Well, after this reread of Persepolis 1 & 2 I feel incredibly attached (again) to Marjane Satrapi and her family. I encourage you all (as I will) to (re)read Embroideries which features the women in her family. I'm feeling relieved I don't need to let go of them yet. Ok I just needed to

"I had known a revolution that had made me lose part of my family. I had survived a war that had distanced me from my country and parents... And it's a banal story of love that almost carried me away." (87)

What I find so compelling about this quote is the way Satrapi undermines, perhaps (I think) intentionally, the connection between the profound socio-cultural, linguistic, emotional, and spiritual dislocation she experienced as a young person, and refugee, in Austria, and the earth shattering consequence the breakup with her boyfriend rendered on her life. She leaves us, almost ironically, to make that obvious connection. This is one example of the way that Satrapi succeeds (again) to write a piece from the honesty of the eyes and mind of her youth. This moment also demonstrates the crushing weight of isolation often synonymous with displacement and migration.

One of the most powerful aspects of this piece is the way in which we undertake the process of migration with Marjane. We are catapulted from the very beginning into a series of arrivals and departures that through the first part of the book accumulate momentum until Marjane ends up on the street. We see the continual psychic impact of the slipping ground beneath her feet as she tries to hold onto something solid - books, her boyfriend, weed. While we are deeply set in the location of Marjane's mind and body in this text, we at no point are able to forget that her personal experiences are reflective of and connected to a collective experience and broader socio-political context. She references the other Iranian families she knew who had also moved to Europe and their struggles to establish lives due in large part to xenophobia and racism. She demonstrates how these realities played out in the home as people were forced to renegotiate their identities and class. "You have to make 3 times the effort of anyone else to succeed. That's the immigrant lot." (61) The switched gender dynamics in Zozo and Houshang's relationship. And on... We are offered deep insights about the Austria that Marjane lived in.

When set in the context of Marjane's teenage years we receive the full cacophony of confusion that the experience of migration and growing up entail. Not only was Marjane in a process of growing into herself, but she was doing so in the absence of the social, cultural, and political norms she had been raised in. We see her time and again within this text launch what she believes against a shifty world that embodies so much difference. It is the space of that impact where here beliefs intercept the world, that we watch her elect what to adopt, how to become, a woman.

I thought a lot about memory as I read this piece. I wondered if the kind of intimacy we are able to experience with the internal cadence of Satrapi from ages 14 - 24 was a result of the way in which she simply had access to a greater register of language for her experiences because the memories were more vibrant due to proximity in age. We are much more directly in Satrapi's head for at least the duration of her time in Austria in a manner that is quite distinct from Persepolis 1. Thinking about these two works beside each other provides an interesting conversation about how to build successful, full, embodied worlds, even when we do not have access to a full spectrum of memory. In Persepolis 1 we encounter Marjane and her family through a series of quite specific events. In Persepolis 2 we witness Marjane through a more day-to-day lens. Both felt brilliantly alive.

As with Persepolis 1, Satrapi offers us some moments of crystal clear luminous truth. "It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.

SO much more. Might add some reflections tomorrow (which is already today).

Light,
mia