the fact that she left her home town lived life on her own she experienced a lot and learned from her mistakes you learn alot of lessons from this book. the main lesson in this book is to be truthfull because if you are not then your just fooling your self and you end More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2008

Cordes rated it:

(Actually I have only read the series of four in French)
Since this story is told through cartoons, it is a bit easier to read, but the story is still a powerful one. It is reminiscent of the series 'Maus' on the holocaust. However, this story is autobiographical. I learned that the political history in Iran was much more complex than I had previously realized. I guess growing up in America, I always thought governments were simply good or bad depending on whether they were in favor wit More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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