October 14, 2012

Persepolis

This book really had an interesting and captivationg way to grab the audience's attention. Personally, I enjoyed the way the book presented itself in way for me to understand this culture I'm not familiar with. This persepective of a "young narrator" made it easier for me to understand and accept the circumstances through her eyes. I also enjoyed that you got to see her grow up from being a young girl to punk girl to an independent adult.


This book brings up a sensitive topic for not only people reading about it in the news but for people who have lived there. Thankfully, this book has been given positive feedback but it makes me wonder if the book was portrayed in a different way would it not have been awknowledged or would it have gotten bad review.

Could this book have gone wrong (without meaning to?)    

If it didn't have the images would it have been as succesful?

I believe there was a balance. The images needed the words and the words needed the images. If this was a story soley on words it could be taken the wrong some might see it as even mocking. *Like the page of the dad making fun of the school teacher's mustache* If the story was just on pictures maybe the images of importance would not be recognized. Or maybe the pages that contain symbols would go unrecognized *like the veils*
It's all about perspective. The balance is necessary.

2 comments:

michelle reyes said...

I too was delighted with the set up of the book. Since i am not a person who was knowledgable on the history of Persepolis I found it very helpful the way the author laid it out for the reader. I too enjoyed the way we get too grow with the character I found it to be a good way to read a coming of age story. Especially since we actually get to see the character coming of age where in most books you just see the main character grappling with a certain time period in their life. I would not go as far t say that the book would gain a bad review if it was not done exactly this way, but i do believe it would run the risk of being over loooked.

Joely Digital said...

I agree with you on the topic of having a "young narrator" making it easier to understand and accept the often horrific everyday situations Marjane had to deal with. I think the text does a great job of presenting such a serious documentation of life in Iran with a certain level of irony as seen through the eyes of a child. I think the comic book form is a key part of conveying such heavy material in a manageable way because it adds to the simplistic view of the child. You are shown a basic image, and a basic thought or conversation is displayed for you next to the image. In this way it conveys the child's tendency to instantly read and react to situations. You are shown the situation through her eyes, and she narrates it with a certain level of innocence and unawareness that is key in reading the situation through her eyes. If the book was written without the images, it would be absolutely necessary to describe some of the imagination and emotion Marjane feels. In comic book form,the images capture these things much more eloquently. For example, would it seem eerie or out of place to have random conversations with God if he didn't suddenly "appear" in the images? His sudden appearance tells you he is there; you don't have to introduce God with written word. All in all I think Marjane uses the comic book strip to capture the satire and innocence of a child growing up around destruction.

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