Entry tags:

book review, memoir

Number 3
3. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (Memoir)

From the back of the book:

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads stages arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories became intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

I can't say this book did much for me. I was very excited to read it, because I've heard many good things about it, but I just couldn't get into it.

Part of it is that I had real trouble keeping the people and events straight in my head. The author seemed to jump around a lot from one time frame to another, and if I put the book down for a day or two, I couldn't remember who anybody was. I don't know why; I usually have an excellent memory for books.

I also think Nafisi's writing style had something to do with it. It just didn't enthral me. Although I was interested in what she was writing about, I had to force myself to finish the book. Perhaps memoirs just aren't for me - I like to be caught up in the plot of a novel, to feel like the story is going somewhere. That's what keeps me reading, and I didn't get that feeling from Reading Lolita in Tehran.

So, yeah, I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. I feel like the reasons I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have have less to do with its merits as a novel and more to do with my preferences as a reader. Which I suppose is usually true when I write a review, but I've rarely felt it more strongly than now.

Books read: 3/50
Pages read: 834

Next on the list:

• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• Obasan by Joy Kogawa
• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
• The Wars by Timothy Findley
• Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay