Lolita in Tehran Question 1

What did you learn about Iran from this book? What, if any of it surprised you?

Lolita in Tehran Question 2

There were different attitudes toward the veil in Iran. Mashid wore it by choice for her religion, but resented its political enforcement. Nafisi suggested that the enforcement of the practice made her expression of faith meaningless. Do you agree?

Lolita in Tehran Question 3

Nafisi and her magician both make the argument that Ayatollah Khomeini and "they" "did to us what we allowed [them] to do." How is that true? How is it not true?

Lolita in Tehran Question 4

In pages 124-136 The Gatsby trial illustrates the thought process behind censoring in Iran. All of us censor media that we consider to be inappropriate, even if only on a personal level. How is our censoring process any different than the methods used in Iran? When, if ever, is censoring appropriate?

Lolita in Tehran Question 5

The Islamic Republic enacted a number of laws that were extremely oppressive towards women, telling them what they can wear, who can accompany them in public, and how they can act around members of the opposite sex. As a result, men seemed to view women more and more as sexual objects, being aroused at the mere sight of hair or a naked toe. Why would the regime be so oppressive towards women and not towards men? Why were men not expected to live up to equally oppressive standards?

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

During my last semester at BYU I took a Women's Studies class that was absolutely amazing. The professor was a very intelligent and inspiring woman who I really admired. She split our class into groups and assigned us books to read and present to the rest of the class. When one of the other groups presented this book I thought it sounded really interesting and have been wanting to read it ever since.

Here is a review by Random House:

"For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Azar Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading—Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita—their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran.

Nafisi’s account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum.

Azar Nafisi’s luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women’s lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice."

I thought this book sounded insteresting is because it is an insider's perspective of what life was like in Iran (especially for women) during the Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and in the Islamic Republic of Iran in general. I admit I don't know much about the the recent politics of the Middle Eastern countries, but I'm hoping that reading this book will add a little more understanding and perspective to the current situation in that part of the world.

Self Help Books

So this was quite a bit more of a self-help book than I thought it would be. I wasn’t expecting so many introspective questions to ask ourselves and little worksheets and activities. I was actually pretty embarrassed about reading this one and tried not to let people see what I was reading. I feel bad for making others read it because it is a little embarrassing to read a self-help book. Do people think you need help if you’re reading one? Is it socially acceptable? Today people were joking about the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, which I haven’t read, as if everybody knew self-help books were a joke. Little did they know that I had one stashed in my backpack right under their very noses – of course, I was happy that they didn’t know.

I have read a few self-help books in the past and wanted to get everyone’s take on self-help books as a genre before we dive into this specific little gem. I actually read the book “The Secret”. (Not recommended – my dad is really weird and gifted both the book and the audio-book to all of his children, with STRONG encouragement to read it.) I also recently read “The Automatic Millionaire”, so apparently I like self-help books. What do you all think of this type of book in general? Do you like to read them? Is it embarrassing to read them? Do we actually become better people if we do read them?

7 Habits: Question #2

Being LDS and knowing that the author was LDS also, it was easy to see A LOT of gospel/church related ideas/principles woven throughout the book. If the author was not LDS do you think you would identify these as such? Do you think that you would find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with him more or less if you didn’t know you shared the same faith as him (if you had a different paradigm)?

7 Habits: Question #3

Is there a particular habit that really resonated with you as needing to be implemented in your life? Were there any that you thought were really stupid?

7 Habits: Question #4

Can we pretend we’re in a group therapy circle for a second? What does it take to get us to retain and implement good advice? Who wants to share their success story from doing anything that they learned in this book? Does anybody have any other thoughts/comments on the book?