summer reads

i finished my first book for fun of reading season (the last day of exams to the first day of classes) yesterday. i soul sang.

this year's inauguration into joyful reading: persepolis by marjane satrapi.

read it.

now.

i am not kidding.

i am not usually a fan of comics and/or graphic novels (what is the difference?... see? i plead ignorance) but i have a friend how is a HUGE fan. he occasionally passes me some fantastic reads. this was one of them.

satrapi shows me why i should be a huge fan of this genre. her story is compelling, but it is heightened and deepened by her images. some of the power of the narrative cannot be felt with out her often haunting images. she is a true artist of both word and image. the immense suffering she describes, the moral struggles her characters undertake, often need the pictures, their expression and their ambiguity to bring her audience into the story.

i have spent the year theorizing suffering, theorizing God, theorizing art, and here, in this beautiful book, she weaves a story that more authentically speaks about all three then most of the scholarship i have read in the last few months.

refreshing.

read maus, vol. 1 & 2. also brilliant.