World Famous Comics: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
By: Marjane Satrapi Publisher: Pantheon Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Pantheon Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 192 Publication Date: August 02, 2005 Release Date: August 02, 2005
Amazon.com: Picking up the thread where her debut memoir-in-comics concluded, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return details Marjane Satrapi's experiences as a young Iranian woman cast abroad by political turmoil in her native country. Older, if not exactly wiser, Marjane reconciles her upbringing in war-shattered Tehran with new surroundings and friends in Austria. Whether living in the company of nuns or as the sole female in a house of eight gay men, she creates a niche for herself with friends and acquaintances who feel equally uneasy with their place in the world.
After a series of unfortunate choices and events leave her literally living in the street for three months, Marjane decides to return to her native Iran. Here, she is reunited with her family, whose liberalism and emphasis on Marjane's personal worth exert as strong an influence as the eye-popping wonders of Europe. Having grown accustomed to recreational drugs, partying, and dating, Marjane now dons a veil and adjusts to a society officially divided by gender and guided by fundamentalism. Emboldened by the example of her feisty grandmother, she tests the bounds of the morality enforced on the streets and in the classrooms. With a new appreciation for the political and spiritual struggles of her fellow Iranians, she comes to understand that "one person leaving her house while asking herself, 'is my veil in place?' no longer asks herself 'where is my freedom of speech?'"
Satrapi's starkly monochromatic drawing style and the keenly observed facial expressions of her characters provide the ideal graphic environment from which to appeal to our sympathies. Bereft of fine detail, this graphic novel guides the reader's attention instead toward a narrative rich with empathy. Don't be fooled by the glowering self-portrait of the author on the back flap; it's nearly impossible to read Persepolis 2 without feeling warmth toward Marjane Satrapi. --Ryan Boudinot
Product Description: In Persepolis, heralded by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the freshest and most original memoirs of our day,” Marjane Satrapi dazzled us with her heartrending memoir-in-comic-strips about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Here is the continuation of her fascinating story. In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, and while she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to struggle for a sense of belonging.
Finding that she misses her home more than she can stand, Marjane returns to Iran after graduation. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence and her shame at what she perceives as her failure in Austria. Marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some like-minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at a university. However, the repression and state-sanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran.
As funny and poignant as its predecessor, Persepolis 2 is another clear-eyed and searing condemnation of the human cost of fundamentalism. In its depiction of the struggles of growing up—here compounded by Marjane’s status as an outsider both abroad and at home—it is raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.
Be very careful before buying this book I loved Persepolis, so when I realized there was a Persepolis 2, I quickly bought a used copy from Amazon. When I received it, I was very disappointed to learn that I had already read it! Although my first book was entitled Persepolis, it contained both stories. Check your copy of Persepolis before you buy the sequel; you may have read it!
The Charm Wears Thin The first novel in this series succeeded because its childlike graphics and gee-whiz storytelling matched perfectly with this subject matter. We could imagine the infant/child author telling her story in exactly these terms. This sequel fails because the issues of growing up and dealing with the disillusionment with one's own culture are much more subtle. The story and the graphics remind us constantly of the nuances that are left out, of the issues of women's rights and humanity that are sentimentalized, of the real conflicts that this child/woman is undergoing that are completely unexplored. There are a few quibbles to be explored: the view of vienna is odd and the little vignette of the narrator peeing standing up seems forced. But most importantly, the mismatch between the story and the way in which it is told ends up making for a read that turns boring quickly.
Good Insight to a World I Do Not Know I call myself a history buff but in reality I really only know American history with a little knowledge of King Henry VIII. I was 18 when Iranian crisis started. This book gave me a better insight to the overall issues behind this area than any other reading I had done, which I admit is not vast. The difference here was this book laid things out in such an engaging way I was totally engrossed. The author was both straight foward and insightful, along with quite humorous.
BEST EVER This is the only book that I have manged to read the entire of it in one day! It is a comic book, supper easy read and very educational in terms of knowing different culture. I like Persepolis 2 better than 1. U may wanna watch the movie, as well. It won and nominated for many awards in 2007.
Great follow up to Persepolis A strong sequel to Satrapi's original autobiography, Persepolis, also told in graphic novel format. In part 2, Satrapi relates her time in Vienna and her return to Iran. She grows up, in short, and grapples with her exile, her nationality and universal coming-of-age struggles -- from experimenting with drugs, to finding love. As in the first novel, Satrapi's black-and-white illustrations contrast with the multi-hued complexity of the political and religious backdrop of Iranian culture.
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