another book review

Right now I am reading Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. I had a difficult time getting into the book at first. Probably because I am pretty egocentric with my reading and couldn't automatically relate to the author's story. Also, I was too attached to the description on the back of the book and was annoyed when the book strayed from that prescribed course. As I have mentioned before I love to read memoirs and this one is slowly floating to the top of my favorites list.

The author begins by describing the women who would come to her house on Thursdays in Iran (their weekends are Thursday and Friday- I didn't know that). I don't know the exact date but the women have to wear the chador, the long robes and scarves that cover them from head to toe in public, but they are able to take them off when they enter her house. They meet to read and discuss books that have since been banned in Islamic Iran- hence the title Reading Lolita in Tehran. As I read it I felt like she quickly swerved from recounting their meetings sometime in the past 10 years back to her graduate school experience in the U.S. and then her return to Iran around 1979. (This was the part that I became annoyed). However, as I have continued reading the book I have recognized the necessity in her telling of the violent transitions that took place during that time.

I don't feel competent to describe any of the events or situations she writes about in her book- instead I will just recommend it to anyone who wants a book to read. The memoir reads more like a novel because of the author's ability to describe feelings and senses instead of just colors or shapes. If that makes any sense. She was/is a Literature professor and so she uses novels as her medium for discussion in real life and her memories. So far the only novel I have read that she discusses is The Great Gatsby, but for the first time I find myself wanting to read the other classics she mentions, such as Jane Eyre or Daisy Miller (which I had never heard of). Maybe it is the English major laying dormant in me that is starting to wake up as I have been reading this book but it has been sticking with me the past couple of weeks as I go throughout the day.

I can't imagine living in a war-torn environment with execution standing as a logical punishment for a variety of offenses. It is not possible to count the number of hours I have retreated deeply into one book or another for escape and relative to most I have had very little to retreat from. If I have spent hours disappearing into the pages of a novels- I can't even imagine how real a novel could become if the real world around me was making as little sense as those women's world did in Iran.

The author describes feeling irrelevant as the laws around her changed. Maybe I am throwing myself a gigantic pity party but I empathized with her in a small way as I adjust on a daily basis to being married- to being the wife. Just by saying that I feel pathetic and small- I have no right to compare myself being married to a loving, kind husband, to a woman living in Iran during the "revolution" and all that it entailed. But nonetheless, feeling like it really does not matter one day from the next what you do, or deep down want to do, or hope to do, feeling irrelevant, is something I understand on a basic level.

Anyway, even though I haven't finished the book yet, I recommend Reading Lolita in Tehran to anyone wanting a good book to read. I will let you know how the last 140 pages go.