Rating: 
Summary: evocative writing
Review: A veritable delight. An evocative memoir with plenty of flavor. The book loses some of its tautness in the later half, especially when the author starts discussing Jane Austen.
Rating: 
Summary: What's the hype about?
Review: This could have been a truly excellent book, given its setting (the early days of the Iranian Revolution) and its author (an intelligent and independent Iranian woman); instead, it is meandering, repetitive, coy, and self-indulgent - one hopes the author isn't quite so woolly-minded when delivering lectures to her literature classes at Johns Hopkins. The observations she makes about the sympathy the character Lolita engenders in a reader are so commonplace as to be rather embarrassing. Many of Nafisi's own attempts at description of the cast of characters in her own life depend on hackneyed physiognomy and well-worn cliche'. If I had to hear about one more cup of coffee or pastry, I'd have committed a cliche' of my own. When one reads her in the context of Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James, Flaubert, and the authors of the other books she and her clandestine group discusses, her prose suffers markedly by comparison. To her credit, Nafisi has gone through a horrifying moment in world history & displayed considerable courage, but the most courageous thing she might have done after having finished writing this book would have been to get a good editor to reorganize it, trim the fat, thus giving it some philosophical heft. Reading great works of literature may be a necessary, but is not a sufficient condition for writing about them. Living through history is likewise not a sufficient condition for writing compelling autobiography.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious But Important
Review: The style of this book reminds me of Nabokov's "Speak Memory". The subject of this book is in large part about the life and times of a woman in an emerging Islamic theocracy (with touches of discourse on the four featured literary areas: Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Henry James, and Austin). It is presented in a disjointed, piecemeal fashion making it quite hard to walk away with an integrated representation of the intended messages. And yet, there are a lot of interesting and even important revelations about what it was like to be a woman in an emerging Islamic theocracy. I would recommend this book to those with sufficient patience and a strong interest in the Iranian theocracy and/or women in the theocracy.
Rating:
Summary: Too Understated to Confront the Problem of Islam
Review: Having lived in Iran before, during and just after the Islamic Revolution, I felt that Ms. Nafisi understated the problem. Khomeini was a despicable madman who declared himself the infallible Supreme Leader. He also called himself an Imam, although he had no religious or historical right to that title. He's been succeeded by Khatamei, another madman. While you may say they have perverted Islam, they represent Shiite Islam in Iran. They are head of the Iranian Shiites, but they are not recognized by Sunnis or Shiites in other parts of the Middle East. Islam, as practiced by these despots, is the real problem in Iran. Iran has had two corrupt governments run by despots in the past 25 years. First a corrupt "constitutional" monarchy and now an even more corrupt Islamic "Republic." There is no separation of Church and State, and Iran desperately needs this. Corrupt clerics veto parliamentary law. Iran has no separation of executive, legilative, or judicial branches of government. The judicial system is one of the most corrupt in the world. Only a government based on a sound constitution will protect the civil liberties of women in Iran. The founding fathers of the USA were wise when they drafted the US constitution. Iran should take a lesson.
Rating:
Summary: Be Careful What You Wish For
Review: By Bill Marsano. Under the current low standards for political discourse, President Bush is a traitor to his country; he is also Hitler (a role he took over from former Fuhrer Rudolph Giuliani). Our Constitution has been shredded; our civil rights rendered null and void; dissent a grave risk and feminists are "feminazis." We are informed of all this by politically inflamed nitwits who ought to read this book: It will tell them what fascism really is. Child of privilege, daughter of an ancient family, Azar Nafisi grew up and was educated abroad, not at home under the oppressive Shah. At the University of Oklahoma, she (among other things) joined an Iranian revolutionary students' group. She admits to being only half-convinced; to being carried away by excitement and rhetoric, and she certainly missed the warning signs. Only now does she realize that her revolutionary group "exerted a strong hold over its members' lifestyles and social activities"; that the militants "came to dominate the group, ousting or isolating the more moderate." Chic for revolutionary women was cropped hair, Mao jackets, no makeup. And so in the fullness of time the Shah was deposed and Nafisi returned to Iran in time for the victory feast--the one in which the Revolution ate its young. This happens every time but rarely does it happen with such a vengeance. In the new Islamic Republic, the members of Islamic Jihad were mere moderates! And so began the endless oppressions of the innocent public. It was not enough that the war against women--that feared and hated sex--buried them in chadors and veils. No, even wearing nail polish under gloves was a crime. And this is what Nafisi brings us to: She, an intelligent woman, a professor, a lover of literature, is expelled from her university for not wearing the veil, and as she begins this narrative she is teaching a handful of her old students in her home. They gather once a week to discuss Nabokov, Fitzgerald, Henry James, Jane Austen. They use the last available paperbacks in Tehran--and copies run off on a Xerox machine. And what they are doing is a crime. A reader needn't go too many pages into this book before he begins to realize what phrases like "shredded Constitution" and "no civil rights" REALLY mean, and they don't mean anything like the inconvenient clauses of the Patriot Act. There's more than enough of literary criticism here, and the politically minded reader can resort to a little skimming to focus on what really counts. Which is this: When you can with a straight face tell a woman the the fate of the entire revolution depends on her wearing a veil(!), then of course you can expel her when she refuses. And such a person can also be abused and humiliated in the street, jumped by armed "morality squads." She can also be beaten. And arrested for long periods of time. Well, once we've gone that far, can she also be killed? Why, yes, she can. Several of Nafisi's other women friends and students met such a fate. And several more of those she left behind (she is now safely and sanely teaching in the U.S.) will certainly suffer similar the same. This is a sad book, and it is one that shows as well as tells. It's clear that the tyrants who currently run Iran, who simply declare ineligible all candidates who don't knuckle under, are utterly incurious, dangerously certain, homicidally smug. They have the Truth. They own the Truth. That's why there are no books to buy. No need for books when you've got the Guardian Council to tell you how to live, how to behave and what to believe.--Bill Marsano is a voracious reader and a professional writer.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful and humanistic.
Review: Finding one's identity by juxtaposing life in a surreal world with those that exist in fictional ones. That is how Ms. Nafisi kept her sanity during and after the unheaval of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Describing the courageous manner which she and her students lived everyday -- with a focus on learning from the characters painted by masters of Western literature -- is both inspiring and humbing. This is a book that artfully demonstrates the importance of philosophy and art in assisting us in maintaining our individuality, especially is totalitarian societies that reject the individual for the benefit of their dogma.
Rating:
Summary: a beautiful, lyrical story
Review: I picked this book up after having seen it around in various bookstores, and thinking that it looked interesting. It is difficult to know how to classify this one; is it biography, history or literary criticism? Whichever it is, Nafisi's passion for literature shines through on every page, and she provides a fascinating glimpse into the reaction of ordinary people in Iran to Ayatollah Khomeni's reign. Above all, this is a story that demonstrates that words have power; great books are those that teach us to think. A high recommendation for anyone who loves reading.
Rating:
Summary: The best read of 2003
Review: It was hard to know how to approach this unusual book, but it took only a few pages to be seduced by its insinuating threads. It's a book to become lost in, a book to wallow in. It's a book that led me to other books. Highest praise.
Rating:
Summary: An Important, Complex Work (wished for fiction, though!)
Review: This book was given to me for my birthday and it took me some months to get around to reading it because I couldn't give up my beloved novels to read a non-fiction work! And interestingly enough, I wished all the way through the book that Nafisi had chosen to write it as fiction--maybe intertwining a couple of her girls' lives to write about the same events fictionally as she writes about here. However, I did realize that the thread of literary criticism, which plays a strong part in the book, would have had to go, had the book been fictionalized. But the literary criticism, I think I could have done without--maybe. Only maybe. Because I've read some of the works Nafisi uses here, but alas, many years ago. And obviously I needed a really wonderful, gifted teacher like Nafisi to study these classics with--and then perhaps they would have stayed with me and I would have understood them better. I do agree with some who have said that if you've read these classics she uses (and remember them!) that your experience of reading this book will be enhanced. But not remembering much from Nabokov, Fitzgerald and James, who I had once-upon-a-time read, I still found I could follow the story, so don't let that stop you from reading this important and complex work. I'd also urge readers to take their time with this book; I probably read it too fast--wanting to get back to my beloved fiction, and yes, skipping even faster over the literary criticism parts. I learned a great deal about Iran from Nafisi's book--I had never really understood or known much about the Iran-Iraq war, and hadn't also understood how terrible daily life has been even in recent years in Iran. Nor about the complexities of the revolution there and how much, in the minutest ways, citizens' lives can be affected by a regime where political Islam takes over. I was very interested in how 'literal' the 'revolutionaries' and many Islamists were, and wonder why this seems to happen in all fundamental religions--why ambiguity or greyness can't be tolerated and is so feared (and how do we combat that?). One of the issues that I thought about a great deal while reading this book is the question of home, and whether to stay or leave a place that you love (this can be a city, as well as a country)--to stay because you love it and the place needs your help, your input and skills? Or to leave because it's just too hard to live there anymore or because maybe you love freedom more? I did so empathize with both views! It seemed like Iran was losing 'the cream of the crop,' with some of Nafisi's girls leaving too, just as she did, in the end. Could they have been of use, made any changes or impact if they had stayed? I don't know. But it intrigued me, as I think it's true, to a certain degree, of where any of us live and what choices we make about whether to stay or move on. I did find, as have some other reviewers, that the time line and the way the book was structured, was confusing. All of a sudden I'd realize that something had happened eight years ago, when I thought it had been just recently (this could have been because I read the book so fast, too, but enough others have mentioned this also). And I, too, didn't feel I got to know Nafisi's 'girls' well enough. But then this is a book that has many levels and would be hard to write anyway--to make them all work well. I'd certainly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about another part of the world--and an important part, as well as those who love reading about literature (never mind that this book isn't fiction itself!). But next time, Azar, might you try your hand at writing a novel, and particularly about Iran?
Rating:
Summary: Most memorable Book I've Read in Forever
Review: REading Lolita... gave me an acute sense of life and Tehran and enhanced my appreciation for literature and life in the United States. Truly a work of art
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