Reader's Notebook 1, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Reader Response

This book was highly interesting and gave me insight to what is really going on across the sea in a distant land. Marjane Satrapi writes beautifully and is not shy about her characters especially Marji. Marji is blunt and learns about life from first hand experiences. She is not afraid to speak her mind and let others know what she believes in.

My favorite part in the book is when Marji's parents go to Turkey and they smuggle back some posters and things for Marji. When they put the posters in the father's jacket I was laughing really hard. This book had many emotions for me. I was sad and angry when they talked about someone they knew that was either in jail or tortured. But I found myself slowly learning about life in war.

The people in the book constantly live in war. Their people historically have been at war for a long time. I cannot see myself living in a place where my family would have to run to the basement at the whim of a siren. Or even hiding parties/liqour/anything from the police from a threat of being thrown into prison. It makes me wonder why people even stay in a war-torn country. The Jewish family that lived around the corner from Marji refused to leave because it was their "ancestors (that) had come three thousand years ago and Iran was their home" (137). It's ironic how their ties to their religion/culture brought them there and because it was the Jewish Sabbath they stayed home and they were killed by a bomb.

In the beginning of the novel Marji shares a relationship with God, and he is illustrated as a bearded man. He continues to visit Marji until one day he doesn't come and Marji is upset. I really don't know much about the religion and culture that Marji practices. I wish I knew more about her family ties to their religion and beliefs about God. The book doesn't say much about it.

After reading this book I felt a sense of a small world/ large world. On account that us Americans can set foot outside our houses dressed as we please, drink at parties, put posters on our walls and listen to any type of music that we want. But yet in some distant country halfway around the world people are living in constant fear and oppression. It makes me sad to see that many children my age do not get the things that I take for granted every single day. It makes me want to travel the world to see other civilizations that may live like this in order for me to see the true beauty of the country I live in. To see the freedom that our founding fathers built for us.

At the end of the novel I was happy to see that Marjane was able to get out of that country. That her parents sent her away to be able to see the world with out the oppression that her home country gave her. It was very moving to read/see her leave from the airport. It must have been very hard for her parents to see her leave. A child of her age possesses a lot of knowledge. I was not surprised that she knew her parents weren’t going to be going with her.

I look forward to read the second book of Persepolis and I don’t know what Marji is capable of. She is an intriguing character and it’s hard to guess what she is going to do next. I hope that in the next book she realizes more about herself than those around her. That she learns more and more about the country that killed many and tortured those who did not deserve it.