Search - Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

It took me a few chapters to get into "Reading Lolita". I thought it was going to be a strict memoir, and when she digressed into these elaborate dissertations on (especially Lolita), I found myself getting bored. Now, I'm not one to ever eschew an intellectual conversation or debate on anything, but I really wanted to hear about the girls and their lives and Azar Nafisi's life in this horrible theocratic regime. I also wanted to know how they managed to get away with reading such blasphemous stuff. When Azar Nafisi talked of these things, I couldn't put the book down, but when she started on her diatribes and nuanced descriptions of "Lolita", Nabokov, Fitzgerald and Austen, I found my mind wandering. I suppose if I had picked up a book entitled, "The In-Depth Analysis of Vladimir Nabokov and Lolita", I wouldn't have felt that way, but as you know, this isn't that book. As the book progressed, I really did have affection for some of the characters, and I truly felt scared for them and hoped that this book didn't have a horrible ending like all the women getting executed. Luckily, we didn't have to deal with that, but I wish Azar Nafisi would write a book just talking about the lives and feelings and situations of young women in Iran, so that people in the United States can really figure out what's going on over there. Unfortunately, I believe that would be hard for Nafisi to do. She is definitely an intellectual, and I think her interest lies in absolutely dissecting fiction in a way that no one else is really interested in.

Finally, I do believe this book is worth reading. I learned some things about what was going on when the Ayatollah was in power, things I didn't realize and I did find myself sort of missing "the girls" after reading the last page and closing the book.

This is not a badly written book. I kept losing interest in it - Anyone over the age of 30 is aware of the oppression that women in Iran suffered upon the Revolution. The problem I had with it is that in order to fully comprehend this story, the literature discussed in this memoir should be fresh in the reader's head. Unfortunately, I haven't read stories such as The Great Gatsby or Lolita in years, and didn't want to reread these stories solely for the sake of Nafisi's book.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but when I started I found it somewhat boring. I have never read Lolita, so I guess this started me off on the wrong foot. I wanted to read more about the women and their lives in Iran than the discussions in their bookclub. I am posting this book but will try to finish before it goes.

I tried very hard to read this book. I usually read a minimum of 50 pages before deciding I don't like a book. I gave this book about 100 pages and still couldn't find it worth my time. It was a big disappointment to me as I was anxious to learn more about the women and the challenges they faced. Instead, for my tastes, too much of the book was being devoted to a critique of the books the women in the group read. I wanted to read more about the women and less about the books.

Scary picture of what it could be like living in a country under the rule of religious zealots. This book is about a group of young women and a professor (Nafisi) that gather to study some of the forbidden literature of the decandent West. What is revealed is the effect of the current ruling regime on these young women as they search for their own uniqueness in a society that seeks to cloth them in sameness.

Very interesting if you are into literature. Not quite as good sociologically.

This was informative and had been on my TBR list for awhile. There were few surprises in the book. It's just good to be reminded about how lucky we are to be living in this time and in the U.S.

I left this book with a renewed sense of strength and an amplified connection to the collective of women on our planet. How these goddesses of Iran deal with such oppression is something every woman and man should appreciate. Though it may not be fraught with "action" as some may want, I found this book to be an impossible to put down read...stick with it if you are having trouble beeing pulled in. The empathy will pour out of you as you read, especially for those with open hearts & minds.

i didn't finish the entire book.... though there were many things i learned from it, especially about iranian way of life, i just couldn't keep focused.

Even though the book bogs down at different times I felt compelled to finish it. I needed to know more about current struggles for intellectual freedom.

I loved all the literary references in this book - it made me want to read even more than I already do!

You can check out my complete review here.

I never thought too much about reading as a form of freedom until I read this book. A compelling read, which makes me wonder how much has changed or remained the same in Iran since the author's departure in the 1990s.

I tried and tried but I found this book to be murderously boring. I had a very difficult keeping the young women straight, also. I'm not sure if it's because I had trouble remembering each of their names or if I just didn't care.

I felt that the author had an inflated sense of her knowledge of literature. Instead of focusing on the relationships and the women in her book club, she spent the book discussing works of literature. It was hard work to read. When the author did come back to the stories of the women, I couldn't remember who they were because it had been so long since we'd focused on them. There are better books out there about life in Iran.

I found some of the reviews for this book surprising. I too found it slow going and difficult to read at times, but it is, after all, a memoir in books, so I was prepared to read a lot about books and literary criticism. Azar Nafisi is a professor having taught English literature in Tehran and this book is about her experiences with some of her students as they got together to discuss Western literature. Of course the book focuses on literature, especially Nabokov, but it also focuses on oppression, her students, and what they all went through during this time in Revolutionary Iran, a melancholy analysis of how their lives compared to the lives of those they were reading about. I liked this book, but it may have been easier to read if I had read all of the literature referenced. Literary criticism is the backbone of this book, so if that bores you, this book is not for you.

I first picked up this book when it was a paperback best seller (maybe 2004 or 2005?) and had an awful time getting into the book. It's definitely heavy on allusions, and I think that is probably the source of my difficulty. Since then, I've read Lolita, and I read The Great Gatsby years ago, and when I picked up the book last week, the constant references to Nabokov in the first section of the book didn't throw me off.

The book is split into sections defined by the book or author most alluded to, in this order: Lolita, Gatsby, James, and Austen. I haven't read any of Henry James' or Jane Austen's novels, but I think I'd built up enough interest in the characters in the first two sections to carry me through the rest of the book.

This time around, I enjoyed the book greatly and flew through it in a week. I'd recommend the book strongly, with the disclaimer that you'll enjoy it more if you're very familiar with at least some of the literary allusions.

The Iranians kicked out the Shah only about thirty years ago, and there is still a ways to go (especially in economic equality, etc), but if people really believe that Americans lived in a more democratic country 30 years after our revolution, I'd suggest they'd ask African or Native peoples alive at that time what they think. The American governments standards of free speech is one that the vast majority of people around, including middle easterners, unfortunately, do not share. However, the day to day lives, and "oppression" of Iranians is quite eskewed by popular books, movies, and magazines. Like many other very wealthy Iranians, "Azar Nafisi" isn't just an objective bystander, with a passion for western literature. There is no such thing as an objective bystander--whether you're a rich Iranian with a daddy who worked for the Shah--or not. Besides, what is so terrible about a head scarf? Women in some societies are't even required to cover their breasts. Are American women more oppressed simply because they are? Every society has slightly different standards for covering. I won't judge the writer just for describing her experiences, but I'd like to see some less unilateral, more analytical accounts of Iranian culture in future widespread media, rather than ones that reinforce well known stereotypes ("Not Without My Daughter" etc).

very good

One woman's effort to help the women of Iran learn of the world through books.It is a memoir of a professor from Iran, now teaching in the states.
You will fall in love with the students as well as the teacher, and totally enjoy the critiques of the books they read, which you, no doubt have also read.

My book group loved this book!