Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
#65 in my book challenge for the year. I was disapponted by this book. Nafisi, a former professor of literature in Iran, discusses the complex melange of books, war and people that she experienced in her teaching years. The book begins and ends with a private reading group she assembles of former female students of hers. A quote by a friend of hers near the end sums up what I felt was a big problem with this memoir:
As he carries in the two mugs of tea I tell him, You know, I feel all my life has been a series of departures. He raises his eyebrows, placing the mugs on the table, and looks at me as if he had expected a prince and all he could see was a frog. Then we both laugh. He says, still standing, You can say this sort of crap in the privacy of these four walls–I am your friend; I shall forgive you–but don’t ever write this in your book. I say, But is is the truth. Lady, he says, we do not need your truths but your fiction–if you’re any good, perhaps you can trickle in some sort of truth, but spare us your real feelings. P. 338
Nafisi’s memoir goes into depth about the books they read, and about the people in her life, but is frustratingly vague about her own self. It as if the narrator is a void, through which she talks about books and other people. I found it a bit unsettling that she spent more time narrating others’ stories than her own. I also found her use of quotation marks inconsistent and difficult to read. But I did appreciate Nafisi’s insights into the novels she and her students read, including Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and Daisy Miller, and am interested to read or re-read them. This book is a good complement to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis graphic novels, but I preferred those to this. Satrapi is the main character of her narrative, not an insubstantial observer and periodic participant in her own story.
I wonder if some of the popularity of this book comes from readers who crave but did not experience the kind of critical, deep readings of books that Nafisi does with her students.
September 9th, 2005 at 10:03 am
This book completely disappointed me too. I personally would have liked less discussion of the actual novels and more discussion of her life and the lives of the others in the group and other in the author’s life. I happened to read The Jane Austen Book Club right after this one and that author did a wonderful job of making the novels discussed just a vehicle for delving more into the lives of the characters. Of course the two books have little to do with each other, but I thought it was worth a mention.