Romanian review: Pot spune că Persepolis a fost o surpriză pentru mine— nu mă așteptam să-mi placă chiar atât de mult, dar m-am înșelat. Acest roman grafic atinge teme de actualitate, destul de profunde, într-un mod original și ingenios.
În acest volum, autoarea, Marjane Satrapi, își povestește copilăria din timpul Revoluției din 1979 din Iran și din timpul Primului Război din Golf, concentrându-se mai ales pe schimbările sociale provocate de transformarea Iranului într-o republică islamică.
Cartea este foarte emoționantă și tristă, dar are și scurte momente comice (copiii tot copii rămân, la urma urmei). Momentul meu preferat a fost, categoric, cel în care Marji pune într-un vas pământ din gradină— pământ iranian— pentru că urma să plece să studieze în Viena.
Într-un fel, cartea prezintă și conflictul interior între a rămâne în țara ta, sperând la mai bine, sau a pleca într-o țară străină. Sper ca volumul 2 să fie măcar la fel de bun!



English review: I can say that Persepolis was a pleasant surprise for me—I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but I was wrong. This graphic novel tackles current and profound themes in an original and ingenious way.
In this volume, the author, Marjane Satrapi, recounts her childhood during the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, focusing particularly on the social changes brought about by Iran's transformation into an Islamic Republic.
The book is deeply emotional and heartbreaking, yet it also has brief moments of humor (kids will always be kids, after all). My favorite moment, without a doubt, was when Marji puts soil from her garden—Iranian soil—into a jar, because she’s about to leave to study in Vienna.
In a way, the book also reflects the internal conflict between staying in your home country, hoping for better days, or leaving for a foreign land. I hope the second volume is at least as good!

First read for #getgraphic! I don’t know how many times I’ve re-read these books but they are so damn good and important especially with the disgusting attitudes that people have exhibited towards Iranians. Definitely worth a read if you’ve never heard of them.

3.5

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.

So, how could these people have allowed the "revolution" in Iran to become a "devolution?" The question bothered me all the time. Under the Raygun (Reagan)administration I entertained the possibility that I would have to emigrate for political reasons (ha, and let's just say the thought has cropped up again recently.)

How was America different from Iran -- no, that is too broad a way to state it. The question on my mind was how does your country become totalitarian, authoritarian, repressive -- and you still live there and didn't resist?

Read Persepolis to find out. Yes, it is a girl's growing up story. Yes, it isn't really about the parents. But when you read it, you can see that great evil can just sneak its way into your life because it comes just a babystep at a time.

No, the Iranian intellectuals and professionals were not very different from their American counterparts. There is a lesson there, and I hope we learn it before it is too late for us.

We complain about the religious fanatics in this country, and definitely we should keep an eye on them, because man oh man, things sure could be worse.

I liked this. It was cute but in a substantial way, interesting, and emotionally compelling. Satrapi made a point of representing her childhood self as kind of an asshole in a realistic and endearing little-kid way, which I thought was cool and served the book well. In a lot of stories about political repression the heroes are saintly people, but she and her family were so much like my own family and people I know that I got a much better sense of what it would be like to have religious wingnuts running my country. The descriptions of growing up amidst the political turmoil and repression and the war of 70s/80s Iran were effective because the characters seemed so real and familiar. I've been reading a lot about Iran during this era, but embarrassingly this is the first thing I've read from an Iranian perspective. Hope to read more and definitely would love some suggestions.

I need the sequel! Now!

It's hard for me not to compare this with Maus, since they're both memoirs that despite taking place in different historical periods and in different countries, somehow managed to inflict on me the same sadness and the same sense of helplessness. I guess tragedy and history rarely change, only people and how we react to it.

Persepolis is a gorgeous book, the illustrations are beautiful in their simplicity and manage to convey such a wide array of emotions. My only complaint is that the book felt too chaotic, which is probably me expecting a fiction format from a non-fiction book. Life is chaotic, so I don't know how valid that complaint is. Either way, I just couldn't let myself give it 5 star despite liking it a lot.

I jumped into this having only a shred of knowledge on Iran and the revolution. I thought my general political ignorance would leave me out of sorts here, confused and humiliated. It wasn’t so; Satrapi has painted an excellent depiction of the regime, giving us some political frames of reference, but focusing mainly on what was important - the people affected.

Growing up as the regime was taking hold, Satrapi witnessed and experienced a number of things you’d never wish on a young girl. We see how these events shape her and her relationships with others, her propensity for rebellion never wavering. She has truly created a masterpiece in black and white, showing fear and joy juxtaposed within her panels.

She begins as an easily influenced child, and we see her grow into a well-informed and knowledgable woman, self-aware and assured, completely secure in her aspirations and desires. The journey we take with her to get there is something I can’t put into words; really, I am too much of a simpleton to even attempt it.

Satrapi makes sure to reinforce that her family was far from poverty stricken, and were quite wealthy in comparison to others at the time. The horrors she experienced must be somewhat diluted in contrast to those of her poorer neighbours, and she’s beautiful enough to make this clear, a constant shadow looming behind her pictures and words.

I’ve taken something quite stark and humbling away from this, and that is that I am very privileged never to have seen war. I’ve seen it on television, from afar, from my comfortable Western home where no one wants to bomb us, and no one wants to arrest me for having a few wisps of hair showing. Satrapi has shown me the true face of war, and yet I can still only imagine. It’s not quite so much a feeling of being lucky, as a feeling of being in an incredibly revered position in the world.

A wonderfully raw memoir which I can’t quite put into words, only urge others to read.

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A graphic novel describing how it was like growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, it was nice and I might give it another try soon.

Un libro sencillo, de dibujo plano, en blanco y negro, y de texto también sencillo. Pero engaña. De sencillo tiene poco y va directo al estómago.

Muy recomendable.

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Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It was an eye-opening, heartbreaking and thought provoking book— I had many thoughts and feelings while reading, so much so that I had to put it down multiple times to take a breather.

I was in a haze for a very long time after finishing it— and I kept questioning everything in my surroundings.

Here are some instances that made me put down the book and think for a while (they contain *spoilers*):

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(Those final moments broke my heart.)


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"He never got to see his son" resonated with me deeply.

The relationships between the families, especially between Marji and her mother, also hit home for me.
There was one instance in particular that stayed with me— when her mother was willing to sew posters into her own coat just to bring them back to her daughter without marks.

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(It actually hurt when she thanked her father first.)

And the feelings of fear and terror and bravery Marji felt during the war were captured in such an honest way that I couldn't help but feel them with her.

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The incredibly supportive women and men in Marji’s life were inspiring. They all held a significant part in her journey, and it just made me tear up towards the end, especially when Marji left for Vienna.

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(I just... I keep looking at that last frame and tearing up.)

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All in all, this graphic novel was a complete game-changer for me, and I seriously cannot believe it took me so long to pick up.

*Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Persepolis, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!*
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This review and more can be found on my blog.

انتظار نداشتم انقدر غمگینم کنه...
راستش من هیچ چیز از سیاست نمی‌دونم و درسته که ضعف محسوب میشه اما چون هیچوقت علاقه نداشتم حتی تلاش هم نمی‌کنم بیشتر بدونم.
از دیدگاه احساسی این کتابو خوندم و ستاره ها هم بر همین اساسند.

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