I do not like the theocratic regime in Tehran, but people who have been its staunch critics, even they have criticised Nafisi's account as portraying Iranians and their culture in very simplistic, myopic, orientalist manner that is more a work of imagination than reality.

It's a memoir and it's based on her experiences but I think one can't separate memoirs of this kind from the politics of its printing and dissemination. Edward Said might have called it part of the larger knowledge production by the Western academy (and Nafisi is firmly part of the Western academy) to frame 'the other' in a way they had wanted it. The book was intended for a certain audience, it had to aim at its target well, and it had to portray things as it did to achieve the status it finally acquired in contemporary memoir writing of the political bent.

I might have finished reading it had it been written well. But it wasn't. So DNF.

I would give this 10 stars if I could.

My Review: n  Reading Lolita in Tehrann.

مازلت أتسائل عن قوة النهايات ، نهايات الكتب ، نهايات الأفلام ، نهايات الأشياء ، نهايات البشر ، تداعيتاها والقُدرة على جعلك حزيناً جداً وسعيداً جداً في آن معاً لكنني أؤمن بأن نهايات الكتب - خاصة - هي كتب بحدِ ذاتها ، لمَ تحمله من مشاعر وعواطف مكثفة و بالغة التأثير على القارئ تساوي في ذلك الجزء الكبير من الكتاب .

حين شرعت في قراءة ( أن تقرأ لوليتا في طهران ) مع كل صفحة من صفحات الكتاب كنت أشعر بأنني أكثر إنغلاقاً على ذاتي و توحداً لفترة من الوقت ، كما لو أن آذر تبعث ب"جنياتها" إلى داخلي ، ليبقوني حبيسة السطور أطول فترة ممكنة ، حتى بعد إغلاقي الكتاب مع علامة تشير إلى توقفي يبقى الشعور بروحي عالقة هناك و جسدي مُحرر بطريقة من الطرق . وصفت هذا إحدى طالبات آذر في النهاية بدقة متناهية : "وأنا أفيق من نومي وأضع حجابي أمام المرآة وأخرج من بيتي فأغدو جزءاً مما نسيمه الواقع ، أعلم كذلك بأنه ثمة أنا أخرى أصبحت عارية على صفحات كتاب من عالم آخر هو عالم الخيال وأعلمُ بأنني غدوتُ ثابتة خالدة مثل تمثال لرودان " كان هذا الكتاب هو كتابك آذر ، حيث روحي عاريةٌ عالقةٌ هناك أبقى فارغة حتى أعود ليتوحد لدي الجسد و الروح معاً .

آذر نفيسي معيدة في الأدب الإنجليزي ، إستقالت من عملها لتبدأ صفاً خاصاً مع نخبة من طالبتها اللواتي لمستْ فيهن حُباً للأدب لذاته دون سواه ، نسرين ، ميترا و آذين ، مهشيد ، مانا وياسي ، سانازا و الطالب الخفي ( نميا) زوج مانا ، سيصعب عليكَ في البداية تذكرهن ، إلا أنكَ أبداً لن تنساهن بعد أن تفرغ من القراءة ، لكل واحدة منهن حكاية ومشاعر مضطربة وشخصية مُستقلة وعالم خاص ، يواظبن أيام الخميس على الحضور إلى منزلها ، ويبدأن معاً بمناقشة الروايات وإسقاط الشخصيات والأحداث على واقعهن ، ستشعر بالإضطراب لعمق إضطراباتهن و تساؤلاتهن ، غمازاتهن ولمازتهن ، إلا أنكَ مع الوقت ستعتادهن و تباركهن أيضاً :)

ليس هذا هو الجزء الهام فقط من الكتاب ، بل الجزء الذي تتحدث فيه آذر أيضاً عن حياتها وسيرتها وتنقالتها بين جامعات طهران ، آثار الثورة الإسلامية على حياتها و تداعيات حرب العراق و إيران على وطنها و من حولها ، ستتحدث عن من فُتنت به بشكل خاص ( ساحرها ) .. ستتحدث حتى التخمة لتشعر فعلاً أنكَ ممتلئ ممتلئ تماماً .

آذر إلى حدٍ ما لم تكن منصفة ، وهذا يحسم نجمة ، رغم أنه يعزُ عليّ أن أوصم هذا الكتاب المُذهل بنجوم أربعة قد تثير الشبهات و تجعل البعض يعرض عن قرائته .. لكن ( أخي القارئ ) لا تفكر أبداً في تفويت قرائته ، لا تفكر أبداً بأن هنالك كتاب ما سيعوض الترجمة المُذهلة للكتاب بترجمة ريم قيس - اكتشفتها حديثاً - ولا الأفكار البديعة والروح الساحرة لـآذر نفيسي .

أنا أحببت هذا الكتاب ، أحبه حقاً

I find it a bit strenuous writing a bad review. I don't know how do it without resorting to meh, bleh and easily dismissive words.

But I will do this. I picked this book up after seeing it on @Zebatalk thread on Twitter on reading more books from women. I was so excited to read something from the Middle East that isn't manipulative or preaching stereotypes about Muslim women/ or even Muslims generally. I was mistaken, its the same old story.

First, I am a Muslim woman born into a revert family and I know what it means to be caught between tradition and change. I have been in the Middle of it all my life.

I understand why everyone of the protagonists had to hide, to do things they love. I know that feeling and I understand it. But Nafizi instead of making telling us about 'reading Lolita in Tehran' , about the ladies who came together to read Lolita in Tehran or about literary criticism being that the book was called a 'memoir in books' she decided to do propaganda instead.

First, she starts with throwing stereotypical, cliches shade about Islam, Iran and Iranian leaders, typical CNN, Fox style. Then the other departmental heads who did not agree with her, she boxed them into that "they are not so smart, very stupid faux intellectuals" corner. As usual, demonizing and intellectually undermining, Islam and those who practice it.

Then the stories, reviews, literary criticism, group meetings, and the authors personal life were not woven together with any kind of skill. One minute I am reading about Mr Humbert and Lolita, next I am reading creepy stories about her husband in the shower fgs.

This kind of writing, has become typical of SOME Arab writers, whose little, personal, insular explorations and experience don't even pretend to look at or explain without resorting to cliches, Muslim women and Islam.

This book wasn't particularly insightful or well-written, sadly the problem is that a lot of people are going to use it to justify their ignorance about the Middle East. As it reinforces the stereotype and supports the condescending view that these countries are 'backward, warlike, patriarchical'.

While this book perhaps aspires to be an epic portrait of the lives of women, the intellectual in Iran, it doesn't even come close.

My overwhelming emotion throughout the book is feeling entirely manipulated. And guess what, at the end of the story. All of them travelled to America or Britain. Perfect ending huh. Kill me please!!

“إن أسوأ الجرائم التي يمكن أن ترتكبها عقول الأنظمة الشمولية هي أن تجعل مواطنيها وبضمنها ضحاياها شركاء في جرائمها. فحينما ترقص مع جلادك، وتشارك بنفسك في حكم الإعدام على نفسك، فإن ذلك الفعل هو أقصى درجات الوحشية”.

آذر نفيسي.

Reading as Affirmation of Life

Azar Nafisi, from an elite family, returned to Iran from her years of American education hoping for great changes in her country. She got more than she bargained for, but not what she had hoped at all. Instead of more freedom, she wound up with less, with Western literature held suspect, and women constrained by veils and morals police. As students and colleagues disappeared or were executed, she lost her job, her mobility, and her hopes. Somehow, she managed to avoid a worse fate, though we don't really learn how. A bloody war with Iraq that consumed the lives of countless Iranians ensued. Iran's new politico-religious leaders fought under slogans like "The more we die, the stronger we will become." In such an atmosphere, what could a woman do, a woman who did not bend easily to official interference in her life ? She started a reading group of female students that went through many classic Western authors---from Nabokov to Fitzgerald, James, Austen, Flaubert, and Bellow---and discussed the works from their own perspectives. Though Nafisi eventually bowed to the relentless pressure of the culture controllers and left for America, she experienced enough to be able to write a memoir that resonates with anyone, across cultures, with people who have no direct experience with tyranny or with Islamic fundamentalism. The success of her book, in some part, stems from her ability to internationalize her experience, rather than make it purely local. Still, I wonder. For the countless book clubs that discussed Nafisi's work, perhaps using the questions that she thoughtfully (artfully ?) put at the end, what was the predominant emotion ? Was it empathy, as the author obviously hoped ? [Great literature should create empathy with all aspects of the human experience.] Or was it pity ? Or was it the endless, prurient curiosity about the veil---the life of Islamic women---of the `shock-horror', National Enquirer type that seems to be permanently tacked onto Western civilization ? Nafisi writes sincerely, from the heart, but she makes no effort to "clue readers in" who have zero background in Iranian culture or history. When such readers discuss READING LOLITA, what baggage must they bring to their comments ? Will this book not serve as a kind of foil for feminists ? The Iranian mullahs as an axis of evil ? Haven't we had enough of this? I am not querying the author's ability or motives. I am questioning what made this book into a national bestseller.

Nevertheless, READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN is both exciting and interesting. It is exciting to see how great literature became alive in the context of repression, as a necessity of life, not the icing on our cake of materialist provenance. It is interesting because Nafisi weaves the stories of the seven young women, herself, and her family into the tapestry of the literary discussions. The nature of Iranian oppression was to force women to define themselves in the terms of others, not in their own terms. The oppressors succeeded in large part. When the Ayatollah Khomeini died, they mourned, eliciting a passage that eerily echoed Garcia-Marquez's "The Autumn of the Patriarch". "Like all great mythmakers, (Khomeini) had tried to fashion reality out of his dream, and in the end...he had managed to destroy both reality and his dream. Added to the crimes, to the murders and tortures, we would now face this last indignity---the murder of our dreams. Yet he had done this with our full compliance, our complete assent and complicity." (p.246) Such sentiments are not commonly found in America or other Western societies. We can afford more optimistic outlooks and more benign views of politics. But it is a mistake to think that the grim realities occur only in faraway places like Iran.

It seems to me one important side of Nafisi's work is to make us wonder exactly what separates us from Iran and what we need to do to ensure its continued separation. If you read this work in such a light it is extremely worthwhile. The power of literature is to make us think, to make us understand liberty. Great literature inspires people across cultures to dream of a better world, a world in which acknowledgement of common humanity replaces narrow rejection. This book is like an electric arrow pointing in that direction. If you just want to feel lucky that you were not born in Iran or if you want to condemn Islam, Iran, or some `bad guys', then you are going to miss the point.

This book was the perfect opportunity for me to learn things and witness insights about a country and a culture I don't know much and for that I am truly grateful.
It is a beautiful story, sensible and educative and definitely very touchy.

While I was reading this book, I was taken back in my mind to my college days. I enjoyed the philosophy behind the books these women studied and was unmistakably reminded of why I have always loved reading so much. I have not read all of the books discussed in the story, but many of them are on my to-read list, and now I am even more eager to read them.

Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Everyone should pick this up.

Review to come.

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Nafisi invites readers to a period of her life in a radicalized Iran as she and eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western Literature. Through meticulous discussions, they find refuge within these classical texts and unpack complex feelings that plague their current reality.

Engrossed from page one, I felt like I was part of this secret club as the world was crumbling outside. I loved every second of this.

لما بلشت قراءة الكتاب، كنت مترددة إنه أقرأ كتاب مذكرات بالحجم هاد، وخاصة إنه مرت علي من قبل تجارب كثير مملة مع المذكرات
بس من أول صفحة لآخر صفحة وقعت في غرام الكتاب، حبيت أسلوب آذر نفيسي، حبيت الطالبات رغم اختلافهم عن بعض وحسيت إنهم صاروا أصدقائي

A very slow-paced memoir that uses literary analysis as a guide through the author's history as an educator. I loved the book discussion, but the format made the timeline hard to follow.

Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.