Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Persepolis: A Not Normal Story


Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, is a outstanding and not normal book that shows the life of a little girl that grew up in Iran and lots of historical events happened that time in the form of comic. Actually it’s a serious book that tells people what have happened in Iran that time, but it’s easy to understand. The author, Satrapi, who is also the main character of the book, wrote the book from the view of first person. She grew up in Iran and went to France later, and wrote this book. Thus, the book firstly populated at France. Persepolis is a book that showed the true events happened in Iran, which is difficult for us, who never see the war, to understand. As a result, I like this not normal book, which tells people the true history of Iran from the view of a little girl.

When I started read the book, I was quickly attracted by the stories of Marjane. The writer uses lighthearted ways to show some serious history. The story stars when Marjane was ten. She used to believe her schoolteachers and believed the god selected the king. However after her parents join the demonstrations, after she knew her grandpa, who was a prince, died because of the king, she changed her mind. Actually she was not unshakeable, but that’s just the way she grew up and understood things. After her uncle, Anoosh, and many of her father’s friends died because of they are communists, she understood that there are many things that she couldn’t do in her life. She just stayed in Iran, the country that she loved, and saw the war started, saw tons of people died, and saw time can never come back again. Then, once she argued with her religious teacher, her parents send her to Vienna, Austria.

It is an extraordinary story, because not everybody can have this kind of childhood, and also, it’s so difficult for people who know these to tell others what really happened. For example, Satrapi can never go back Iran, because she tells the truth. It is hard for people that don’t have these kinds of experience to understand it. So, it is really good for Satrapi make it in the form of comic and use a humorous way to show what she knew. For example, when Iran closed the country, when it was the time that no foreign things can be wore in Iran, when she was caught by two religious women because of wore foreign and fashion things, she used exaggerate comics to show how she escape from the two women. It should be a sad thing that the country she was in had many old opinions, but she had nothing to do, and she could only show this by using sardonic language and comics.

The only thing confuse me is I sometimes cannot identify people that have the same faces in the comic. It’s not difficult to understand the word and what happened, but I usually don’t know who the characters are. However, I think it might be a way that Satrapi showed readers Iranians are all the same that they don’t have freedom, and all Iranian women need to wear veils and they had no right to do things. It showed that people lost themselves in Iran. It is sad, but it is the truth.

Lastly, I really recommend people to read the book for understanding the true history of Iran and feeling the way that the writer write.

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