Customer Reviews

Tehran, Lipstick and Loopholes

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It's an affectionate and exasperated portrayal of life in Iran, concentrating mainly on the hoops an Iranian citizen needs to jump through to get anything done out of the notoriously corrupt bureaucracy. It's witty, it is cultured - Nahal Tajadod is well acquainted with the artists and filmmakers and litterateurs of Iran - and the way networking works in the Middle-East, it's no wonder that she uses all their contacts to forward her agenda. Why does this diminish the work? It's the same in many parts of Europe as well - Italy, anyone? There's no way of telling which contacts will come up trumps, especially when relationships between the public and the bureaucracy are so fluid and fraught. Combined with the famed Iranian politesse, it's difficult to withdraw from networking dead-ends without causing immense offence, and much of the memoir describes the tricks Tajadod has to come up with to assuage hurt feelings or persuade new contacts to help out. Through it all, she bemoans the faults of fundamentalism and the rigidity of the old guard. This is not a serious work by any means on the state of modern Iran, but it is perceptive enough, and written from the perspective of an upper-class woman. Surely all viewpoints are valuable?