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Hopes for Persepolis

Elizabeth's picture

I read Persepolis and its sequel two summers ago in the shadow of the movie's popularity. Now, I get to read it again, and I'm really excited to see what I'll get out of it now. Most of all, I'm really looking forward to seeing how her younger self changed over the period of time that The Complete Persepolis covers.The two books were originally published over the course of three years, so I'm also interested in seeing the change in how Satrapi tells the stories. I think Bornstein tried to show the fluidity of gender in her book, but I think Persepolis will highlight it in a more digestable form. Persepolis doesn't summarize a whole lot, it presents a series of events that is from a very specific point of view. The summarization in Bornstein's workbook made me feel like her point of view was really being forced on me, and I hope Satrapi's, because it's presented in such a different form, won't be. Bornstein recognized that she had a point of view that was very specific, but I really didn't think that Bornstein's disclaimers were enough or presented in the appropriate places. Placing the book within a different nation and, actually, throughout several nations, as well as over a period of years, will, I think show more of a progression in gender presenattion and will allow us to see gender in a different way than Bornstein even said she was able to.