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#Post#: 16914--------------------------------------------------
Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: Alharacas Date: June 15, 2019, 5:57 pm
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Has anybody read "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi?
Yes, I know, it's almost 20 years old, but it so happens I'd
never even heard of it. For once, I wholeheartedly agree with
the quote on the cover: "A revelation".
#Post#: 16915--------------------------------------------------
Re: Persepolis
By: Aliph Date: June 15, 2019, 6:17 pm
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I saw the film
HTML https://youtu.be/HofvkAYPJHs
#Post#: 16916--------------------------------------------------
Re: Persepolis
By: Nikola Date: June 16, 2019, 2:53 am
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A friend of mine read it a long time ago. She was telling me
about it, saying it was mind-blowing. I forgot about it and
then, years later, I found out they'd made it into a movie. I
got it on a DVD and it was really good. I didn't know much about
Iran so it was really eye-opening for me.
#Post#: 16918--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: Alharacas Date: June 16, 2019, 4:26 am
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I'm terribly sorry, Nikola and Sofia, I'm afraid I made a bit of
a mess, trying to move this topic. :-[
The thing is, although I've been aware that there are many avid
readers and collectors of comics, specialist shops and experts,
I'd always been slightly puzzled by this. I mean, of course, all
kinds of people are into all kinds of things I can't really
relate to - soccer, for example, or knitting. Which obviously
doesn't bother me in the least.
But whenever I came across a reference to graphic novels,
something at the back of my mind used to whisper "Why? They're
books, aren't they? Just books with lots of pictures wasting
space which could have been filled with interesting words. Why
on earth would you want to spend money on one of those, when you
could buy a real book instead? Do you lack concentration? Are
you simply put off by pages full of words without pictures? And
if so, isn't that the tiniest bit... infantile?"
Then I happened across "Persepolis" (which I wouldn't have
dreamt of buying if it hadn't been about Iran) and now I'm
overawed. I don't know whether this is a one-off (I tend to
think it might be), but suddenly, I think I "get" graphic
novels.
This is such an incredibly compact story, such a tour de force
through history, world politics, how to set up various kinds of
dictatorship, their effects on ordinary people, immigration and
emigration, and last not least a terribly sad and wonderfully
funny, insightful story about growing-up - if you tried to put
all this into words, you'd end up with a series of doorstop
novels à la Proust.
So, now I'm really curious - what do you think about graphic
novels? Do you like them? Read them? Actually prefer them to
"real" books? Can you recommend anything?
#Post#: 16919--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: Irena Date: June 16, 2019, 4:40 am
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I never read graphic novels. I'm not at all a visual person.
When I see a picture with a bit of text in it, my eyes go
straight to the text.
Anecdote: Once, maybe ten years ago, I happened upon a
whiteboard with something written on it, and I was having
trouble deciphering the handwriting. I asked the person I was
walking with, and she said "cheese." And only then did I notice
that I was staring at a picture of a mouse, looking at a piece
of cheese on a plate, and thinking (in that bubble, as in a
comic book) "cheese." My eyes had simply zoomed in on the text
and ignored all the rest. ::)
Sigh. That's how non-visual I am... So, no graphic novels for
me.
#Post#: 16920--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: Nikola Date: June 16, 2019, 6:29 am
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I've never been too keen on comics or graphic novels, although I
know there are gems out there if you look for them. When I was a
teenager I read Maus
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus
and it
changed my perspective because until then I hadn't come across
any graphic novel with such meaningful content. I'm still a bit
reluctant to read them, though. I was close to buying V for
Vendetta once but ended up buying a more conventional novel
instead. It does feel like some form of intellectual cheating, I
can't quite put my finger on it. There are quite a few animated
movies that work with heavy themes. I am more likely to watch a
movie than read a graphic novel. It's a very different
experience compared to seeing static pictures with speech
bubbles. I saw Waltz with Bashir
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_with_Bashir,
which came out
around the same time as the Persepolis movie. It left a deep
impression on me (I don't think a live action movie would have
had that effect). That's why I decided to watch Persepolis.
#Post#: 16922--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: MartinSR Date: June 16, 2019, 8:36 am
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I remember that comic books were considered something not very
serious by my teachers and other adults, when I was a teenager.
They were saying these books were for people too lazy (or some
way impaired) to read a real book.
During the first years of my elementary school I liked to buy
the newspaper for young people with comics episodes on the last
page. These comic stories were just for entertainment. Btw. The
rest of this newspaper was full of articles describing the
activities of scouting organisation in my country and a few
articles about children in other communist countries - how
happy they are living in such paradise on earth like e.g. Cuba,
Nicaragua, East Germany and others. So you can imagine that the
last page was actually the best one.
After a few years I got a comic book in black and white (black
and yellow actually) about the adventures of the good soldier
Švejk during the (1st) World War. At least Nikola will know
exactly what I mean, but if someone has an occasion to read the
original novel, comic book or see the movie - it's worth it.
Once I happened to got the comic book about the history of
Albert Einstein with a very simple explanation of the Theory of
relativity principles. I think that reading the scientific
papers about this topic is above the capabilities of an average
educated person, so the comic book was the nice solution to give
a rough idea way is it about.
#Post#: 16938--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: Aliph Date: June 16, 2019, 12:55 pm
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In France (where Marjan Satrapies lives) there is a long
tradition of the use of graphic novels for reports and
communication of political content.
There is one author I like, Guy Deslisle. His wife works for «
Médecins sans frontières » and he accompanied her to Burma and
Jerusalem and made some outstanding graphic novels about the
living of his family in East Jerusalem.
HTML https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Chroniques-de-Jerusalem-141310.html
Another graphic designer translated into pictures the novel of
the Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra “L’attentat”.
HTML http://loicdauvillier.com/bande-dessinee/bande-dessinee-adoadulte/lattentat-yasmina-khadra/
I enjoy reading these serious Bandes Dessinées or BéDé like they
are called in French. For me it is simply another expression of
art.
I loved the book called Tokio Sanpó. Graphic designers have an
eye for some details that we are not able to see.
HTML https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/297870962836621025/
HTML https://www.amazon.fr/Tokyo-Sanpo-CHAVOUET-Florent/dp/2809700761
#Post#: 16939--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: NealC Date: June 16, 2019, 1:04 pm
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I am a very visual learner and I am surprised that comics or
graphic novels never held any interest for me. I have always
loved movies, cinema has always been my thing. My mother, the
Baptist Sunday School teacher figured I was on a greased pole to
Hell with my love of movies.
I rented the movie Persepolis today, and enjoyed it very much
:-) If you told me it was a novel I might pick it up. But
since it is a graphic novel, I won't.
That even strikes me as strange.
#Post#: 16940--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cultural snobbery (mine!)
By: Aliph Date: June 16, 2019, 1:22 pm
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I forgot to mention that I started to learn Hochdeutsch
(Standard german ) when I was eight or nine years old. All my
friends were reading the weekly Topolino (that’s the Italian
name for Disney’s Mickie Mouse).
My mother gave me the money for buying the German edition. It
wasn’t negotiable. She was firm and strict. So that’s how I
started reading in German, of course I already spoke and
understood Swiss German.
So definitely comics and graphic novels can be useful for
language learning. I think my mother was a wise woman.
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