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Dec 16, 2009

Siria rated it:

This book failed for me on a number of levels. The premise of it sounded interesting to me--a glimpse at the lives of women and academics under the totalitarian regime in Iran, arranged around a series of bookclub meetings and analyses of various famous books. But for such a promising concept, and for a book which deals with so many serious and complex topics, it's facile and cliched. Almost alarmingly so, in fact.

The tone was the biggest failing for me. It's smug and self-important. More...

2 comments like (58 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2008

Laurae1212 rated it:

I am a lover of books. I am a lover of history. I am a lover of cultures. Consequently, I expected to love this book. Sadly, I found my dissappointment growing with each page I turned. The premise of the novel was certainly interesting- exploring times, the way that they were viewed, the oppression of women, religious fanaticism and political regimes that adopted Sharia, family, and the overall way that a country grew dissillusioned with iteself through novels was certainly an interesting one. Y More...

3 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Emma added it

I'm not sure I can finish this book. It's just so boring and self-important. And poorly written. My eyes keep crossing. It makes me angry because I think this COULD really be a good book. It has a good premise, a lot of potential, and it's about a topic I'm actually very interested in and would like to know more about. But instead it's dry as hell and doesn't follow any cohesive pattern--it just feels like a lot of random moments in the life of Azar Nafisi strung together by some run-of-the-mill More...

4 comments like (29 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

oriana rated it:

In case you don't know about this book yet (though, honestly, how could you not know about this book yet?), it is an absolutely amazing memoir by an Iranian woman who was a professor of English & Persian Literature at teh University of Tehran before, during, and after the revolution and war with Iraq. Once wearing the veil became mandatory and she refused to wear one, she was forced to quit teaching, and one way she came up with to fill her time was to gather several of her most dedicated studen More...

6 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

I feel like I showed up for class without reading the required assignment. This book should come with a prerequisite reading list: Lolita, Invitation to a Beheading, The Great Gatsby, Daisy Miller, and Pride and Prejudice or at least a warning for spoilers: Lolita is raped by an older man, Gatsby dies, Daisy Miller doesn't get a happy ending, and Elizabeth Bennett does. If I would have known Nafisi was going to delve into these literary pieces like she would one of her class discussions, I would More...

6 comments like (16 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2007

Kareena rated it:

This was a tough read. I suppose I would have appreciated it more if I had read all the books that were referenced in this one. And if I studied literature, studied the meaning of every scene, every characterization, every image from the books, I might have appreciated it.

Unfortunately this was much too deep and a serious study of literature. I enjoyed her accounts of life in Tehran and the characters in her book. I enjoyed her personal accounts and her life stories. Unfortunately tr More...

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2007

Lorenzo rated it:

I've never read Nabokov's Lolita. Frankly, that book has never been on my list. Hence, you can understand how I've not been attracted by the artful title of this novel. What has aroused my curiosity here has been the Islamic Republic of Iran, formerly Persia.

Indeed Iran has always interested me a lot. Amir, my best friend during secondary school had Iranian roots and he is one of the most clever persons I've ever met in my life. I always say that when me and Amir were 12 years old w More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Naomi rated it:

I read this book while I was down with the flu, which added a dimention to my reading as I was isolated in my room for a couple of days. I read some of the reviews for this book on Good Reads and I must say my experience of this book is quite different from what some other people have reported. Azar's opening two chapters were enough to suck me into her world and engross me. Her reading of Lolita was wonderful and I like the way she able to bring her reading of this book, her reflections on Humb More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 06, 2011

K.D. rated it:

This book is a must read for all those who love modern classic literature and who are interested on what happened in Iran during the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80s. I was in college that time and I have been hearing and reading bits of news about that war. This book completed that story particularly its impact on the ordinary people particularly on its main characters.

Azar Nafisi, a lady author, effectively related her favorite modern fiction works More...

25 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2008

Lena rated it:

In the shadows of all the bluster coming out of Iran these days, I try to remember those stories I've heard about Iranians who do not share the religious fervor of their political leaders and long for a more open society than the one that they currently have. Azar Nafisi's memoir about her life as a literature professor in Tehran the years following the revolution gave me a moving and painful glimpse into the lives of those who chafe under a kind of repression that I can only imagine.

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6 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 29, 2007

Nicola rated it:

This memoir about the power of books in a time of crisis and oppression definitely falls short of the transitive powers the novels it details possess. Though the overall message of the book is a powerful one, its disjointed narrative structure, organized by theme rather than true chronological order, left me more confused than inspired and did not help in my understanding of the bigger picture.

For someone fairly out of the loop as far as politics and world issues go, especially issu More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

lita rated it:

“Gatsby is being put on trial because it disturbs us – at least some of us. [...] This is not the first time a novel – a non-political novel – has been put on trial by a state. [...] Remember the famous trials of Madame Bovary? Ulysses, Lady Chatterly’s Lover dan Lolita? In each case the novel won. But let me focus on a point that seems to trouble his honor the judge, as well as the prosecutor: the lure of money and its role in the novel.”

Paragraf tadi menggambarkan persidangan imaji More...

6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 18, 2008

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it:

Azar Nafisi was an Irani literature professor, teaching in Tehran at the time of the rebellion, and she tries to use the literature she teaches to illuminate what happened to her during that time. She is not successful at that, but her life story shines through despite it.I loved all the parts of this book that didn't have to do with analyzing literature. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't an English major.

Before the actual revolution, Nafisi herself had been a radical young studen More...

14 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2008

BunWat rated it:

This is not always an easy book to read or to like. Its episodic, it jumps around, at times the narrator inserts herself so thoroughly into the foreground that she's all you can see. The match between the lives of women in the revolutionary republic of Iran and such hoary classics as Pride and Prejudice, Daisy Miller, The Great Gatsby sometimes seems tenuous and odd. At times Nafisi makes pronouncements that don't seem to me to follow from the tale she was telling.

But I think its More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Khalid rated it:

Reading Lolita in Tehran is an autobiography of the life of its author, [Azar Nafisi]; by describing her life, the author gave a very interesting depiction of the life in Iran after the revolution. As an expert and a teacher in literature, she colored the autobiography with a touch of literature; novels, as one probably would guess, had a major role in this book. Some of them gave her an explanation of certain situations, others suggested solutions, and she was always on the watch for these hint More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 10, 2007

suz rated it:

Reviewer: L. Shirley "Laurie's Boomer Views" from Amazon

Imagine...Having to hide a satellite dish for fear of being arrested and thrown in prison,having to hide your face with a veil,your body with a robe,your head with a scarf,and God help you if a couple of loose strands of hair are sticking out. Imagine living under such a strict regime that a woman can not walk down the street with a man who is not her husband,father or brother,of having to scramble to differen More...

12 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2009

Kali rated it:

An uncommon approach to memoir writing, the events in the author’s life are informed by and intertwined with great works of 19th & 20th century literature. Nafisi is a professor of literature in Tehran who records her experiences at the time of the revolution. She claims that she is more of a rebel than an activist. This is true within her context. However, as a citizen who attends organizing meetings & protests & loses her job because she defies oppressive laws, her civic involvement is mil More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2008

J rated it:

From its provoking, intriguing title to its very last page, Azar Nafisi's book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, partly a narrative biography, partly a history of a nation and its people, and partly critical analysis of great American and British authors, is astonishing, enlightening, and important. Much like Marjane Satrapi's amazing graphic novels, Nafisi pulls back the headscarves, the long black robes dictated by the Guardian Council, to show us the modern women of Iran and how they fight to mainta More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Apr 18, 2008

Claudia rated it:

To me, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, is a story about the search and struggle for identity. How much of who we are is dictated by our surroundings and how much comes from within? A former English lit. professor in Iran, Azar Nafisi, invites various "girls" to a weekly, private class in her home to discuss literature. Their conversations change over time to discussions of a more intimate and personal nature as these children of the revolution struggle to understand who More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2008

Liz rated it:

I have really mixed feelings about this book. Seeing as it is a best seller you would expect it to be amazing but I have to say that I was not impressed with the writing style at all. It seemed forced and strangely put together... something you would not expect from an author who is so highly educated.

In addition to that the book seemed to be filled with so much propaganda that it was hard for me to ignore it and focus on the authors memoir without feeling that she was trying to push More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Janet rated it:

This book is a great example of the power of a compelling story. Azar Nafisi is a literary critic rather than a trained fiction writer. Her inexperience shows in many rookie mistakes, the kinds of awkward mis-steps that are beaten out of novelists in writing workshops -- occasional self-conscious narrative intrusions (a la George Eliot), jarring word choices in descriptive passages, and unconvincingly heavy "in scene" detail from older memories (stuff that feels imported in order to More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Osho rated it:

"It is only now, when I try to gather up the morsels of those days, that I discover how little, if ever, we talked about our personal lives--about love and marriage and how it felt to have children, or not to. It seemed as if, apart from literature, the political had devoured us, eliminating the personal or private." (p. 237) When I reached this statement about 2/3 in, I thought, yes, and that's why I just can't get into this memoir, despite repeated efforts over the last year.
More...

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 25, 2007

Heather rated it:

I really would have liked to have seen a lot less "Reading Lolita" and a lot more "in Tehran." I've tried to read this book at least three times over the past three years and each time couldn't muster the energy to plow through it. I think the only reason I made it through this time was because of my long commute and the threat of being due back at the library soon.

As I said above, the parts of the book that dealt with the socio-political landscape of the Isla More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2008

Eastofoz rated it:

A very dense and sometimes difficult read. More than once I was close to just giving up for how dry it was at times. The “mysterious” title is what drew me in as did the back blurb but they’re both somewhat misleading.

The book reads more like literary theory mixed with memoir and endless pages of heavy narrative --not quite what I expected. If you haven’t read the majority of the classics dissected in the book I don’t see how you could enjoy it or appreciate what the author is t More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 07, 2008

Anna rated it:

It is exactly what it claims to be - a memoir in book about the life as a teacher (at univ level) before, during and after the Iranian Revolution.
The story is certainly not without flaws - it feels pretty unfocused at times - but then again it takes place in a chaotic time.

I liked it for a number of reasons:
It expects some intelligence on part of the reader. Or to be more specific - some literary knowledge. You can certainly read it without having read all the books (most More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 11, 2007

sonia rated it:

I know not having roots in Iran, it isn't really my issue--but I sort of got through this book reminded of the age old tension between "embittered" expats and their ability to appeal to western egos versus people who sort of purport themselves to be nationalists. Not knowing much, my initial instinct was that this book REALLY appeals to the western ego. At an instinctual level it re-affirmed for me that women are better off in America. Whether or not that was the intended effect, I don More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Erin rated it:

I know that a lot of people reading this book get really bogged down in literary details and the critique of other books.

I enjoyed finding out about the women that live in such a repressive society. Having lived in China, and experiencing a little bit first hand what it is like to have the government control you, I felt that I could relate to the people in this book. I found myself skipping over all the details and all the "stuff" about Lolita. I simply didn't care about tha More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2009

Jeana rated it:

This memoir started out strong and ended strong; the problem was the inbetween. To be honest, I didn't really mind all the literary criticism as I had read most of these books (and at least a book by each of the authors in question). And I didn't mind the anecdotes about politics and all the horrible things that happened to the people Nafisi knew.

The problem comes somewhere in the writing style; the writing is just dry. The author actually alludes to the fact that because she's More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2009

Amanda rated it:

If you want to take a college lecture on literature, this is the book for you! It reminds me of the luxury of just reading books -- except in this book, the students manage to make it to class despite the student dissidents being executed outside and bombing of the city outside. It is easy to picture yourself in a lecture hall, with the author as your professor, discussing books. You know if she were your professor, you would think she was amazing.

The good points:
1. I reall More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 17, 2011

Jen rated it:

I expected this to be a book about books -- the title and subtitle would lead you to believe that it will be. But while Nafisi's memoir is interspersed with observations on her favorite authors/books (Nabokov, The Great Gatsby, Henry James, Pride and Prejudice) this book is more a political memoir of Iran.

I am glad to have read this. At a time when Iran and other countries around the world are in upheaval, and when my own country is experiencing an ideological shift, it is important to More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)