I might get into the habit of this whole Sunday afternoon roundup thing, seeing as how I devote most of the weekend to reading, as a general rule. And this was a good weekend for it; bright, sunny, excellent.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

This was a fascinating book, and I can see why it was quite trendy for awhile. There’s a lot about it for middle class women in book clubs to like, and it’s almost good in parts.  Unfortunately, the structure was just a little bit too scattered for me to commit to enjoying this book. It was…decent, and very interesting, but not quite awesome, or excellent.

It was really intriguing to read about the author’s life, and the slow transition in Iran as it became a fundamentalist Islamic republic. But Nafisi’s writing was just a bit too scattered, making it hard to focus on what was going on, or to keep track of the characters. Sometimes the timing of the narrative wasn’t clear, and she made allusions to things but didn’t discuss them, and randomly dropped bombshells without explaining them, which was kind of frustrating.

It just felt like the book suffered from a lack of editing, which is a major bummer, since the topic is really gripping. If the book could just be tightened up a bit, it would be fantastic. Oddly enough, after lightly bagging on it, I really would recommend it to people who haven’t read any memoirs out of Iran (and there aren’t many, at least in English). I think that it really illustrated the situation in Iran for me in a way I hadn’t considered before, talking about what it’s like to have the wearing of the veil become a political act, rather than a religious expression, and how frustrating it is to be treated as a second class citizen in a society were women were once viewed with equality.

While I don’t think we’re bound for a religious republic that conservative, the book did make a few sobering points, and it reminded me of the important of speaking out, before it’s too late.

Demographics:

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi. Published 2004, 356 pages. Biography.

Cross Dressing 

Pure, unadulterated tripe. The nice thing about bunching my weekend books in together is that I don’t feel guilty for not going into great detail about the trashy books I read. This book was simply silly, and a very quick read, and entertaining. Sometimes one needs that sort of thing on a Saturday night.

Demographics:

Cross Dressing, by Bill Fitzhugh. Published 2004, 338 pages. Fiction.

Fallen Skies

Fans of historical fiction will know who Phillippa Gregory is; for those of you who don’t, uhm, she’s famous for writing historical fiction, usually with female characters who swan about acting shockingly historically inaccurate. She’s not quite on the bodice-ripper level, but it’s a close call. I would also classify this book as weekend trash, picked up because I wanted something to entertain myself with and I didn’t really feel like thinking.

The book takes place in England shortly after the First World War, and it features a cast of characters who fit in reasonably well with the era. Gregory does a reasonably good job, I think, of talking about the struggles that a lot of returning veterans endured, in an era where post traumatic stress disorder was not recognized as a problem, but written off as “shell shock” displayed by weak, ineffectual soldiers.

I think that the book also really captured the plight of a lot of upper class women of the time, illustrating the fact that these women were basically helpless, unable to go to work on their own, and sometimes forced into really difficult and untenable situations. Fear and the need for security can be powerful motivators.

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Fallen Skies, by Phillipp Gregory. Published 1993, 507 pages. Fiction.