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anahitareads 's review for:
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi
Reading Lolita in Tehran promises to show life during and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I was hesitant to read this book because many friends have mentioned that they either 1) own the book but have not read it or 2) have started the book but stopped due to disinterest. Reviews of the novel have similar messages. I went into the novel on the fence, and told myself it might be different because I am an English major. In fact, the only parts of the novel I relatively enjoyed were the literary analysis portions.
The other parts of the novel were a negative, jarring account of living life in Iran, and this was excruciatingly difficult to read especially during the Iraq war portions of the book. It felt overwhelming and heavy. Those who want to learn about life in Iran at this time should not look to this memoir as their source of information because it constantly blurs Islam - the religion - with the government's *backwards, tyrannical, and inaccurate* use of Islam to rule. One small example is the incessant use of the veil as a metaphor, that once the women took off their 'veils,' another 'veil' came down. The tropes Nafisi partakes in replicate orientalist views that the West has, viewing places like Iran and people who practice Islam as backwards and uncivilized.
To anyone who has read this book or simply wants to understand truly why this book bothered me so much, I recommend them to read the article "Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran," of which I have quoted a good conclusive statement below that sums up the problem of Nafisi:
"She is an oriental woman who has been enlightened by western thought and culture, thus she is an authority on the backward and barbaric land that she has left behind." (Seyed Mohammed Marandi, University of Tehran, Iran)
The other parts of the novel were a negative, jarring account of living life in Iran, and this was excruciatingly difficult to read especially during the Iraq war portions of the book. It felt overwhelming and heavy. Those who want to learn about life in Iran at this time should not look to this memoir as their source of information because it constantly blurs Islam - the religion - with the government's *backwards, tyrannical, and inaccurate* use of Islam to rule. One small example is the incessant use of the veil as a metaphor, that once the women took off their 'veils,' another 'veil' came down. The tropes Nafisi partakes in replicate orientalist views that the West has, viewing places like Iran and people who practice Islam as backwards and uncivilized.
To anyone who has read this book or simply wants to understand truly why this book bothered me so much, I recommend them to read the article "Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran," of which I have quoted a good conclusive statement below that sums up the problem of Nafisi:
"She is an oriental woman who has been enlightened by western thought and culture, thus she is an authority on the backward and barbaric land that she has left behind." (Seyed Mohammed Marandi, University of Tehran, Iran)