Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return |
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| Title: | Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return |
| Author: | Marjane Satrapi |
| Publisher: | Pantheon |
| Type: | Book / Hardcover |
| Publication Date: | 31 August, 2004 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0375422889 / 9780375422881 |
| List Price: | $17.95 |
| You Save: | $5.45 |
| Amazon Price: | $12.50 |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
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.
Amazon.com Review
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
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Customer Reviews:
• Vive L'iran...
02 June, 2009
I bought the two books for the wedding of my uncle (who was born in Iran). We have already seen the movie which is really good and so well made. The story is simple, effective and also funny. This is the story of many Iranians who had to leave their country because of a stupid regime. I would like to thank Marjan Satrapi to finally give another image of Iran to people who still think that everybody there wears a beard and yells "Allah" every two seconds. I recommend this book to everybody on Earth, especially to people wearing beards :)
- Amazon Customer Review
• Insincere And Self-indulgent
29 January, 2010
I wasn't too impressed with the first "Persepolis" book and, sorry to say, but I am impressed with "The Story of a Return" even less.
Unlike many readers, I like the cartoon-like art of Satrapi's books. I also enjoy her anecdotes. The writer is at her best when she infuses humor in her otherwise dark life story.
What I thoroughly dislike is the author herself. It is very rarely that I find no compassion for book characters. I mean, I can find love for all kinds of vile people, but no luck here. I don't know if Satrapi realizes it, but she portrays herself in a very unflattering light - as a self-centered, self-important and self-righteous person. Satrapi is judgmental and hypocritical - she likes to criticize people for the vices she indulges in herself (I still remember her accusing her friend of being a shallow traitor for obsessing over a lipstick and her walkman when she herself was just as obsessed about her Nikes and audiotapes a few chapters before). She is ungrateful and disrespectful (she calls her nun teacher a prostitute after she is reprimanded for having bad manners). She likes to blame her misfortunes on other people when she is the source of them 99% of the time (she leaves her apartment and lives on the streets for 3 months and then complains later she was mistreated). She puts an innocent man into a mortal danger when she accuses him of talking to her in an indecent way, just to conceal the fact that she is wearing lipstick! The list goes on and on. Satrapi is full of self-pity and completely lacks any kind of introspection; she never owns up to any of the bad things she has done or blames herself for her misfortunes. She prefers to write off her bad decisions to indulge in drugs, promiscuity and general self-destruction on her loneliness and her war memories. But she fails to show these connections in any kind of sincere, meaningful way.
It is obvious that my dislike for the narrator totally overshadowed the good parts of the book. I just think Satrapi was not (and still is not) a very self-aware person. However, I do see why her superficial, self-pitying and insincere memoir is so well-received. It fits very well into a very popular nowadays trend to vilify Iranian (or any fundamentalist) regime by providing all kinds of disturbing details of Muslim life style for us all to indulge in.
- Amazon Customer Review
• A Great Story About Trying To Find Ones Place In The World
19 September, 2009
Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir detailing her high school years away from Iran and her eventual return to the country of her birth. This book is a follow up to her Persepolis and pretty much starts off where the first book left off.
Once again Satrapi uses the graphic style to tell her story and the visuals really add to her words and in a few places taking the place of words altogether giving weight to the phrase that a 'picture tells a thousand words.' In this part of her story Satrapi chronicles the isolation she felt while going to school in Austria. The uncertainty of never really fitting in to any one group and the search of trying to figure out just who she was. While in Austria she experienced so many freedoms that she never could have dreamed of while living in Iran. She also had to deal with peoples misperceptions of what it meant to be Iranian. In the end, once she graduated from high school she felt that the only way to learn who she was, was to return to the country of her birth.
Once back in Iran Satrapi faces a new struggle. The one of trying to fit back into a box that she no longer fit into. It was a hard reality for her to face when she realized that she had become so adjusted to the freedoms she had in Europe that she forgot what living in the repressive atmosphere in Iran was like. Satrapi had fled back to Iran looking for a place to belong and instead she found that even there she didn't have an identity. She was too westernised now to fit comfortably back into her old skin.
Satrapi does a wonderful job of telling her story and in conveying all the emotions and the struggles that she faced both at school in Austria and back home in Iran. Her search to find out her identity was at times tragic and at others times amazingly beautiful. Her style of writing and drawing really conveyed all the emotions that she must have been feeling at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed this additional glimpse into Satrapi's life and will be on the look out for any additional works that she might come out with. What can I say....sometimes I'm a horrible voyeur!
See my other reviews at tickettoanywhere.blogspot.com
- Amazon Customer Review
• Not As Charming As Its Predecessor
07 August, 2009
There is much to like in Satrapi's graphic memoir of her growing up - her illustrations are clever, the angst and struggles she faces are brutally honest, and her story is intriguing. I am a huge fan of Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and its portaryal of growing up in Iran in the late 1970s and early 1980s. _Persepolis 2_ picks up where the previous story left off: Satrapi is in school in Vienna, struggling to fit in.
Perhaps it was the angst of being a teen-ager that I found off-putting, but her memoir of life outside of Iran was neither as poignant nor as interesting to me as her previous work. She remains witty and clever, and the xenophobia exhibited by the Viennese is palpable (and, sadly, true - in their defense, much of Europe struggles with immigration.) Still, the effort and trials Satrapi faced as she grew into womanhood didn't resonate with me. Becoming an adult is hard - doubly so far away from family, and even more so with the sense of guilt at leaving her native country in the midst of a war. Perhaps these added issues made it hard for me to empathize with the author; or perhaps I was so impressed with her original work, no matter what she did I would have found it wanting. To conclude with the idea that "the grass isn't always greener" seemed a bit trite.
With that said, I do have a deeper appreciation of what the "children of the revolution" in Iran faced - and indeed are facing - as the result of her work. An interesting, brief and easy read to be sure, but I recommend with reservation.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Don't Let This Book Pass You By!
19 July, 2009
A beautiful, genuine, one-of-a-kind memoir. One of my favorite books of all time-I love it! Although her circumstances are unique to most, Marjane's story is heartfelt and relateable in its brutal observations of human nature and the reality of growing up. A wonderful, entertaining read--I couldn't put it down, and a few days after I finished, I began reading again! Don't let this book pass you by--read it!
- Amazon Customer Review
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