As part of the Drue Heinz Lecture Series, Marjane Satrapi, author and illustrator of the acclaimed comic book Persepolis, came to Pittsburgh last night at the Carnegie Music Hall.  Ten scholars, along with Dr. Lenz, sat in during Satrapi’s lecture and learned new things about the author and her perceptions of her work.

An important opinion that Satrapi pointed out was that she most certainly did not want her works to be called “graphic novels”.  She said that they should be called what they are–comic books.  She realizes that most people view comic books as for children and for “retarded adults,” as she herself put it.  But the term graphic novel, to her, recalls such novels as Lady Chatterly’s Lover.

Satrapi’s most important point in her lecture was that she wrote the comic book for others to simply understand through one perspective the vastness of the Iranian, and even Middle Eastern, culture.  She wanted to point out that she has more in common with Americans than she does with the Mullahs of her homeland and that such fanatics have more in common with previous American government than they do with their own people.

When asked about her favorite part of Pittsburgh during the question and answer section, Satrapi replied that in downtown Pittsburgh she was delighted to find a bar in which she could smoke.  That, she said, was the mark of civilization.  Another person asked her about her favorite music to which she replied that rock was her favorite but she couldn’t stand R&B.

Overall, Satrapi brought wit and depth, the key aspects of her comic books, pairing the horrifying with the comical, so, as she saids, to ward off cynicism.  Her lecture was both humorous and serious, drawing on the politics of Iran and America but also speaking of her childhood and life.

Two nights ago, assorted Scholars and Chatham University student leaders sat down to have dinner and talk with author Cathy Bao Bean.  After getting a little lost trying to find Chatham, as most of us can empathize with, Bean joined Chatham students in the PCW room in Anderson Dining Hall, wearing a chain mail vest.  Immediately, we knew we liked her.

Cathy Bao Bean is the author of The Chopstix-Fork Principle, a book detailing the immigrant experience and Bean’s life as a Chinese-American.  She regaled us with stories about her life in the country in New Jersey, where she had the distinct opportunity to eat beaver tail!  She also told us about an all organic Catholic school near her, which peaked the interest of many of the environmentally conscious Chatham students.

Sadly, she had to leave dinner in order to give a presentation to the rest of the Chatham community on herself and her book, but we were extremely grateful for her time.  It was an extreme pleasure to have such a dynamic woman come to Chatham and even share a meal with some of the University’s students.

Last night, members from all years of the Scholars program attended The Metamorphoses, a play based on Ovid’s work at the O’Reilly theater in Downtown Pittsburgh.  We met at the Chapel at 5:45, an early start to bypass traffic.  Four Scholars with cars drove the fifteen of us Downtown for the exciting play.

One of the highlights and most publicized aspects of the show was the central pool and its use.  Throughout the show, characters would fall, walk, or even dive into the pool of water.  An interesting point for me was not only the fact that the actors played multiple characters but also that they served as their own stage hands and technicians.  As water was so central to the show and splashes and spills are inevitable, the actors literally mopped up their messes as part of the show.  This was an interesting directorial choice, because usually techies dressed in black would have done such work.  The first time this happened the actors on stage sung which made for an interesting juxtaposition of typical theater roles, the strict actor or the strict technician.

I, and most of my classmates, especially enjoyed the actor Bhavesh Patel who portrayed hilarious dexterity throughout the show, and portrayed such famous characters as Poseidon, Hermes, and Bacchus.  His use of accents and comedic timing won the audience over.

Overall, I think the night was a success.  We were able to enjoy Pittsburgh, theater, and the company of each other, and learn more about the modern, or perhaps not so modern, theme of identity, a prevalent trope in Dr. Lenz’s first year scholars course on Literary Modernism.

Today in our Scholars First Year Seminar class we studied the graphic novel Persepolis.  It was awesome to explore a new medium of modern literature.  We discussed not only what the graphic novel said and how it said it, but we talked about the purpose of graphic novels.  One of my classmates mentioned that it opens the reading experience up to a whole different audience.  I have to agree.  Despite my addiction, some people just don’t like reading.  It’s tragic.  Comic books and graphic novels can open the door to reluctant readers and show them an entirely different world.  Books like Harry Potter and the infamous Twilight Saga work the same way for teenagers, showing them that reading can be fun! (However cheesy that may sound).

I wasn’t always so enthusiastic about graphic novels though.  For a long time I really despised graphic novels and comic books.  At first I thought that it was because I liked using my own imagination to conjure images from the strict text, but then I realized my dislike came from an inability to truly read the medium.  I was bad at it.  I would skip the pictures, maybe glancing at a particular color or image if it caught my eye, but my eyes largely followed the words, as they had been trained to do with traditional novels.  It took the realization that the art was just as, if not more, important than the words themselves for me to truly begin to learn to read graphic novels.  Once I knew to savor each image and each word, I found myself loving graphic novels and even comic books.  Today I stand an intense fan of the genre and am eagerly awaiting the Watchmen movie! 

Persepolis seems to embody modern literature and art, utilizing and combining different creative outlets. As someone in the class noted, the art and the drawings are universal.  Marjane Satrapi, the author, was born and raised in Iran but later moved to France.  Persepolis was originally written in French and while the translation may be faulty,the graphics remain the same, exactly how she intended them to be.  We could say that they are more true to her original concept than the written word in this case.

Satrapi also opens up the debate on Iran, especially its place in the modern world.  So many people assume that the minority is the majority and that all Iranians are like the extremists of the hostage crisis that began in 1979.  Satrapi urges her readers to think differently though.  She paints a unique, intimate, autobiographical portrait of her childhood in Iran, one not so different from an American’s or Westerner’s.

As our Professor, Dr. Lenz, asked us, both in our study of Persepolis and the original Japanese version of “Shall We Dance?”: how can we study or learn about another culture?  Is it possible?  Are we ever capable of fully understanding another society?  Another person, even?  In the case of Persepolis, does the visual aspect make this understanding easier or more accessible?