This seems to be my week for reviews...Okay, if you haven't read this book or heard about this book--especially if you're a woman--then you have to stop reading this blog and go buy it now. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi, was supposed to be February's selection for my Mom's Club bookclub. My friend Rachel had a copy that I borrowed while visiting her in Charlotte recently. She told me I'd love it, and when it comes to books, I trust Rachel.
Soon after I started reading the book, which I immediately loved, my bookclub decided it was too difficult to read and picked a new book. I'm boycotting this month's meeting because of this decision, but of course I never actually go, so they won't miss me.
Read on for my review. I don't think I spoil anything.
In Reading Lolita, Nafisi took me into a world about which I knew very little. I vaguely remember the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980--my kindergarten class drew pictures to send to the freed hostages. I'm embarrassed now to admit how little I've paid attention to Iran. This book was eye-opening for me. It was also challenging. One night soon after I started reading it, Ike built a fire (in our fireplace. Well, duh.) and spent a couple of hours detailing Iranian history from the 1970s on (yes, I asked him to, and yes, it was quite romantic). I'm still fuzzy on some dates and names. For some reason, these are not details my brain chooses to keep. At any rate, Nafisi took names and places that were vague or completely unfamiliar to me and made them real.
Azar Nafisi is currently a professor at Johns Hopkins University, but Reading Lolita is her memoir of adulthood in Iran. The book is mostly her recollections from a secret literature class she taught in her home. After being expelled from her professor position at the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the veil, she formed a private class with several young women who had previously studied under her. The class often studied books banned by the government. In one poignant memory, she writes of the photocopied pages of a book some of the girls shared because they no longer had access to the books themselves. Her memoir shows its readers the ways these girls used the class as both a space to study literature and as a place to dream of a life of freedom.
I admit that Reading Lolita shamed, but also inspired, me because of how little I've read. I read constantly (well, every chance I get, anyway) and I think I choose high-quality books. But Nafisi refers to several classics in her memoir, and I was disturbed by how few of them I'd read. You know how so many people are talking of the shame Americans should feel for our lackluster involvement in elections after seeing how many Iraqis voted? It's similar for me. I have free and unobstructed access to so much terrific literature, and what's my excuse for not reading it??
When I started this book, a friend had loaned me three books I didn't want to read. All Danielle Steele. Yes, I know, you can save your comments on this one. I had no interest in reading these books, but felt like I should to avoid hurting my friend's feelings. However, when I began Reading Lolita, I realized that there's just too much good reading out there to waste my time on fluff. (By the way, I did read one of those Danielle Steele books. It didn't kill me, but I don't remember anything about it.)
"A novel is not an allegory...It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing. I just want you to remember this."
--Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran