I’m not sure whether to attribute it to my growing ability to comprehend comics or something profound in Persepolis, but I am  eerily in love with this novel so far. I say eerily because while I’ve never experienced any of the realities of regime changes and revolution, the search for ones beliefs and the ever fluid reactions of a child impressed by so many extreme notions stirs a response in me to where I feel myself conflicted by the people and atrocities presented. I like the way Iran’s bleak and seemingly black and white world is contrasted with a young girl coming of age into the well rounded and colorful person she seems meant to be.

We are allowed to grow intellectually and emotionally with Persepolis, starting with the most simple foundations of love and spirituality. While some may have this impressed upon them more than others, I think it’s important to see Marja as personally devoted, without much encouragement from her elders. As she absorbs more and more ideas from her turbulent world, she changes her dreams; just as a youngster today changes future occupations weekly, Marja’s day dreaming carries the weight of ethincity, nationality, religion, and general humanity. However rather than become overwhelming, Satrapi’s black and white images give a simple yet effective tug at the emotions behinds such intellectual searching.

My favorite page by far is twenty five. It runs the gambit of emotions from the almost comical naivety of childhood to the sadness of parental loss to the feeling of impotence in a world so great. For the first time we see Marja in a balance of black and white, and with it the weight of the world truly impressing itself upon the young girl. Both the contrast of her grandfather with her wrinkly hands as well as her mothers face to her own, the page is a beautiful composition that illicits so much of what this book is about.

I’d also like to bring up the issue of an unreliable narrator. With this much history involved, there is certainly room for false memories, or if carefully researched, the issue of fitting personal history to more famous events. Do you think Satrapi give any hints to this difficulty and if so, why?