Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books

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Summary: this book sucks
Review: yo I read this for a class on iranian authors and it sucks. its very girly and hard to follow. also you have to have read gatsby, lolita and others to have a clue as to what shes talking about. if you like wordy girly stories about nothing and incoherent, non linear story telling this is for you.

along the same lines read persepolis or the bathhouse - both are much better and actually have more insights.

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Summary: Challenge and Inspiration
Review: When I started reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran," I really liked the way that Azar Nafisi detailed her secret class, with all the information about each girl and her life. This held my attention and really put a face to a name and an actual human being link to a culture that is, in so many different ways, foreign to what I know and am used to. I enjoyed the beginning of the book because of this passionate look at the lives of some very different people in difficult times. Despite the differences and beliefs they may have had, they found themselves entwined in an intimate relationship - this secret class that at the same time ended up functioning as a book group, counseling session, and meeting between friends that they will likely carry with them for life.

Nafisi's personal commentary on her thoughts regarding the girls and her other classes, combined with in depth anecdotes about her students and their actions, provides a first hand look at revolutionary Iran that will be sure to evoke emotion, questions, and reactions to their philosophies. A good amount of these reactions may come from the broad analysis of texts that is included in "Reading Lolita in Tehran." Nafisi focuses on several works of literature that she often relates to current situations to teach their meaning and importance. A reader may find it helpful to have already read some or all of the books that are included, such as "The Great Gatsby" or "Pride and Prejudice" to enhance understanding of Nafisi's subsequent comments. At the same time as this outside text aspect is a good feature of the book, it also can be somewhat of a problem. When I was reading I found that the book occasionally became dry when the focus was too long on the analysis of the other works. I also thought that when Nafisi wrote lengthy amounts on the general events of the revolution or on her university classes that I started to lose interest. What I really would have liked would have been to keep the focus on the small group of girls. This may have made the book shorter, but as a picky reader that's what I would have enjoyed most.

Overall, however, "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is a well written memoir that should find a way to inspire or influence thought in its readers in a beneficial manner. I saw many connections to the issues of freedom and opportunity. One of my most prevalent questions was one rooted in a feeling of shame: how could anyone in a country that runs such as ours does be at any time unhappy or feel restricted, when terrible things happen in other countries like Iran all the time? I felt so selfish for my complaints, when the girls in this book couldn't even walk out in the street without the fear of being stopped, searched, interrogated, and at the worst - but entirely possible - killed. I think that Nafisi does a good job of raising issues like these, and especially at a time like the present where there is so much conflict and discord between nations here and on the other side of the world. Readers of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" will undoubtedly come away from the book with their own important challenges to philosophies and ideals, and I think that is the goal of every author!

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Summary: Reading books about reading books is fun
Review: This book gives the reader a brief introduction to what it is like to be a woman and live in a totalitarian regime. She discusses some great works of fiction which embody some prevalent ideas of those with and those without power in a world that has become too absurd to be fictitious. In the days of the Islamic Revolution in Iran we see a tyrannical regime try to realize the dream of a perfectly pious society. They demonize the Western cultures as the Great Satan and blame anything remotely "different" as an evil seed of the west which in some cases is grounds enough to throw them in a sack and beat them to death with sticks. This is the impression I get about the aspiring leaders of Iran from reading this book, possibly a little biased. In this society where the book on most English professor's syllabuses is Steinbeck's "The Red Pony", the author is attempting to teach American and English literature.

After finally quitting her oppressive job, she forms a reading group to read many of the now illegal works of literature. By explaining the ideas and actions of people in all parts of this society through the themes of novels from western authors like James, Fitzgerald, Austen, and Nabokov, the reader can grasp many ideas that would otherwise be too difficult to deal with. Although of the books discussed I have only read The Great Gatsby, I felt that her discussion of the others was sufficient enough for me to grasp what some of their major themes were. I assume that I would enjoy the book even more if I had read these works, because in the case of "Gatsby," I gained a deeper understanding, but it also serves as a pointer to some great books which I probably will read in the near future.

A major theme of this book is the idea of dreams and imagination. In a society where the dream of Islamic perfection has driven many to frenzied devotion, the lesson of the fleeting nature of dreams as presented in Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," seems extremely appropriate. Gatsby's downfall as he comes closer to touching his dream shows the way in which dreams are only dreams, and the danger in trying to understand them in a reality which does not automatically conform to them. The irony apparent in using Western works like these to portray a society which outlaws them shows the universality of the lessons therein. Someone pursuing a dream of a rich and stylish life is just as culpable as one pursuing the dream of a pious and strict lifestyle. This helps anyone to not simply judge the Islamic regime, but to understand where they are coming from. She juxtaposes this theme with some of the other works which urge people to dream as if it were the only thing that mattered. She presents the importance of forming your own parallel reality in a world where reality is too harsh to be borne straight up. The seemingly contradictory ideas when taken together, though confusing, seem to bolster each other and express a happy medium that cannot be defined.

Overall, I feel like this was a great book. Although the plot is a little convoluted and I could not keep the characters straight, I feel that it expressed the experience of reading a good book through a very good book. I guess that doesn't really make sense unless you read it, maybe not even then. Anyway, I put it down with the impression of having learned more things than I can even attempt to recall. It was an enjoyable read.

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Summary: Touching, but not without its baggage
Review: From the onset of her book, Professor Nafisi has the reader hooked. She makes the situation in Iraq very clear through the comings and goings of seven women who embark on a literary adventure, reading the forbidden Western classics we so often take for granted in America. The stories of these intelligent and oppressed women seem to weave seamlessly through the plots of the Nabokov, Gatsby, James, and Austen works they read. I found the book touching and necessary in a post 9/11 world. As leery of Arab culture as we are, books on the subject, and narratives in particular, are extremely necessary. However, I found Nafisi's narrative to be lacking in several respects.

Nafisi occasionally digresses into literary analysis of many works of literature, which at times becomes a distraction for long periods of time. An understanding of certain works by the aforementioned authors would be an asset to the comprehension of this book and Nafisi's position. I have a feeling that I missed out on a number of allusions because I was unfamiliar with the works she was discussing. Some would argue that she uses these tactics to spark interest in these other works of fiction. While that may have been her intention, I find this distracting. In my opinion, this literary analysis occupies too much space, and I could have done without it. I felt as if a great deal of the book went way over my head because I wasn't familiar with Nabokov's Lolita, or James' Daisy Miller.

I found that this book's inaccessibility did not stop there. Her book is full of characters. The problem is that, with Professor Nafisi as perhaps the only exception, all of the characters have very minor roles. It is impossible to keep them all straight. Furthermore, characters don't just make an appearance and leave the plot. Many of her characters continue to reappear again and again in the narrative, and the average reader is left rather puzzled. It is almost as if by this character confusion Nafisi has added an element of Tolstoy's War and Peace to her narrative.

Because these characters come and go with no real pattern, Nafisi also creates the problem of chronology. The time period Nafisi is covering is rather short; only a span of about two years. Her digressions, however, bring the reader back much further in time. With such a short time span for her to cover, and some definite pacing issues, it becomes even more difficult to follow as she travels back and forth in time in the bat of an eye.

With this book, it seems as if Nafisi gives us three books in one. We have her political commentary of the time, which gets very confusing when you add the twist of Islam. We have her literary analysis, a bit too convoluted for my taste. And we have the stories of her "girls" as they struggle to fit into the society they find themselves in. Throw all of this in a blender, hit puree, and apparently you have a National Bestseller.

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Summary: Decent, but lacking.
Review: When I was assigned to read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" for one of my discussions classes, I was under the impression that it would be a profound piece. Perhaps it would be an inspiring story for women, minorities, and other oppressed folks. But on account of my being an American white male, I guess I'll never know. It's not that I'm chauvinistic, coldhearted, or lacking of empathy, but this book really didn't do much for me. While the characters were deeply involving, and the emotions high and clear, there was just too much distance for me to truly relate.

Chronicling the book-club meetings of a group of Iranian intellectual women, this narrative looks at life through the author's eyes, seeing her students in a light unlike the world can ever see them. Through their discussions of great classics, such as Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, and The Great Gatsby, they gain a new perspective for life, and a new, strong bond to each other in their trying lives.

Despite the depth and extreme amount of potential this book could have had, I found that even shallow, yet important, things such as style and approach really distracted from the focus. Lack of direct dialogue in the text forced it away, making the story more distant, while certain semi-direct quotes were ambiguously present in a manner which may as well have made them indirect dialogues.

I'm quite sure that the author had her reasons in writing the book in this manner. Obviously, writing a memoir of events a good fifteen years removed is not an easy task, and each conversation could not have been remembered perfectly to produce genuine dialogues. Add to this that many of the details surrounding the characters have been rearranged, jumbled, and negotiated for reasons of confidentiality and of course you can't expect perfect dialogues.

Additionally, a chronological hodge-podge and a leap-frogging story line was equally distracting from the story. While the book on the whole seemed to follow a more or less linear timescale, the book-meetings in the story were interspersed with personal storylines and memories that fit, but somehow were lacking in direction.

All in all it was a decent book, with a decent message, at a decently understandable level. But in my opinion it could've been a whole lot better.

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Summary: Good Subject, Poor Writing
Review: I made it 3/4 of the way through this book because the subject is so interesting. But I finally had to put it down. Too much literary analysis, too many characters to keep track of, too many timeline changes, and too much of the same stuff over and over. Ok, enough of the bombing, and your girls, and the Muslim extremists. A lot of this could have / should have been boiled down to make it a readable story. I can see that book clubs with time on their hands could use the classic references to dive into discussions about these books and their relationship to current times, but I just wanted a readable story about that time in Iran and how the circle of friends coped. A few literary analysis would have been ok, but it got to seem like she was showing off a bit and diverging from the story at hand...

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Summary: Reading Lolita in Confusion
Review: I have to admit that I was greatly disappointed by "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nefisi. While the book had its interesting aspects (like her perceptions of life during a war in Iran after she lived abroad), it was often hard for me to stay interested in it. At first it was interesting to read about her class' take on the Western novels, but that got old half way into the first book. I wanted her to go deeper into what happened to those around her, and less into the meanings of the books they were reading. It often felt like I was reading an English lecture instead of a memoir. Although I thoroughly enjoy English discussions, I would rather participate in one than read an entire book about one.

As for the plot, it was lost amongst the interpretation of her books so much that I often forgot what she was even talking about in the first place. Because she spent so much time on characters like Jay Gatsby, that I felt by the end of the novel I knew him better than I knew any of the other people in the book. She never went deep enough into the lives of her students or the magician for me to understand what they were going through as well. I got tired of reading about her interpretations the novels when all I really wanted what was happening to other people besides her. I felt that she focused so much on herself and her obsession with fiction that the other aspects of the book were lost on me.

Another distracting aspect was that I was often confused because the war she writes about took place when I was under the age of five, and my education thus far has opted out of bring up wars in the Middle East. While this is more my fault than her own, her explanations behind the reasons for the war were vague, and I rarely knew what side people were one, which made the book less enjoyable to read.

While I did learn about a different culture and a different life when I read this book, it did not hold my attention for very long. With so much emphasis on the meaning of her literature and not enough in the lives of the people around her, I felt as though I were sitting in a lecture, not reading a memoir. After awhile, it became more of a chore to read it than a pleasure. Hence, it was not my cup of tea, but quite possibly, it could be yours.

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Summary: Themes of Dreams in "Reading Lolita in Tehran"
Review: Reading Lolita in Tehran is a book that tackles the idea of dreams. Azar Nafisi explores this topic directly and indirectly in her personal memoirs of Tehran, Iran. The book is a memoir of her experiences in Iran. In 1995, Nafisi, a former professor, gathered seven of her students on Thursdays to discuss literature that was considered very controversial in Tehran. The book gives you glimpses of life in Tehran for women, and all humankind in general. The novel develops a theme through the correlation of literary conflicts in the groups' chosen readings and worldly conflicts of the time. Along with the contextual comparisons drawn from the two worlds of literature and life, there also lies an overwhelming sense of universiality that portrays the humanity of Americans and Iranians. The theme of dreams is prevalent throughout the novel. Nafisi opens the book by declaring that she "decided to indulge [myself] and fulfill a dream.". Through their reading of novels by American authors, such as Jane Austen and Scott Fitzgerald, Nafisi is able to portray the responses and dilemmas within the responses to the fiction. Throughout the four works discussed in the group, Nafisi plays on many relations; the relationship between men and women in Tehran, as opposed to that of men and women in America, relationship between the Americans and the Iranians and their opinions of the other, and the relationship fiction has with its readers. Thematically, all of these elements corroborate to pose the issue of dreams.
When does dream become reality for the women of Tehran? Is it necessary for them to create a "parallel fantasy" in which they can hope to live, but in which they know they can not live? Is this dream of something better an inherent dream in all of humankind? Is that dream of idealism what drives the governments of both the United States and the Middle East? Are dreams what keep us apart or what connect us as humans? Nafisi approaches these issues through textual examples. Through her relations with certain students she is able to express the deep divisions that have occurred between men and women, Iranians and Americans, literature lovers and loathers. Yet at the same time, there are hints of connection that occur in their discussions that lead her to believe that a similar thread can link them together.
This link appears to be literature and, beyond that, the essence it embodies. "A novel is... the sensual experience of another world.", according to Nafisi. She goes on to say that "empathy is at the heart of the novel.". She goes on to discuss the discussion she has with three of her students that happen to be revolutionaries. "We went on talking Fitzgerald as we walked down the wide staircase...I felt very young and we laughed as we talked. Then we went our separate ways. We never became more intimate than that." It was only when discussing fiction that they could be intimate. Fiction, she alludes to, causes on to re-evaluate their circumstance. Through the catalyst of fiction, these two groups were able to synergize; overcoming gender, age, and political leanings. Over the issue of dreams, whether the dreams be Americanized or Iranian, could these two opposing groups be intimate.
Furthermore, her discussion group represents a variety of women in Tehran. Yet, it also represents a commonality among women of Tehran and people everywhere. Just as their desire to learn became a passion, so too does the desire for a dream become an obsession. No one can force you to dream, just as no one can force you to learn. However, there comes a point, through literature in this case, that the external pressure causes it to become an obsession. Thus, the dreaming becomes a lifestyle. This is enforced through Nafisi's juxtaposition of the worlds within the books and the world in which she and her students live. There is a universal longing to have dreams and this book approaches the struggles of that realization and the impotence of societies, peoples, and cultures to embrace it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the questions this book posed for me, as read previously in this review. I think that it stimulates good thoughts about life, humanity, the importance of literature, and the relationship between the United States and the Middle East. I would recommend this book. While there were four novels discussed in the text, I felt that my understanding of the themes within Reading Lolita in Tehran came from my previous knowledge of The Great Gatsby. Therefore I encourage you to read The Great Gatsby prior to reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, so as to heighten your understanding of plot discussion and correlation to events in the book.

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Summary: Transported me to another place
Review: I learned so much from this book. Not only insights into some of the great literature in English, including my favourites, The Great Gatsby and Jane Austen, but also fascinating perspectives on what it was like to be part of the educated and cultured class within Iran when the Islamic revolution occurred.

The Austen chapter begins "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Muslim man, regardless of his fortune, must be in want of a nine-year-old virgin wife." That was uttered by one of the students in Nafisi's study group, and is typical of many wry moments emanating from these young women Nafisi had gathered in order to study some of the "great works" of literature in English, in the face of darkening revolutionary shadows which will make it increasingly difficult to do so in public paces.

What an amazing way to explore matters of romance and social relationships of interest to these young women in a totally different place, time and culture.

It is very easy to forget that in any period of upheaval, there is going to be a variety of viewpoints and passionate advocates of multifarious positions. This is extremely well conveyed by Nafisi.

One of the most memorable passages to me (some 6 months after reading this and as an insatiable bookbuyer), is that where she goes into a bookshop to scoop up as many copies of a particular book as she can, as such works and shops become increasingly unobtainable.

I found the tale of what of what it was like working in the universities during this period of upheaval , and the various strategies Nafisi employed to get around the increasing strictures, especially fascinating.

I did have a little trouble at times differentiating one of the young women from the literature group, but in the end I let it all wash over me and just revel in the emotions and happenings.

I got very little sense of the writer's relationship with her husband, which I know isn't the main concern of the book. Nevertheless, it did diminish her a little I felt. We read professional reactions, but I would love to have a little more about how the revolution affected personal relationships. That is a minor point though, as there was some, and it obviously wasn't an autobiography per se. We did manage to glean a range of different reactions through the women students, so that was useful.

I found the relationship with the shadowy figure "the magician" a bit unsatisfying. It did, however, add to a sense that the type of insight being looked for wasn't being achieved within what might otherwise be the closer personal relationship of marriage.

All told, I loved this book and have it beside my bed to read again.

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Summary: A life through literature...
Review: If most of us were asked to express ourselves using only novels of fiction, we would find it a difficult task. To relate another's work to our own lives is challenge enough; but to further express our most tragic experiences through the symbols and themes of that work, well, it requires a touch of greatness. Azar Nafisi in her novel Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, displays amazing skill as a writer and philosopher by weaving together the essence of works of literature with her own personal story of life under an Islamic regime.
As a native Iranian citizen, Nafisi provides a unique glimpse into the oppressive rule of the Islamic Revolution. It is ironic that she uses "forbidden" and "evil" Western literature to convey a deeply Islamic and Middle-Eastern experience, yet at the same time, profound. This method of revealing her story draws parallels and similarities between the Islamic East and the Christian West. Furthermore, this technique enables Western audiences to better interpret and understand her life during this time period of Iran; it is a means of connecting the two opposing worlds through literature. Through her very style, Nafisi comments on the inseparability of the two hemispheres; moreover, this choice reveals that her belief that the world can best be understood through the lens of another perspective, even another culture.
In an attempt to make sense of her experiences and her life during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Nafisi turns to other cultures and other perspectives to gain understanding about her present situation. Each western novel brings her new insight into her situation: through Nabokov, she is able to understand the mind of the tormenter; through Fitzgerald, the insistent longing for distant dreams; through Austen, the corruptibility of human nature; through James, the effect of conflict on her society. Likewise, each novel and author reveals something new and different to the audience about her life in this culture of oppression; these revelations are too numerous to recollect, but clearly, it is through varying lenses that Nafisi most clearly tells her story. The depth and insight that Nafisi finds about her life and situation through each work of literature is absolutely astounding.
Such cohesive and powerful integration of fiction and reality can only be the result of a life, mind, and existence that is absolutely permeated with works of literature. As a professor of English Literature at the University of Tehran, Nafisi was constantly surrounded by literature, and it naturally follows that the most important experiences of her life can be understood best through the context of her all-consuming passion: novels. The result of her purposeful and powerful construction of her novel is a moving piece of literature that eloquently expresses the stories of her life. Nafisi has accomplished what most of us could not: the successful integration of past and present, and fiction and reality. Then again, the majority of us are not professors of English Literature either.