King
I read the
third volume of King at the library. I really loved the gorgeous back and white
ink drawings. It was a relief to see African Americans portrayed as actual
humans instead of simians like the comics we’ve read before this. Balancing hand painted drawings with
actual photographs really reminded the reader that this was a historical piece.
The monologues of different people giving their opinion about the king were
also an interesting bit of story telling. What I really loved about this was
the way that Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t overly glorified. He was a great man
but he wasn’t flawless. The comic also showed the King arguing with his wife. I
thought his personal life was the most interesting part of the comic. It’s what
we didn’t learn in our high school US History class. The moment when Coretta
had to tell her daughter that she couldn’t go to the amusement park (because it
was whites only) was heartbreaking. It was such a strong and real moment. This
little girl didn’t even understand racism, because her parents protected her
from it, it didn’t make sense to her. It’s because racism is outside of common
sense.
Chicken with Plums
I’ve read
Persepolis before and I was looking forward to this book, which wasn’t from her
point of view. This book told the story of one of her relatives, Nasser. The
wonderful thing about this story is the way that your opinion is constantly
changing about Nasser as Marjane reveals more and more information about him through
out his story. In the beginning we see Nasser is on his way to buy a new sitar
to replace the one his wife broke. He thinks he sees a woman from his past but
she doesn’t remember him. The new sitar isn’t good enough, so he decides to lie
down and die. At first I was judging this strange man, I didn’t understand why
he’d give up on life because his sitar broke. Later we realize that the sitar
was the only thing that kept him going when he wasn’t allowed to marry the
woman he loved. That lover was the woman that didn’t recognize him in the
beginning. So in one day he loses sitar, which symbolized his love, and he sees
that the woman he loved forgets him. It was such a well put and told story I
had to read it twice.
