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My View: One very true review: "A memoir about teaching Western literature in revolutionary Tehran, with profound and fascinating insights into both." (Bernard Lewis, author of What Went Wrong?)
The first section is about the beginnings of Nafisi's book group and how she came to know and love her students. Most of the literary discussion is focused around Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita as the women condemn the villain and sympathize with the controversial Lolita herself. The villainous narrator is likened to the oppressive regime controlling Iran.
The second book, "Gatsby," focuses very little on the book group and leans toward stories from Nafisi's pre-expulsion days as a university professor. As the leftist-Muslim debates rage, more of Nafisi's personal opinions come to light.
The third book, "James" highlight's Nafisi's years as a teacher and the cruelties she witnessed and endured during that time. Iran's pre-Revolutionary history is discussed, and Nafisi cannot keep herself from peppering her writing with snide comments showing her bias, opinion, and feeling. Of course, she has the right to do this. After all, she was hurt and oppressed for years− how kindly and unemotionally can one describe that? And these are her memoirs. However, that particular book reads like an ill-written history text, since it chronologically accounts for so many facts and events but is shaded by opinion.
The final book, "Austen," appropriately focused on female empowerment. Even early on, Nafisi challenges us to question our own gender roles. She focuses largely on Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. The girls discuss similarities in their limited freedom of choice, methods of getting to know potential suitors, and abilities to accept others. Above all, the topic of "spiritual love" is addressed by discussing the loose and unpredictable science of which pairs fit well together versus who will naturally be unsuitable partners.
This last book, more than any of the others, seems to have been written to tap into our inner femininity with basic girly passions such as Jane Austen love novels, tomato red nail polish, sharp "independent spirits," determination to attain freedom regardless of repercussions, and rebellion against dominating males. She especially seems to enjoy highlighting the fact that most women hate being hurt and betrayed but love having someone to blame it on. Unfortunately, she goes off on many feminist tangents, prompting her to exaggerate and over-generalize.
There is no definite end to the story and it truly is a memoir as the future is alluded to but indefinite. There isn't a perfect endpoint or even reason behind the novel's writing, only a woman who really needed to let out her anger at and get out the word about an all-consuming regime. It was a good book, although pretty dragged out. Redeeming it was the fact that it taught a lot about history and shared some thoughts many would never share, adding to the realism and connection you have with Nafisi, especially in the last book of the novel. You feel as if you were inside her mind as she was scorned, and it allows you to understand Iran's Islamic Revolution in a way no history textbook will ever be able to teach. An irreplaceable, thought-provoking book every woman reader should have on her bookshelf. Much appreciated.
Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Lolita_in_Tehran
General Information:
Method of Reading:
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High School Library hardcover novel, 342 pages.
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Dates of Reading:
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October 15, 2009-January 23, 2010
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Author:
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Azar Nafisi
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Publication Year:
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2003
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Recommended To:
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History-loving reader girls such as myself. But I'm gonna have to put a very necessary PG-13 rating on it. Hear that, kids? 121/2? DON'T READ IT.
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Quotes:
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"Take the example of Jane Austen…. You used to preach to us all that she ignored politics, not because she didn't know any better but because she didn't allow her work, her imagination to be swallowed up in the society around her. At a time when the world was engulfed in the Napoleonic Wars, she created her own independent world…. You keep talking about… the need for personal and creative spaces. Well, go and create them, woman! Stop nagging and focusing your energy on what the Islamic Republic does or says and start focusing on your Austen" (282).
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Movie?
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No :( A lot of this would be hard to watch played out on the big screen, and you would need some pretty talented actors, but it would make a heck of a good movie. Her imagery and raw emotion just leap off the page, begging for a motion picture.
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Your Bibliomaniac
Bibliographic info:
Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House, 2003. Print.
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