Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

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It's a hit!

In my (rather many) years of reading/studying literature/writing I have never heard from anyone else how useful/timely/personal literature can be a... (show more)

In my (rather many) years of reading/studying literature/writing I have never heard from anyone else how useful/timely/personal literature can be and I am amazed by this idea. I read this because after many years I finally read Lolita along with a class on modernism. I figured I was now prepared for this book.

I was ready for it, but not prepared for the depth of knowledge about the books, nor for the recognition of the rather shallow ways I have read/they have been presented to me in the past.

Now I need to go back and read a a lot of older books in this new way of looking at fiction, and not just the ones Nafasi wrote about either. I borrowed the book from my local library but am about to obtain my own copy so that I may have it at hand while I return to The Great Gatsby and Jane Austen. (show less)

 

 

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No, it's a flop!

I just couldn't get into it, I wanted to read about the group more than Nafisi's ruminations on Nabokov. I understand she's written about him... fi... (show more)

I just couldn't get into it, I wanted to read about the group more than Nafisi's ruminations on Nabokov. I understand she's written about him... fine, I get it... but not everything needs to be framed in such a literary-masturbatory type of way. It seemed that beyond her allusions and connections to her literary references, her personal tale was mostly fluff, which was unfortunate.
I gleaned a lot more about an Iranian woman's experience under the morality squads from Persepolis, honestly. I was excited to see another woman's take on it, and was fairly disappointed. I did get that these women were taking huge, huge risks in order to read what they wished, but she really didn't delve into their stories as much as I'd have liked. I also noticed she seemed a bit condescending / patronizing about her students and their personal choices or ways of dealing with & living under the Islamic rule, as if she was more enlightened than they and therefore coped in a superior manner (if that makes sense). Her students deserved to be shown as women, not silly girls.as (show less)

 

 

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  I was surprised by this book for several reasons. First, the book was much less about Azar Nafisi and her female students than the summary implied. She did describe her students and her varying interactions with each of them, but their stories were only a portion of the book. Nafisi told mostly of the political climate in Iran during the 80s and how, as a female professor at the University, she and her colleagues were forced to navigate the ever-changing rules and expectations for educated ... (show more)

  I was surprised by this book for several reasons. First, the book was much less about Azar Nafisi and her female students than the summary implied. She did describe her students and her varying interactions with each of them, but their stories were only a portion of the book. Nafisi told mostly of the political climate in Iran during the 80s and how, as a female professor at the University, she and her colleagues were forced to navigate the ever-changing rules and expectations for educated and employable women in Tehran.

  Nafisi also spends time examining the works of fiction her class reads. The evaluations and how the students reacted to them were interesting, but again, it was not what I anticipated based on the summary.

  I did not find the story I expected in this book and while it is an important story to be told, I still feel a little disappointed. I guess I was hoping for a tale of empowerment for the girls in her class and got a big dose of reality instead. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Apr 05, 2009 at 05:47AM

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  I found this book to be a beautifully written memoir describing life in Tehran through the revolution and accompanying political changes, particularly from the perspective of how life changed for women during this time. Nafisi's voice is honest, authentic and personal about how her life changed during this time.

  I loved the idea of a memoir through literary analysis, but my only regret is that I have not read many of the classics that Nafisi describes: Nabokov, James and Fitzgerald. I thi... (show more)

  I found this book to be a beautifully written memoir describing life in Tehran through the revolution and accompanying political changes, particularly from the perspective of how life changed for women during this time. Nafisi's voice is honest, authentic and personal about how her life changed during this time.

  I loved the idea of a memoir through literary analysis, but my only regret is that I have not read many of the classics that Nafisi describes: Nabokov, James and Fitzgerald. I think that this limited my understanding of what Nafisi was attempting to portray, as much of the analysis went a bit over my head, being unfamiliar with the characters. This made it a bit more difficult for me to really get into Reading Lolita because I did feel a bit that I was often missing important details.

  However, Nafisi made some amazing and inspired points, and I feel that I learned a great deal from this memoir. The following is my favorite:

  "Evil ... lies in the inability to "see" others, hence to empathize with them ... this blindness can exist in the best of us ... We are all capable of becoming the blind censor, of imposing our visions and desires on others." Reading Lolita, p. 315 (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Aug 29, 2009 at 03:30PM

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