Claire B. reviewed on 3/8/2014 + 29 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

I had been interested in reading this for a while, because the story intrigued me - what was it like to read forbidden western books in Iran? From the cover and reviews, I expected the story of this secret class, and of these women's lives in Iran. Instead, this book is primarily a very personal account of the author's life and the literature she reads. There is much ruminating on the boundaries between fiction and life, and a great deal more literary analysis than I expected. Moreover, the whole middle part of the book has nothing to do with the secret class at all, but with the author's teaching experience at Iranian universities.
I suppose there is not all that much we can know about other's lives, especially lives of students. But by trying to convey her literary insights, her feelings about life in Iran, and glimpses of the lives of others, the author primarily succeeded in frustrating me. I was hoping for more of one of these things, rather than fragments of all.

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