Not Because of the Revolution

         Persepolis is one of the most unique books I have ever read. On one hand it is about the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the years following it. The effects it had on the Iranian population and philosophy. On the other hand it is about a girl named Marjane Satrapi and her coming of age. When you connect these two story lines it makes for an extremely interesting book containing both accurate and informative historical content, and smart, funny details about growing up as a teenage girl in pre and post-revolution Iran. However, it is often hard to differentiate between whether Marji's actions are caused by the hard times she is growing up in, or by her own person, independent of whatever outside events are occurring. One of the topics our book club focused on was how her personal philosophy and, therefore, actions were affected by her environment and whether they are therefore excusable. I think that Marji's actions are affected by her upbringing in the times of revolution rather than the effects of the revolution itself and therefore she is responsible for them.
        The revolution of Iran left many families without family members, killed in riots and tortured for being communist thinkers. It left many bereft of money or jobs after organizations were labeled bourgeois or "western." Many imprisoned young women were raped as it was against the law to kill a virgin. Compared to there occurrences, Marji's family was virtually untouched by both the Shah or the revolutionary regime. Her father kept his high level job and continued to make money to support the family while they hosted illegal parties. They were not effected by the government and flaunted their excess without regard to how it might effect their neighbors or any other non-related party. Following her self righteous parents, Marji was taught to express herself no matter the consequences and be independent of propaganda and authority while being fully immersed and enamored of revolutions of all kinds. This upbringing led Marji to get expelled from two schools and marry a man that she knew she did not truly love, all events that many shrugged off due to how she "suffered" under the revolution and regime but I believe are due to her upbringing.
         Marji was expelled from two schools due to her confrontational actions, actions that both adults in the story and my fellow book club dismissed as being ok because "she went through tough times." However, Marji's problems stemmed from trouble with accepting authority figures due to the fact that she turned everything into her own personal revolution. Marji's parents bought her many books on the topic to "educate her." She then became a revolutionary fanatic at the age of 8, dressing like Che Guevara and attempting to start a class revolution by helping her maid have a forbidden affair. These events, coupled with her parent's encouragement and avid revolutionary support, led Marji to believe that she should change everything she thought was wrong with no regard to authority: causing her to be expelled twice.
         One other questionable action that Marji committed that many excuse as brainwashing by the society she grew up was marrying a man that she did not love, and realized this on a subconscious level. While many dismiss this as an affect of the revolution and the pressure society put on her, I believe that it was another affect of her upbringing. Marji's marriage was more a rebellion against her past than a reflection of it. Marji had been raised and accustomed to despise marriage as it was stressed by the regime. By marrying Reza, she was going against what had led her almost to death, as a contradiction on herself.
           Persepolis exemplifies the difficulty in growing up in an ever changing world and how it effects impressionable young adults, but I believe that neither the regime or the revolution led Marjane to her bad decisions but her upbringing and attitude thereof.

The Bind

  What binds us to our siblings? To our parents? We grow up with these people: confine ourselves in a house with them, we love them unconditionally. And why? Is it a habit of accustom? Studies have shown that certain phermones and smells emitted by parents bond them to their children, but beyond science there is an unjustifiable bond in family, something so hard to break that even when your family is as scattered as your monster addicted mother's brain after a line, they affect you deeply and irrevocably.
                I just finished reading the book Fallout by Ellen Hopkins. I've read her other books and skimmed through this one, but had not read it in full. Curious to see what happened to Kristina, I picked up the lyrical third book in her much vaunted  series and found that this book follows the lives of her three oldest children. I left Kristina when she was 19, with a one year old child and pregnant with a baby girl. Hunter, her eldest child, lived with her parents at the time. Kristina is going to jail and is at a loss of what to do and Hopkins picks up the story with Hunter, now almost 19.
                 Hunter is struggling with his relationship with his girlfriend, Nikki, and smokes pot (though is not really addicted). He doesn't know who his father is because his grandparents thought it best to not tell that he was a product of rape.

Hopkins then switches to Autumn, Kristina's second oldest child. Autumn has OCD and is living with her paternal grandpa (Trey, Kristina's former boyfriend's, boyfriend's father) and her aunt. Autumn lives a sheltered life, until she meets Bryce. Bryce is her first love, her first sex and her first date all rolled into one.

Finally there is Summer. Summer is living in foster care and has had a tough time. At 12 she was raped by one of her foster parents and has been moved from town to town ever since: a product of one of America's most inept systems. Summer has a boyfriend named Matt but is in love with his best friend, Kyle.*

One thing stood out to me in the book. It is a line from a poem from Summer (about Autumn):

"On the surface she is nothing like me.

But just below the skin,

we find a connection. I shudder

to think why that might be, because

our common denominator is

someone I don't want to resemble."

This line makes me think about what it must be like for the characters, to have a connection to someone which you don't want to have: to have a family you don't want to discover. However, somehow, I feel that these characters are who they are because of this connection. As I stated before, the bond that tethers them to each other is a part of who they are, something that is irrevocable.
                 Take Hunter for example, he feels lonely and left behind by his mother "spinning in a whirlwind of her dust". He craves affection from his girlfriend but it isn't enough. He cheats on her with groupies when she isn't enough. I think that he is searching for someone to fill the hole Kristina created. Because no matter what mother figure in his life tries to fill his hole, she is still not his mother.

Another example of this is Autumn. Autumn has OCD and, although she doesn't say it, she blames it partly on her mother. After all, Kristina was the one who dumped her with her boyfriend's father and never looked back. Autumn has grown up under her Grandpa's micro management and her Aunt's love. Autumn has such a dysfunctional family that she feels that everything else that can be perfect should be. Kristina was the one who left her here, so it's Kristina's fault.

Finally there is Summer. Summer, who has had the worst life of all. Summer, who knows a lot about her past but nothing about her future. Summer, who sees her mother sometimes and always ends up yelling at her. Behind the yelling, though, I see need. Need for stability in her life, need for someone to love her. Maybe this is why she runs away with Kyle. Kyle loves her, or does he? Will Summer get hurt even more? But most of all a Summer who needs a future so badly that she runs so far away that she almost dies. Summer wants to forget so much about the past that she is willing to do anything for the future.

However, though Kristina wrecks havoc through their lives, there is some of Kristina in each of them, whether they know it or not, that unalterable bind that will remain a part of them forever.

*Kristina has two other children who live with her and her boyfriend Ron.

The Real Help

              Recently I re-read the book, "The Help." Made into a major motion picture a year or so ago, "The Help" has become a favored book club read and important book for showing civil rights issues in the mainstream media on the surface, and at first I agreed with that. However, when I re-read the book and looked at some articles on the book, I noticed something different about the book, that it may not be the civil rights darling that I thought it.
               The problem, I and many others, found with the book was that although it was proclaimed to be about black maids in the conservative south essentially liberating themselves and show their strength and bravery, the book only showed that this could happen if a white person stepped in to help. Aibeleen doesn't give any serious thought to changing her life or standing up for herself until Skeeter (a white lady) comes in with the idea for a book exposing the treatment of maids in Jackson, Mississippi. The book shows the struggle for civil rights as being brought about by a white lady, and implies exactly the opposite of the civil rights movement: that african americans cannot help themselves to justice.
              This disconcerted me as the media had marketed as something totally different, and everyone from the Oscar's to the "New York Times" had heralded it as an important book. It made me think about the media today, it doesn't seem to look very deeply into what it is telling us. Based on a lot of what I've read, the media doesn't make you think, it makes you think about what it wants you to think. And this, I believe, is wrong.