Customer Reviews

READING \"LOLITA\" IN TEHRAN: A MEMOIR IN BOOKS (STRANGER THAN... S.)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

(Note: For some reason every time I have to write a one or two star review, folks who loved the book seem to come out of the woodwork to vote that my review wasn't helpful thus lowering my Amazon.com ranking. I have a hard time believing that only my negative reviews are poorly written. I firmly believe that reviews should cover all opinions and not just serve as love fests, thus, here is my barely one-star review for "Reading Lolita in Tehran." Vote away.)

It is truly beyond me how this book has touched so many readers. Nafisi basically supplies 340 pages of English literature lectures on traditional Western canon books (ie: "The Great Gatsby," "Pride and Prejudice," "Daisy Miller," etc.)interspersed with mostly factual information (vs. any type of emotional insights) about her life in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1990s.

Nafisi's writing is scattered, often flipping back and forth between discussion of a text and discussion of a person or factual event but often not truly distinguishing between the two. Time frames are non-existent. Insight is near to nil and the few insights that are touched on are repeated ad naseum. By page 28 I had written myself this note, "Okay, we get it - the regime is individuality crushing and bad - especially towards women who feel forced to live double lives - one in public, one in private. Can we get on with things now?"

Unfortunately, we never do get on with things. Perhaps the repetition would not be so bad were it not for Nafisi's own tyranny in her classroom - demanding that her students read and appreciate exactly what she does. Much later in the book, she is then shocked when she discovers that her students are repeating her lessons to her verbatim and tries to see it as a consequence of the political climate and not of her own teaching style.

The only authentic emotion exuding from Nafisi's writing is guilt. Her own guilt at deciding to leave Iran for the US is crystal clear and understandable. She writes of a student who says, "If everyone leaves...who will help make something of this country? How can we be so irresponsible?" It was touching to find such a true sentiment in the midst of all of the more rote topics.

Overall, Nafisi details her bourgeoise lifestyle in war-torn Iran where she occasionally lives vicariously through those who had lives much more directly affected by the war and the political climate, and constantly lives vicariously through her outdated and overrated books and lesson plans.

I found Maureen Corrigan's book, "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading" to be a more enjoyable "memoir in books." Despite it's lack of interesting locale, Corrigan is able to garner real life lessons out of general fiction and literature. I would recommend it to anyone who liked "Reading Lolita in Tehran."

Imagine...Having to hide a satellite dish for fear of being arrested and thrown in prison,having to hide your face with a veil,your body with a robe,your head with a scarf,and God help you if a couple of loose strands of hair are sticking out. Imagine living under such a strict regime that a woman can not walk down the street with a man who is not her husband,father or brother,of having to scramble to different tables in a restaurant where a raid is going on, if you are sitting with a man who is just a friend. Imagine being subjected to body searches for no reason, of being jailed and quite possibly executed for having an opinion not accepted by that regime.Imagine the books you love, great and classic literature by Nabokov,Austen,James,and Fitzgerald, hard to come by and considered evil propaganda. And if fearing what your own countrymen can do to you is not enough, now imagine all that, with bombs going off constantly for years, landing so close they flatten your neighbors house and kill everyone in it. This was everyday life, a battleground of fear from all sides, for professor and intellectual Azar Nafisi. She only wanted to read, teach and discuss her favorite works of fiction.
Those are just a few of the injustices and life threatening situations, described in "Reading Lolita In Tehran".

After refusing to wear a veil to her job as a teacher of Literature, sticking to her own agenda of books considered controversial, Nafisi formed her own little group of women to study the great books mentioned above. She considered them "her girls", like an Iranian Miss Jean Brodie. They discussed the great works of Lolita, The Great Gatsby(this one was put on trial by her class at the University - imagine putting Gatsby on trial!), Pride and Prejudice among others, as they met in secret at Nafisi's home sans the robes and veils revealing their jeans and bright colored T-shirts, along with their inner most thoughts. They saw themselves as the heroines of the fiction they read. They discussed their sometimes unimaginable situations,their deep faith,the deaths of their friends, and the political times they lived in.

Azar Nafisi writes of how this group came to be, how these young women defied authority by studying unacceptable fiction. The girls themselves each have quite a background and stories of chilling experiences. Considering themselves lucky for only getting 5 years in prison for expressing their opinions instead of death in some cases.You can't help but feel a bond with each one of them. Nafisi also takes us back to the years before the group. She writes of life of in the "Islamic Republic of Iran",of teaching at the University of Tehran, and the extreme authoritative figures that ruled. Her writing seems to go off on tangents and some times it is a while before we are brought back full circle to the point, but I have to say, that every word she writes seems important to this story, and well worth reading through. She brilliantly interweaves the theme and characters of the books with the way of life in Iran.

This book left me deep in thought about the things I read in it. It was an up close and personal look at life we've heard about, but always seemed so far away. It not only touched me deeply and emotionally but I learned so much about the history and politics of the country as well. It certainly made me appreciate my own life much more.

Highly recommended read for everyone, and may be an especially deep discussion for book club groups.This edition has questions for discussion included.

It is quite a bit to absorb, but one that I will read again someday...Enjoy the read...Laurie

Azar Nafisi introduces the world to life as a teacher in Iran, from pre-revolutionary days, up through the revolution and war with Iraq, the aftermath and her inevitable, and sadly final, flight from the country. Written with the poignant voice of a survivor, woman, wife, and mother, the claustrophobic grief and rage that settles over the country and affects it's citizens for years is clearly felt by the reader, a pleasant surprise considering the simple, matter of fact voice Nafisi uses to tell her story.

Secretly bringing women together from different religious and social backgrounds, in a country where these things are all that matter, to read, pore over, and discuss banned and dangerous books, puts Nafisi in the role of a hero. She is someone who fought for what she believed in, and her courage in the face of tyranny becomes an inspiration to the opressed everywhere.

Nafisi's stories, and those of her beloved Tehran, intertwine with classic Western novels that she loves and depends on. Vladimar, Fitzgerald, James, and Austen provide a world into which these women can escape, one where they are not forced into invisibility, punished for eating apples too seductively, jailed, lashed, or otherwise beaten and tormented. Read as they shed their veils and risked everything for something that we all take for granted- the right to read a good, classic book.

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" (RLT) is a Persian variation on "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." Both are about surviving senseless, arbitrary, cruel tyrants.

There was a brilliant essay on RLT in the July 19, 2004 "Washington Post" entitled "Sorry, Wrong Chador." At the time, Nafisi's book had not even been translated into Persian, but Iranians still had opinions about it:

"The problem, several Iranians said in interviews, is that Nafisi left Tehran seven years ago. Her highly personal account of 18 years living under the mullahs is as absorbing a history as might be found of this place in that time. But it ends precisely at what most people here call the dawn of a new era in Iran, the 1997 landslide election of Mohammad Khatami as president."

Some may believe it dated, but "Reading Lolita in Tehran," just like Solzhenitsyn's classic, is actually timeless. Nafisi's mullahs may be history, just as Stalin's labor camps are now history, but somewhere in the world people are still unjustly imprisoned. Somewhere in the world women are still treated as non-citizens.

Iran itself is not yet a paradise for women. The Iranian Nobel peace prize winner, Shirin Ebadi has recently received death threats for her 'un-Islamic' behavior (she shook hands with the French President)--she is the cofounder of the Tehran-based Center of Human Rights Defenders, which was banned by the Interior Ministry. Iranian women are still fighting for free access to public places such as universities and coffee shops. The police periodically campaign against 'un-Islamic' dress.

As far as I know, it is still legal to marry a nine-year-old girl in Iran, a practice Nafisi fiercely condemns--and this brings us back to "Lolita" and why Nabokov's book was so popular with Nafisi's students.

My own impression of "Lolita" was 'silly nymphet with heart-shaped sunglasses seduces helpless adult male'. Yukk! I had never actually read it or seen the movie.

Nafisi points out that my synopsis was completely wrong. It should have read, 'powerful adult male kills young girl's mother and takes complete control of his stepdaughter, even to the point of renaming her (Lolita's real name was 'Dolores'.) He forces her to conform to his most intimate fantasies, and if he is in some way disappointed, he blames and punishes her.

Humbert Humbert reminds Nafisi's students of various males who had abused them, including the mullahs who were then in power. One student was sent to prison because a male caught a glimpse of her neck and found it highly erotic. There are some very sad stories in this book about the abuse of women and the stunting of human relationships, all in the name of religion and power.

But RLT also pays tribute to the vitality and teaching power of Western and Persian literature. I had never realized how gloriously subversive Jane Austin's novels were until I read Nafisi. Tyrants should never rest easy on their thrones if their subjects can read Austen, Nabokov, Henry James, or even Mark Twain. This book really opened my eyes as to why fiction should be read. It can be even more dangerous to repressive governments than books about making bombs.

"Nabokov calls every great novel a fairy tale... Let me remind you that fairy tales abound with frightening witches who eat children and wicked stepmothers who poison their beautiful stepdaughters and weak fathers who leave their children behind in forests. But the magic comes from the power of the good, that force which tells us we need not give in to the limitations and restrictions imposed on us by McFate... Every fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies."

Azar Nafisi's book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, writes of her time as a professor in Iran up to 1995. It is through the eyes of a woman who has seen and lived the experience of much freedom in the United States and compares it to her homeland of Iran. But the telling of it is through the books she lectures about and the students' discussions of these books.

A good Muslim man will not touch, even in handshake, the hand of a woman; "My experiences, especially my teaching experiences, in Iran have been framed by the feel and touch of that aborted handshake, as much as by that first approach and the glow of our naïve, excited conversation."

All of Jane Austen's books, The Great Gatsby, Madame Bovary or Casablanca are hard to fathom in a country where "love was forbidden, banished from the public sphere. How could it be experienced if its expression was illegal?" "It banned ballet and dancing and told ballerinas they had a choice between acting or singing. Later women were banned from singing, because a woman's voice like her hair, was sexually provocative and should be kept hidden."

Woven in with the book discussions is the story of the women in Nafisi's special invite reading group. A student suddenly disappears and when she finally comes back to the reading group she tells the others that she had been imprisoned, tortured and eventually released. The crime? Laughing in a private home's courtyard with a group of girls.

Angry that the current regime has "even penetrated their hearts and minds, insinuating itself into our homes, spying on us in our bedrooms, that it had come to shape us against our own will;" "And it felt good to know where to place the blame, one of the few compensations of victimhood"- `and suffering is another bad habit.'"

She is gently reprimanded by a friend, "Because the regime won't leave you alone, do you intend to conspire with it and give it complete control over your life?" In fact, Azar Nafisi realizes that "It is frightening to be free, to have to take responsibility for your decisions. Yes, says her friend, to have no Islamic-republic to blame."

So goes the life of these women who have a book club in a country where the books they read can suddenly be banned and they punished for owning what yesterday was legal to read.

They are left to decide whether they should stay in their country or seek freedom and a new life.

This is an enthralling memoir about women in Iran boldly defying Islamic morality squads to read Western literature classics. This is a great choice for Book Club discussions!

Here are girls, in blue jeans and tea shirts under their navy robes and scarves (when in the streets), meeting to read and understand literature that we take for granted.Reading Lolita in Tehran

I thought that this story of Iranian women reading western literature during the revolution was captivating. The execution of narrative was absolutely wonderful. This was a real page turner that kept me up late. I gained a deeper appreciation for literature as well as deep respect for the extraordinarily courageous women who each found her own way of surviving during these very trying times. Nafisi had me crying, laughing, learning and applauding right along with her class.

The reader is not only able to go with Nafisi to her home in Tehran, meet the young women in her private class and experience their subjugated lives but is also able to explore great works of literature through her lenses.

Reading Lolita in Tehran is one woman's portrayal of incidents in her life. She wasn't and isn't obligated to do what censorius and unrealistic critics would like her to do.