The Complete Persepolis in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Jun 26, 2012 Nadine in NY Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: translation, memoir-and-autobiographical-essays, non-fiction, graphic-novels-and-comics, non-fiction-graphic-novel, coming-of-age

I've had this on my "must read next" list for several years now, and I'm really glad I finally read it (and I don't understand why I kept putting it off, the whole book took only a few hours, and it was fantastic). Marjane Satrapi is appealingly (sometimes brutally!) honest. This was a brilliant book, and I hope it is on college syllabuses (syllabi?) across the world. (And, somewhat oddly, this is the third graphic novel memoir I've read in three months - it's a new trend for me!)

She is just a f I've had this on my "must read next" list for several years now, and I'm really glad I finally read it (and I don't understand why I kept putting it off, the whole book took only a few hours, and it was fantastic). Marjane Satrapi is appealingly (sometimes brutally!) honest. This was a brilliant book, and I hope it is on college syllabuses (syllabi?) across the world. (And, somewhat oddly, this is the third graphic novel memoir I've read in three months - it's a new trend for me!)

She is just a few years younger than I am, I grew up in the USA, so it was interesting to read about Iran from her perspective. The Iranian hostage situation was a Big Deal here in the USA, we still talk about it, how Reagan was unfairly given credit for freeing the hostages and it may have been the reason Carter lost the election. To my surprise, the hostages got only one small panel! And she never mentioned how it was resolved, just that the embassy had been taken. And then the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was our Big Enemy in between Brezhnev and Saddam, wasn't mentioned by name even once!! (Saddam was mentioned a few times, though.) That was very eye-opening to me, that some residents of Iran paid him no attention whatsoever.

I also keep in mind that this is just her perspective, and she is coming from a place of privilege in Iran; as she tells us, her great-grandfather was the king, and her grandfather was an assistant to the Shah. That gives her a unique, insider's perspective on the situation, but not necessarily a fully true perspective.

And I think that's part of what is so fascinating about this story. It is, at heart, HER story, flaws and all. We all have flaws, most of us choose not to publish them!! Satrapi did some really stupid and cruel things, and she is open about that. She also did some brave and amazing things. If this story had been only the brave things, it would not have been nearly as powerful.

As a kid in the USA, we saw Iran and Iraq as pretty much the same place, except for one letter. First Iran was our enemy, and then Iraq was our enemy. I learned a lot about Iran's history here, and how Iranians hold themselves apart from the Middle East. I would have liked to learn even more about Iran's history, and Persian mythology (as it is mentioned in the very end).

Often I found myself comparing this story to another story I had read about life during wartime: Half of a Yellow Sun, which is during the Biafran war in Nigeria. The Nigerians in that story faced much harsher conditions than Satrapi describes in Iran, but there were still parallels, primarily the desire to go back to the way things were during childhood, and the tragedy of how that will never be possible.

The section about her childhood before the war was the strongest section for me, I wonder if it is the section she spent the most time on. Maybe it's just the section I could identify with the most. As a child, she decided that she was the final Prophet, and came up with a set of rules; when I was a child, I decided I was going to create a new religion, and I came up with a set of rules. Neither one of us got very far!

A few things made me wince, because these are real people who are named and identified. For example, when she says: "That's Mina, my first cousin. She's an imbecile." Leaving aside the issue of ableist language (this is a translation, after all, so I don't know if it's fair to hold her to account for every word choice), that's a pretty shitty thing to say about your cousin. Maybe her cousin can't read French or English (although she probably can, since she mentions a French film star), but surely someone in the family can, it will get back to her.

A few things were classic teen drama. When she is "homeless" for a few months, that was her CHOICE because her landlady was a jerk; she still had a room she could have gone back to, but she chose to suffer gloriously instead, sleeping in parks and smoking too much. She doesn't say it, but I think it's clear that this is her reaction to feeling like an outsider in Austria and feeling guilty about being upset because her family back in Iran is suffering so much more than she is.

A few things didn't make sense to me, and I would have liked them to be explained a bit better. Primarily: why did her parents send her off alone to Austria when she was only 14? Her mother visited her later, so she was able to travel and get out of Iran, why didn't she, if only for a few months to get her (VERY YOUNG!) daughter settled in a new country? I'm sure her mother had reasons, but I couldn't figure them out. That was a parenting choice that I couldn't understand.

Like all great memoirs, I enjoyed spending time with her, and now I'm really curious to know how the rest of her life went for her! ...more

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Apr 11, 2017 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: middle-east-nonfiction, euro-nonfiction, graphic-form, iran

This might be the best book in comic/graphic form I've read (although, given, I haven't read that many - 5. But they are all generally considered really good ones!). It's compelling in that it's funny and sad and funny-sad. I even learned a few things about Iran. I would critique, not the book, but its reception in the US and France, because it champions a viewpoint that Americans and French are dying to hear about Iran. Satrapi is not at fault for her views or her background that led her to the ...more

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Nov 09, 2013 Carla rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, portuguese, 2013

Enjoyed the art but specially the story. The narrative is appealing and it grows as the character, it was really well done. It was a great way to learn of the changes on Iran on the 80's. ...more

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Nov 09, 2009 Kirstin rated it liked it

Shelves: library

Rudi asked me what I thought of Persepolis, and I had a hard time formulating an answer. Don’t get me wrong. These two graphic novels (Persepolis and Persepolis 2 are combined into one longer book) are good. But I think my problem with them lies less with the story and more with the graphic novel format itself. I am an immersion reader, surfacing for air only periodically from novels I love. But graphic novels don’t put me squarely into a character’s brain, at least not in the same way. So I’m j ...more

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May 29, 2017 Ina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I gobbled this one up like a lemonade on a hot summer day! Absolutely riveting. Loved the illustrations and the beautiful way in which the author decided to tell us her story. Given the subject matter and how heavy it could get, I felt she choose a very effective medium to get her point across. Do read this one!

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Jan 17, 2011 Nadine rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, graphic-novel

This book is just as good as everyone says it is. I enjoyed the first half, focusing on her childhood, more than I did the second half, focusing on her life as a young adult. But the illustrations are sparse and beautiful, and it is an ingenious way to depict life as a child in Iran after the revolution.

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