My first reading of Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran" was my introduction to Iranian culture, the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the Iran/Iraq war. It was also one of the factors that influenced my choice to enroll in the Iranian Culture in Translation class. Having done a second (partial reading) of Nafisi I am struck by the consistency that her story has with those of some of the other writers we have read this semester. Especially in light of the comments made by Seyed Mohammad Marandi (see my last 2 blog entries) regarding there veracity of some of the claims made (specifically) by Nafisi and Marjane Satrapi in "Persepolis" these consistencies bring into question the claims of Marandi as well as open up the additional question of what other perspectives might we be missing in the West vis-a-vis modern and contemporary Iran. Whether we agree or disagree with Marandi's claims against these authors he does at least offer the possibility of a significantly different point of view regarding the current government in Iran.
That said, the fact that so many authors report such similar facts surrounding the revolution, government practices before and after the revolution, and the execution of the Iran/Iraq war leads me to place even more faith in Nafisi's account than I might have initially. For those of us in the Iranian Culture class who have had the opportunity to read a breadth of works on contemporary Iran Nafisi does not offer much new in terms of information. As stated above her accounts are pretty consistent with the likes of Satrapi, Hakakian, and Ebadi. What is of value in "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is Nafisi's ability to zero in on particular people and bring them to life for us. It's hard to come away and not feel a personal acquaintance with her "girls" and the particular issues consuming their individual lives, and that, more than what it tells us about contemporary Iran, is a what makes this book worth the time invested.
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I enjoyed your question about Embroideries at the Satrapi presentation Charles. Marjane said that she hoped her book would make Iranians seem more real and reduce the possibility of demonizing all Iranians. Many people in the Iranian community, however, fear that Satrapi, Hakakian and Nafisi have all been promoted in an effort to do just that. To demonize the Iranian government and justify U.S. military aggression towards it. Regardless of how these books are used by one political group or another, they are still excellent memoirs, and as Satrapi said, true to the author's individual perspective.
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