RETURN OF THE GREAT READING CHALLENGE
Don't look at me. I need to read the top 25 comics on goodreads before the end of September, so we are in go time people!
Let's talk about the Complete Persepolis.
The Complete Persepolis - by Marjane Satrapi
Just finished Persepolis and wow what a different experience this was from the fantasy/dystopian comics I’ve been reading. The entire time I was reading, I kept thinking, “Good comics come from people who have something to SAY.
Persepolis was beautiful for many different reasons, not the least of which giving me, and American westerner, a glimpse into a world so very different (and yet exactly the same) as my own. It was beautiful because it reminded me that no matter where you go, people are people. That people have their own thoughts and minds and that no matter how much you oppress them, you’ll never be able to completely crush that which makes them individuals. I loved that message.
I also come from a fairly strict religious background, and so it was fascinating to me to see how Marjane handled the contradictions and restrictions of her culture. How she both cherished and resented the things that made growing up in Iran unique. Her special perspective on how inconsequential some worries are and the way that even horrible tragedy can become normalized was so interesting to me. I really enjoyed reading her story.
But why is does her story make a good comic? Let’s find out!
The writing in this story was interesting to me in part because this isn’t a fictional story that she’s trying to weave. There isn’t a moral and theme she’s trying to push, so much as there is an ideology that she has experienced and is sharing with the world. Of course she couldn’t give us everything, and I’m sure many, if not all, the stories have been filtered through her own unique perspective, which by definition makes them biased, but she still has to work with what she has experienced, and that makes the narrative a little different than if she’d been crafting a work that was entirely fictional.
It took a second to orient myself in her world when she first began describing it. I was assuming that growing up in Iran would mean a life of oppression and despair, that she’d be dealing with people trying to crush her spirit, overbearing parents, and tragedy after tragedy.
I was immediately reminded of my own biases. Marji’s parents are extremely supportive of her, especially her father who I would have assumed would be more strict. They raised her with all the values that I was taught as a young child, and she’s given a freedom that I didn’t even have growing up in the United States. The beginning of the story does a good job of establishing who Marji is, how her family dynamics work, and the type of background she experienced growing up. It isn’t like she portrayed the changes in Iranian culture as easy. She talks about having to wear the veil and how frustrating it was, while also showing how easy it is to assimilate to oppression when that’s your normal.
Why do they wear the veil? Well because if they don’t they’ll get hurt. But they’re just as annoyed by it as anyone else, and they rebel by wearing make up, or buying fancy shoes, or listening to western music and it’s just as important as any demonstration I’ve ever seen here. The courage that it would have taken to go to protests is beyond anything I can imagine. It made me a little ashamed of how blase I can be about the inequalities that I perceive.
So the beginning sets up the story well, and the “darkest night” moment is ironically when she is living in the “free” world of Europe, when she sees that all the things she’d admired for so long have their own enormous flaws.
I found her exposition to be easy to follow and the story to be engaging. I was never bored or feeling like I needed to take a break. The beginning was definitely the hardest part for me, and I was worried that it was going to go the same route as Maus and be one of those books that I loved but would never be able to read again. But luckily, the story wasn’t quite that sad, and she tells her story of being liberated no matter what country she is in extremely well.
The art in the book was extremely simple. At the beginning, it was really difficult for me to tell characters apart. She definitely reuses character designs when a character isn’t important or is just coming up once or twice. She’ll use the same faces for a crowd and doesn’t waste her time on overcomplicated backgrounds. In fact, most of the time there isn’t a background at all. The characters are all little box people that are indistinguishable from each other.
But then as you read on and get used to it, you’re able to tell the main characters apart from the others through tiny little details that make it easy to know who is who without a lot of effort. The art is by no means a majestic masterpiece that takes my breath away, but it is absolute proof that you don’t need to have that kind of magnificent art to tell a breathtaking and important story. The most important thing is to have something to say, and the strength of her story carried me through easily.
The art was simple, but evocative. The expressions had to be extremely clear, especially because the women were so often covered. She’s able to make each woman wrapped in drapes an interesting and unique character, despite there not being a ton of distinguishing features between them. The art is simple, but it works, which I think is really impressive and encouraging to me specifically.
I want my art to be beautiful, but if you tell your story well, focus on the important things, like the emotions you’re trying to convey and the message your giving, it will all shine through. The visual aspect of a comic cannot be understated, but we don’t always need beautiful anime features to portray the story we want.
The star of the show is obviously Marji herself, but her mother and father and grandmother are easily right behind her.
Her love for her family shines through with every story that Marji tells, even when she’s frustrated or angry with them. It’s easy to see how and why Marji is the way she is by looking at her parents and her grandmother. It’s also a constant reminder and spit in the face to the stereotypical depiction of an Iranian family. Not only is Marji’s father loving, emotional, and dedicated to his daughter’s education and growth, but her family has been that way for generations.
They speak to each other just as confidently as any American household discussing politics over thanksgiving dinner. They have to be careful, but her parents don’t stop Marji from trying to rebel and live. They want her out of the country because they know that the way they’ve raised her will not allow her to reduce herself to less than what she is, and they know that the laws and fundamentalists will try to crush her.
I aspire to be as wonderful as her parents are portrayed. Their love for their daughter, their strength of will, their willingness to both protect their family and stand up for freedom is just inspiring 10/10 I loved it. I hope my children portray me in such a flattering light some day.
It’s hard for me to compare stories like this with the fantasy and scifi stories that I’ve been reading. This feels like an entirely different section. I loved reading about how Marji read so much to broaden her horizons and learn more about the world, and she’s made me determined to read more about the middle east and from middle eastern women of all sorts. I want to understand the world more because I’ve been reminded that the media and portrayal of the countries our country has historically been hostile with does not show the full story, and in fact we are all on the same side. I need to confront my own biases, even the ones that I didn’t even realize I had.
I thought I knew what this story was going to be like when I went into it. Turns out I was wrong.
