The Complete Persepolis

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a great read no matter who you are or what your views of the political state of Iran might be. It is much more neccesary in today's modern world of backstabbing politicians that stick to their "hot button topics." These topics become boiled down to a single word to infuse a certain emotion in the American people: 9/11, Katrina, and Iraq/Iran. These topics play the sport of dehumanizing the emotions that we feel when these ideas are spoken. It takes a visionary to bring emotions and humanity back to these subjects. Paul Greengrass did this with United 93 and Marjane Satrapi accomplished this with Persepolis. Persepolis is not a graphic novel in the way the 1980s or the 1990's used the term. It is a modern graphic novel that is doing it's best to revitalize the somewhat lost and remarkably under-appreciated medium. The beauty of Persepolis goes somewhere more deeply than the text and the pictures but down to the true human emotion that Marjane spills onto the pages. Moments of rebellion, loss and pain are felt deeply in the mind of each and every reader who allows this to occur. Though what makes this graphic novel unmissable for anyone is the ingenuity of it's writer. The book follows a very simple plot arch that has been seen plenty of times before, though the graphic novel aspect of it makes this book utterly and completely necessary.

Yet for critics there are three issues or questions people have when first reading the book:

THE ART

Most first time readers of the book are somewhat perplexed by Marjanes bold and daring choice to make the art work rudimentary but it's not just the artwork the characters fit into very specific well rehearsed archetypes and the the writing is simplistic at it's best. Though one thought that much of this generation has missed out on is that simple writing does not mean bad writing and complex word or writing does not mean good or poetic *(ahem Stephenie Meyer.) The idea was to make this book more than about some girl in Iran. It was to be about all girls, and in some way all men. Anyone can see themselves, their sister's, mothers, wives and daughters as the main character. Thus the reasoning for Marjane's ingenious idea to make this book into a clear black and white childlike design spectrum.

SHE IS AN IDIOT FEMINIST

Marjane is not a feminist. Marjane is a civil rights advocate for women. She is pro-women and at the same time not being anti men. She sees the flaws of her society and she is out to fix them. Marjane is a civil right activist...not a feminist.

THE ENDING...BLOWS!

Lastly the biggest complaint people give about the book is, with the exception of Marjane's grandmother the majority of the books characters including that of her mother and father and that of Marjane herself are left noticeably ambiguous. There are two reasonable conclusions one could make about this. Firstly that she hoped that your reading would have inspired interest in you for her country and it's people prompting you to look it up for yourself. Secondly that you would feel a certain amount of... "and the tale goes on"... after the book's completion. The second I find the most invigorating to let the plot arch for all eternity, just as she hopes the story of Iran does.

All in all Persepolis is a beautifully written intimately detailed MEMOIR. In days to come I see it as a sort of "diary of Anne Frank" for modern day Iran, and hopefully one day we will come to know Iran as more than a political ploy and as a people with pride and it's own culture and heritage to be respected.