|
The Complete Persepolis |  | Author: Marjane Satrapi
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $9.90
as of 3/10/2010 02:17 CST details
You Save: $15.05 (60%)
New (78) Used (103) Collectible (1) from $9.90
Seller: bluevelvetelk
Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 2670
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375714839
Dewey Decimal Number: 955.0542092
EAN: 9780375714832
ASIN: 0375714839
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780375714832 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed memoir-in-comic-strips.
Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.
Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
 A Powerful Autobiographical Tale in Graphic Novel Form January 15, 2008
Steve Koss (New York, NY United States)
38 out of 39 found this review helpful
THE COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS brings together in one softbound volume two graphic novels published earlier in English (translated from French): PERSEPOLIS 1 - THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD, and PERSEPOLIS 2 - THE STORY OF A RETURN. As a single volume, Ms. Satrapi's work reads as a seamless story of an Iranian woman's maturation from a young girl in the Shah's (and Ayatollah Khomeini's) Iran to her high school years in Austria, back to the Iran attacked by Saddam Hussein and then transformed into a fundamentalist Islamic state, and finally back again to Europe as a young adult. The book's title is borrowed from the name of ancient Persia's ceremonial capital, dating back some 2,500 years, although Persepolis is in fact the Greek translation of the original Persian name, Parsa.
The story is strictly autobiographical, rendered as a memoir of childhood and young adulthood. Satrapi begins her story at age ten, the daughter of well-educated and well-off parents who put a premium on their daughter's religious and academic independence. Marjane's parents prod their pre-adolescent daughter toward a liberal education and encourage her to speak out. However, being a rebel against oppression in Iran leads inevitably to trouble and expulsion from school. Her parents recourse is to pack young Marjane off to Austria, isolated and alone in a foreign and far more secular culture. A series of mostly negative experiences leads her back to her homeland and an unsuccessful marriage during the early years of Iran's fundamentalist revolution with its growing religious oppression. When the young adult Marjane and her parents finally realize that her future lies not in Iran but in Europe, she heads off to France where she still lives today.
Ms. Satrapi characterizes herself as the perennial outsider wherever she lives. As a young girl, political and religious events contradict her upbringing and isolate her from the accepted beliefs and behaviors. The author conveys her childhood desperation by repeated depictions of herself talking to an ancient, white-bearded God, even cradled in his arms. She is even more the outsider in Austria, forever fumbling in her discoveries of Western culture only to become enslaved by some of its worst features. Returning to Iran after her high school years, Marjane is too Westernized to be Iranian, yet still too Iranian to feel Western. The author's journey to self-discovery and finding her true home serves as the core of her story, punctuated by her departures and arrivals. In fact, some of the most dramatic scenes in THE COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS take place at airports.
Satrapi's black-and-white cartooning emphasizes contrast over detail. Indeed, her drawings of people are exceedingly simplified, lacking in all except the basic features necessary to portray a character. This simplicity works, as it stands in stark contrast to the complexity of Iran's constantly changing social, political, and religious structures as well as the complexity of the author's own life and the choices she faced. These minimalist renderings, hardly more detailed than Schulz's "Peanuts" characters, create an even greater dissonance when their childlike simplicity clashes with the horrors of war and the Iranian government's seizures and executions of many of its citizens. The reader is so effectively lulled into this seemingly benign, comic book world that Satrapi's occasional dropping of an expletive into her character's thoughts or words has the force of a slap in the face. When young Marjane returns home to see the dead, braceleted arm of one of her neighborhood friends (killed by one of Saddam Hussein's missiles) extending from her wrecked home, the author resorts to the powerful simplicity of a completely black panel captioned, "No scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger."
There is a natural temptation to compare PERSEPOLIS to Art Spiegelman's MAUS I and MAUS II. However, I believe the Maus books are sui generis, allegorical tales whose use of mice and cats puts Spiegelman's books in a class of their own. By contrast, Satrapi's PERSEPOLIS novels are autobiographical volumes rendered in illustrated form to trace an Iranian woman's struggle to find herself while still loving a country from which she feels irretrievably estranged. Satrapi's and Spiegelman's work complement one another and demonstrate the emotional power graphical novels are increasingly finding ways to achieve.
A Phenomenon In More Ways Than One December 24, 2007
Caesar M. Warrington (Lansdowne, PA United States)
27 out of 31 found this review helpful
As a child Marjane Satrapi lived through the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its aftermath.
Included here are Satrapi's internationally-acclaimed graphic novels, PERSEPOLIS: The STORY Of A CHILDHOOD and PERSEPOLIS 2: The STORY Of A RETURN. Combining clear analysis with a sharp sense of humor, the first volume tells the story of Marjane and her family's experiences during the final years of the Monarchy, its downfall, and the subsequent rise of Khomeini and the Islamic Republic. A more personal volume, PERSEPOLIS 2 follows Marjane's student years in Vienna and her later return to Iran.
Together with Vincent Paronnaud, Satrapi also co-wrote and co-directed the animated film version.
Persepolis: both hilarious and deeply moving February 25, 2008
E. Anderson
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Last weekend I had the joy of seeing the film adaptation of the comic book series PERSEPOLIS by Marjane Satrapi. I loved the film. I knew though that I was missing out some key points of Marjane's life so I decided to check out the complete version of PERSEPOLIS in paperback. Although the book is in the form of a graphic novel, the story is a memoir of Marjane Satrapi's life growing up in Iran as well as outside of Iran. I also got the impression that the story is a love letter to Marjane's late grandmother who was a huge influence on Marjane as a young woman. People can nitpick at the details of life in Iran during and after the reign of the Shah that Marjane has written in the book but lets keep this in perspective that this book is not a tome on Iran but an autobiography told from the personal point of view from the author. She told what life was like in Iran through her young, impressionable eyes.
Like the Oscar-nominated film, PERSEPOLIS is told with a lot of humor, sadness, and often anger. I could not put the book down. I found myself deeply engrossed in Marjane's life as as child as well as an adult. I enjoyed the animation. I liked how fluid the shapes of the characters flowed. If you have seen the film adaptation of PERSEPOLIS, the book version is definitely worth reading. There is quite a bit of information from Marjane's life that just couldn't fit into the time constraints of the film.
Freedom has a price. December 8, 2007
Johnny Heering (Bethel, CT United States)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book collects Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. Both books are graphic novels telling the true story of the author's life. Book one tells the story of her girlhood in Iran and ends when she leaves Iran to go to a boarding school in Austria. Book two picks up where book one left off, and tells the rest of her story up to the point where she leaves Iran for the second and last time. This is a great, moving story. I found myself empathizing with this girl, even though she comes from a culture nothing like mine and we have nothing in common. It obviously wasn't easy growing up a progressive girl in a represive culture. I could go on and on about the virtues of this book, but it's better if you just read it and find out for yourself. Or see the "major motion picture". (aren't all motion pictures "major"? at least according to their publicity.)
fascinating, a must-read October 30, 2007
D. Blanc (France)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
i am not someone who typically enjoys 'cartoon' strips, but i could not put this book down and read it fervently. i received this book as a gift after having visited iran a couple of times, and i was interested in learning more about the history and culture. what marjiane captures of her childhood, and her evolution into adulthood, is thoughtful, amusing, heart-breaking and at times hilarious. at times she softens the brutality of her words with the humor of amusing caricatures, or sometimes the simplicity of what she sees as a child is made more stark and tragic by her drawings. her personal journey and her family's experiences during and after the revolution really give one pause. i would highly recommend this book, it is rich with humor and emotion.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
|
|
|
| |
