Alex Beilman - Blog for 4/11/11-4/15/11

This week we concluded reading The Complete Persepolis. I personally enjoyed this book. It was a very interesting spin on what is a pretty heavy memoir. Marjane Satrapi chose to make this a graphic novel because, in my opinion, she did not want it to be your run-of-the-mill memoir. The comic book style helped keep my attention in a way and made the story easy to follow.
The other thing I found interesting is that there are still parts in the book that everyone can relate to. We discussed this concept in class. I found that I could relate to her going through a breakup. When we started the book it seemed like Marjane's problems were somewhat unique. I've never had to worry about my house being bombed, or my parents being arrested, or anything like that. However, as the book went on, I found she also experienced "normal" problems that plenty of other people have experienced. It made Satrapi's story seem a little more common and allowed more people in the class to relate to her.

Sean Gregoire

I enjoyed The Complete Persepolis a lot more than I thought I was going to when we first started to read it. It turned out to be much more interesting than I thought, and brought up a few good discussions in class. Marjane Satrapi tells stories of her life that I feel many of us can somewhat relate to, but in reality I think her situation is a very unique and tough one. I could never imagine my parents sending me to another country to live when I was only 14 years old. In one class we had a discussion about whether or not we think Marjane's parents made the right decision by sending her away to Austria when she was only 14. In my opinion I think their decision was a little rash and seemed to be made too quickly. It seemed to come out of no where, ya she was getting into trouble but it did not seem like she was in any real immediate danger. What seemed weird to me was that they did not even talk to her about it, they just randomly told her that she was moving to Austria alone.