Reading Lolita in Tehran

It doesn’t happen often – I’m more of a fiction girl – but once in awhile I have an urge to read non-fiction.   Last summer, I finished Mr. Playboy, the biography of Hugh Hefner – he is one of my favourite pop cultural icons, see at the end of this post to find out why – and only now, did I find another non-fiction book that piqued my interest.

What sold me about Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi was its tagline: “a memoir in books.”  How could I resist?  It discusses the Iranian Islamic revolution and its effect on Iranian women from the viewpoint of Nafisi, once a professor of English at Tehran University, who now lives in the States.  Each chapter explores a different author or book, such as Lolita, that she read during monumental moments in the revolution.  She connects the novels to her reality, discussing how each reflect and contradict each other, while proving the power of words.  The simplest novel, such as The Great Gatsby, caused outrage amongst her students.  In North America people freak out because there’s swearing or magic in a novel, but its qualities like selfishness that make for unacceptable reading material in Iran – and God forbid there’s sex!

Nafisi eventually left the university because she refused to wear the veil and formed her own secret book club with some of her favoured female students.  In their first meeting, Nafisi asked them to start a journal, using the first entry to define themselves; none of them could complete the assignment.  They grew up in the revolutionized Iran where their identity was stripped from them; they became defined only by their men.  I was shocked by their inability to even understand the assignment, none of them knew where to begin. It was a complete culture shock for me.

What I found most interesting was when Nafisi discussed the role of the veil in the revolution.  She is very anti-veil and that made me a little skeptical at first.  In my last year of university I took a sociology class about colonialism.  A lot of the course focused on the veil, and how the “West” views/portrays it as female imprisonment, and uses it as a tool to further its role as the “good guys” over the East.  Since Nafisi now lives in the States and the book was published by an American publisher, I wondered if it was just furthering the Western stereotype of the veil.  But one of my favourite parts in the book came from a conversation between Nafisi and her grandmother.  Her grandmother always wore her veil until the revolution.  She said, as a young woman she chose to wear the veil as a sign of her faith in Islam and of her personal relationship with her God, but now it has become a political tool and lost all personal meaning.

Nafisi writes, “The Islamic Revolution, as it turned out, did more damage to Islam by using it as an instrument of oppression than any alien could have done,” (Pg. 109).

This part calmed my suspicions a bit because she addressed the many roles the veil has now, understanding why people both want and don’t want to wear it.

Nafisi always manages to discuss important sociological and political events like the veil, while always relating them back to literature.  It was basically an English class that I actually wanted to attend.  It was a good break from fiction and is definitely worthy of its top 10 of the decade distinction.

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So my slight fascination with Hugh Hefner: He created a porn magazine in his basement and managed to turn it into an international enterprise – I saw a playboy club in London, England!  He’s over 80 years old now – he’s practically half-dead – and yet, still manages to convince four 20-year-old women that it’s a good idea to be his girlfriends, all at the same time, while living holed up in his huge playboy mansion wearing only pyjamas everyday.  And people view him as a God.  Talk about right time, right place.  His climb to the top wasn’t all boobs and blondes though, he actually played a huge role in cultural development over the 60’s and 70’s being the starting point of many prolific writers, abetting many underground cultural movements – including feminism, in a kind of a twisted way though – and becoming one of the most hated and admired individuals of the 20^th/21st century.   It’s crazy.   Love him or hate him, he definitely leads an interesting life and the book was a very informative read.

What does Canada read?

And the winner of this year’s CBC Canada Reads competition is… Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner!  The winner was announced last week, I don’t want to brag or anything but I guessed it.  Every year CBC hosts a three-month battle, where five celebrity panelists defend their favourite Canadian fiction novel.

This year it was between:

Good to Fault – Marina Endicott

Nikolski – Nicolas Dickner

Generation X – Douglas Coupland

The Jade Peony – Wayson Choy

Fall on your knees – Ann-Marie MacDonald

I love this competition because people actually get involved in it.  As soon as the shortlist was announced people would come into the store, pick up all five books and just buy them without even looking at the back.  Good on you CBC.

But some people were disappointed with the five choices this year.  Canada Reads was created to promote Canlit, but do authors Douglas Coupland and Ann-Marie Macdonald need CBC’s help?  They are already well-established Canadian authors whose books are already bestsellers.  Also most of these books were published by multi-national publishing houses instead of born Canadian houses, so is CBC really promoting the growth of Canlit or keeping it too mainstream?  In response, the competitions Canada Also Reads and Canada Reads Independently were created.

The National Post, under the pseudonym of their book blog The Afterword, created their own competition, Canada Also Reads, which is exactly the same as Canada Reads – celebrity panelists, essays and debates – but with eight books, instead of just five:

My White Planet – Mark Anthony Jarman

The Day the Falls Stood Still – Cathy Marie Buchanan

Last Shot – Leon Rooke

The Best Laid Plan – Terry Fallis

You and the Pirates – Jocelyne Allen

Yellowknife – Steve Zipp

Come, Thou Tortoise – Jessica Grant

Fear of Fighting – Stacey May Fowles

Out of these eight books, I’ve only heard of two of them, while I know 4 out of 5 of the Canada Read nominees.   If they continue hosting this competition it might actually encourage people to look beyond the mainstream Canlit.  This year’s winner is Come, Thou Tortoise, which I’ve actually read, not sure if I agree with the choice though, and it is published Alfred A. Knopf, not exactly a struggling company.

Canada Reads Independently was also created to delve even deeper into the underworld of Canlit.  It was created by Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This, who enjoys Canada Reads but found this year the books were too obvious unlike the previous year’s line up.  She wanted books that would challenge her, that came out of nowhere, so she created her own list and own celebrity panel.

Moody Food – Ray Robertson

How Happy to Be – by Katrina Onstad

Wild Geese – by Martha Ostenso

Hair Hat – by Carrie Snyder

Century – by Ray Smith

Hair Hat looks really good!  A collection of short stories, which I have never been able to wrap my head around, but they are all linked by one character; that might make it more bearable for me.  The winner will be announced soon.

I like the idea behind the second two lists better, which lists do you prefer?  Do you agree with Canada Reads 2010 or wishing for something else?

The Flying Troutmans

My favourite author, Miriam Toews!  She’s my author crush.  She writes the novels I wish I could write.  The Flying Troutmans is her fifth novel, she has written one non-fiction book and three other fiction novels – one of which, A Complicated Kindness, won the Governor General’s award in 2004, won CBC’s Canada Reads competition and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize.

I just really connect with her writing style; it’s reality mixed with sarcasm and dark humour, what more could I ask for?  Her books are all character-driven, my favourite, and are written with such clarity and assurance that they develop into real people; I feel I know them.  Most of her characters have reached a low point in their lives: teen motherhood, depressed Mennonites, mayor of the smallest and most insignificant town in Canada, but always manage to find the humour in life, the humour in their own situations.  This particular book is not my favourite of hers, but it still maintained my interest and her position as my favourite author.   And Bonus: It’s also signed!  She came to a local bookstore and I actually spoke to her!  Probably one of my top 20 moments.

This novel is about Hattie, the main character, and her dysfunctional family/life.  She has recently returned to Canada from Paris after she receives an SOS call from her 12-year-old niece, Thebes.  Her sister has fallen into yet another bout of manic depression and neither Thebes nor her brother, Logan, can handle it on their own anymore.  She commits her sister into the hospital and becomes overwhelmed by the assumed guardianship of her niece and nephew.  She decides to embark on a road trip to find their missing father, jumping off the few clues she has of his location.

This becomes the typical road trip novel, where characters learn about themselves and each other, but, once again, her characters are unforgettable.  Thebes spends her time in the back of the van making large novelty cheques for people she meets along the way, Logan carves poetry into the dashboard and Hattie spends the drive trying to come to terms with the fact that her ex-boyfriend preferred to speak to her telepathically.   It’s little details like this that differentiate her novels and make them memorable.

The Flying Troutmans was a really easy and enjoyable read, as all of her novels have been.  However, my favourite novel by Toews is Summer of my Amazing Luck, her first novel.  See here for a description.

Also, all of her books have been designed to match, so not only are they excellent reads but they look beautiful together on my book shelf!  It’s like they were made for me.