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A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond

Apr5

A String in the Harp was a Newbery Honor book in 1977. (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was the Newbery Award winner in 1977.) A String in the Harp is a long book, with lots of descriptive passages that evoke a sense of setting in the Welsh countryside. Mrs. Bond, an American, wrote her novel after spending two years going to library school in Wales. In fact, Wales itself, its scenery and its history, is almost the central character in the book. One critic said, “Without the traditional Welsh materials, A String in the Harp would be just another adolescent problem novel.” Well, without the entire setting in Wales, there would actually be no novel at all. It made me want to visit Wales, in spite of the cold and the incessant rain that are emphasized in the book.

The story is about the Morgan family: an American professor and his three children, Jennifer, Peter, and Becky. The story is written in third person, but mostly told from the point of view of Jennifer, age 15, and Peter, age 12. The Morgan family has moved to Aberstwyth, Wales for a year for Professor Morgan to teach and pursue research at a university there, leaving Jennifer behind with her aunt so that she can continue high school. As the story opens, Jennifer is coming to join her family in Wales for the winter/Christmas holidays.

There are, of course, problems to be overcome. Peter hates Wales and everything about it. Becky, age 10, just wants the family to be happy. Professor Morgan is distant and impatient with Peter’s inability to adjust to living in Wales. Jennifer is unsure of what her new role in the family is since they are all trying desperately to learn to be a family without their mother who died in a car accident just before the Morgans moved to Wales. All of the problems in the novel have a lot to do with the grief process that each of the Morgans is going through, but the mother is only mentioned a few times in the course of this long novel. We never get to know her, really, and you get the sense that grief is about forgetting and moving on somehow.

Into all of this rather chaotic family emotion and misunderstanding comes a magic artifact, a harp key. Peter finds the key and becomes attached to it, wearing it around his neck on a string as a sort of talisman. He believes that the key is showing him, even taking him into, the past and the life of the sixth century bard and poet, Taliesin. The novel borrows from C.S. Lewis’s with the children, especially Peter, moving into and out of another time and place. At one point a Welsh professor friend is talking to Jen and Becky about whether or not Peter has imagined all of his stories about Taliesin, and he says to them, “What do they teach in your American schools?” The entire conversation is quite reminiscent of the Professor and the children, Peter, Susan, and Edmund, when the professor asks, “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?” and later, “I wonder what they do teach them in these schools.” Only the Welsh professor is asking more, “Why don’t they teach wonder or magic at these (American) schools?”

There are a couple of minor elements to the story that didn’t bother me, but someone else may find them problematic. The characters curse sometimes, even the children, mild curses, mostly damn and hell. I wouldn’t have expected to find cursing in a children’s book published in 1976, but there it is. And Jen at about the halfway point in the novel offers to stay on in Wales and take charge of the household, cooking and cleaning and mothering her siblings. It’s taken for granted that someone (some female?) has to be at least a parttime caretaker and homemaker for the Morgans, and for the first semester of the school year they’ve had a local woman paid to clean house and cook meals for them. One critic called this minor plot element “sexist.”

There’s usually a place in any good book where I “fall into” the story, so to speak. I am immersed and intrigued to find out how the story will play out and how it will end and what truths and affinities I will find along the way. For A String in the Harp, it took a while for me to fall in, but eventually, I did. I suppose it’s a matter of wanting to know how the story and the relationships of the various characters will finally be resolved. I think this story of family disorder turning to order, and coming of age, and magical occurrences without clear boundaries or explanations, would be a hard sell to twenty-first century readers who are used to more action and less atmosphere. But anyone who loves Narnia or Tolkien or Welsh mythology or Arthurian legend might really appreciate this small gem of a book.

When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle

Mar31

2022 Middle Grade Fiction: When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle.

I received a review copy of this book, originally published in Great Britain in 2021, and scheduled for publication in April of 2022 in the U.S. The tagline on the front of my ARC says, “Friendship can come from unexpected places,” and that line does summarize at least one of the themes of this story. In 1940, with his parents unavailable and his grandmother unable to control him, twelve year old Joseph Palmer isn’t to London (instead of being evacuated out of the city) to live with his grandmother’s old friend, Mrs. F.

Joseph is filled with anger, rebellious and quick to take offense from the hurts he has sustained in his short life. When he finds out that Mrs. F. is the sole proprietor of a run-down, war torn zoo in the heart of the city, with most of the animals either sent away or barely surviving, Joseph is even more confused and angry with his grandmother for sending him away, with his father for leaving to go to war, with Mrs. F. for her unyielding personality, with the whole world and the war and “Herr Hitler” and just about everything else, including the silver back gorilla called Adonis.

Joseph continues throughout most of the book to be a prickly and rage-filled character, although we do learn some of the underlying reasons for Joseph’s anger and inability to trust. And just as Adonis is not a tame gorilla (there is no such thing), Joseph is not so much tamed as educated, learning that his impulsive anger and rage do not really serve him well as he navigates the city and the zoo during a war that takes and takes and takes away all that is good and hopeful. Mrs. F. says, at one point in the story, “I hate this war. All of it. All it does is take.”

The story is good. Joseph does grow and learn over the course of the book, in a believable story arc that ultimately ends in both tragedy and hope. But . . . the writing and the details felt a little off in some way. Rough. There’s some language, using God’s name in vain and a few curses sprinkled through, but that wasn’t the real problem. Joseph nurses his rage and anger over and over, and I just couldn’t see where it went, what it really was that redeemed him or relieved him of his fear and hatred. Mrs. F. says more than once that there’s something good deep down inside Joseph. Joseph and Adonis do form a connection, or perhaps even a friendship. And the friendship and loyalty of Mrs. F. and others with whom Joseph lives and works become important to him.

Nevertheless, even with a “four years later” epilogue chapter at the end, the story felt unresolved. I think it would be absolutely traumatizing for animal lovers in the younger end of the middle grades. Joseph’s age, twelve, is a good minimum age for reading this harrowing, but somewhat hopeful, tale. It is a war story, and maybe it would be helpful for middle grade and young adult readers who are having to deal with the horrors of war, at least in the news, again, in Ukraine and elsewhere.

I’m ambivalent. It’s certainly not James Herriot and All Creatures Great and Small, but it might resonate with readers who need something a bit more grim and gritty, but still with a glimmer of hope.

Finding You (movie review)

Jan25

I just watched the movie that’s based on this Christian romance novel by Jenny Jones. And I can say that my book review goes double for the movie. If it hadn’t been for the setting, Ireland, I don’t think I would have made it through the entire movie. It’s sort of a Hallmark movie with cute actors and very poor plotting and dialog. So many unbelievable and disconnected twists and turns, and yet at the same time so predictable. Of course the two sisters who are the enactors of a lifelong feud, manage to reconcile just before one of the sisters dies. Of course, boy manages to end up with girls despite the many obstacles along the way. However, the course of true does NOT run smooth. Oh, and there’s a town drunk who magically becomes both wise and sober whenever

Watch it via Amazon when you’re in the mood for something mindless and sort of Irish. Well, at least the scenery is Irish.The accents are sometimes Irish. The story is, well, not to be blamed on the Irish. (Oh, the movie leaves out any God-talk, except for a brief shot of a Bible verse on a tombstone.)

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Jan18

Wild Swans is the story of three generations of a Chinese family during the rise of Communism, and Mao Tse Tung, and the Cultural Revolution. Jung Chang’s grandmother was a concubine to a Chinese general. She had her feet bound as a child in the traditional Chinese way. But her daughter, Chang’s mother came of age during the conflict between the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek the Communist idealists who followed guerrilla leader Mao Tse-tung. The Changs, mother and father, became dedicated Communists who believed in Chairman Mao and the ideals of the Communist Party without question. True believers, Jung Chang’s parents endured great suffering and hardship for the sake of changing Chinese culture and society into a Marxist Communist paradise. Because she was taught the virtues of communism under Mao and the evils of a capitalist society, Jung Chang came to share their philosophy and to idolize Chairman Mao and his Little Red Book. But eventually, it all came crashing down when Chang’s own family became the persecuted instead of the persecutors during the Cultural Revolution.

“The whole nation slid into doublespeak. Words became divorced from reality, responsibility, and people’s real thoughts. Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meanings—and had ceased to be taken seriously by others.”

The state of China in 1958, from Wild Swans by Jung Chang

It was horrible, yet instructive, to read about an entire society gone mad in twentieth century China and about how slowly and subtly a utopian ideal can become a nightmare, especially with a power-hungry madman in charge. It happened in Russia with Stalin, in Cuba with Castro, in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and Maduro, and in China with Mao. From 1958 to 1962, Mao’s Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people in a famine that starved people throughout China. The Cultural Revolution that followed in the late 1960’s killed somewhere between 500,000 and two million people. The number of people who didn’t die but suffered great injury and trauma under Mao’s Communist rule is literally incalculable. Jung Chang’s Wild Swans brings the story of this historic horror down to an understandable but terrible story of one family. The book shows how the first generation suffered in the political corruption and prejudice against women that characterized Chinese culture before Communism, how the second generation came to idolize Mao as the embodiment of their dreams of a socialist paradise, and how Jung Chang herself and her siblings, the third generation, paid the price for their own and their parents’ mistaken ideals.

I think everyone should read this book or another book that shows the true story of what can happen in an authoritarian society run by a charismatic but evil ruler. “Mao hoped his movement would make China the pinnacle of the socialist universe and turn him into ‘the man who leads planet Earth into communism.'” Instead, he became the bloodiest dictator the world has yet known. Some other accounts of twentieth century China, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the aftermath of the late twentieth century.

  • Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang. Middle school/high school account of the experiences of one girl, twelve years old when the Cultural Revolution began.
  • China’s Long March by Jean Fritz. Describes the events of the 6,000 mile march undertaken by Mao Zedong and his Communist followers as they retreated before the forces of Chiang Kai-shek.
  • Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China by Lian Xi. Not the best written book, and definitely for adults. The title pretty much sums up this harrowing and true story of a Catholic girl martyr.
  • Sparrow Girl by Sara Pennypacker. This picture book manages to tell about the backward disaster that Mao’s Great Leap Forward precipitated without being unnecessarily traumatic for young readers. Based on real events in China, when Chairman Mao ordered the people to kill all of the sparrows because they were annoying and stealing too many seeds.
  • Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ling Chang Compestine. Nine year old Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the Cultural Revolution. Young adult to adults.
  • Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing by Guo Yue. In Communist China in 1966, eight-year-old Leap Forward learns about freedom while flying kites with his best friend, by trying to get a caged wild bird to sing, and through the music he is learning to play on a bamboo flute. A gentle introduction to this difficult period of history for younger children.

I’ve not read any of the mostly adult books on these lists, but I’m interested in pursuing at least some of them.

The best books on the Cultural Revolution.

Five Must-Read books about the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Best books about the Chinese Cultural Revolution

2021 MGF: In a Flash by Donna Jo Napoli

Nov11

I’ve enjoyed Donna Jo Napoli’s books in the past; the author blurb says she’s published more than eighty books for children in her long career. Most of the ones I’ve read have been fairy tale and folk tale retellings (The Wager and Zel) or historical adventure tales (Alligator Bayou and North and Song of the Magdalene). Ms. Napoli, a professor of linguistics and social justice at Swarthmore College, is a good writer. Her books tend to fall toward the upper end of the middle grade fiction age group, maybe even pushing into young adult. In a Flash has a child narrator/protagonist, eight years old at the beginning of the story, but the subject matter and setting, the horrible plight of two Italian sisters surviving on their own in WWII Japan (1940-1946), is harrowing enough to call for some maturity in the reader. I was appalled by the suffering that SImona and her little sister Carolina undergo, and I’m a grown up who knew what to expect when the children, toward the end of the story, end up in the city of Hiroshima.

Because the chapter headings have dates affixed at the beginning and the book is written in first person from Simona’s point of view, I thought at first that the author was trying to pretend that this was SImona’s diary or journal. However, the writing isn’t a child’s writing, and the story is told mostly in present tense. Neither of those choices works for a diary entry. So, I soon realized that the dates were just there to assist the reader in knowing how much time had passed between chapters and where the children were in terms of age and in regard to the war. I found the story fascinating, a little slow-moving at first, but the details about life in Tokyo and in Japan as a whole were vivid and enlightening. The cultural differences between Japanese manners, language, and expectations and Italian cultural mores manifest themselves through the eyes of two little girls who struggle to live as the Japanese do while remembering that they are also Italians.

As I indicated, the book doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details of the starvation, fear, political repression, and sheer misery and trauma of living in wartorn Japan, especially as hated Westerners, Italians who were at first welcomed as friends of the Japanese, then despised as traitors after Italy’s surrender to the Allies. The suffering of the common people of Japan, as well as the choice of some of them to resist the suicidal “patriotism” required of them, are also portrayed in the story.

Because of all the suffering and bombing and starvation and imprisonment, the novel read like a Holocaust story, but with a very different setting. I would recommend In a Flash for mature young people who have been reading about the horrors of World War II as a different perspective and view of the atrocities and difficulties of that time.

2021 MGF: Once Upon a Camel by Kathi Appelt

Nov5

First of all, I have a prejudice in favor of books set in Texas, as long as the Texas culture and history is authentic. Once Upon a Camel, set in my native West Texas, is spot on. Secondly, I absolutely loved Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath and thought it should have won a Newbery Award a few years ago. However, not everyone agreed with me. So you may or may not agree with me that Once Upon a Camel is in the top tier of middle grade fiction published in 2021.

The novel is similar in style to The Underneath, but as I said, it’s set in West Texas, not East. And it features an aging, storytelling camel and a family of kestrels caught in a haboob, a giant, overwhelmingly destructive, dust storm. I loved the storytelling and the way it was woven into the greater story. I loved the kindness and courage exhibited by the animal characters.

The animals are anthropomorphized, but they also stay true to their animal nature for the most part. Zada, the camel, is sometimes loud, nurturing as an honorary auntie, and fond of racing (at least, she was a racer in her youth), and not so fond of horses. The kestrel couple, Pard and Perlita, are fierce and loyal and persistently loving. The baby kestrels, Wims and Beulah, are, well, they are babies, much like human children, quarrelsome yet tender with each other, impulsive, prone to getting into trouble, yet definitely lovable. Even the mountain lion, Pecos de Leon, is only a little bit scary and ominous, and he, too is susceptible to the calming influence of a good story.

Zada’s stories come from her history, and they’re the kind of stories that humans would tell in family groups or in communities. They are family stories, and the book is yet another iteration of the theme that “stories will save the world.” In the author’s note at the end of the book, Ms. Appelt writes:

“In these days of so much anger and division, it’s more important than ever that we take time to share our stories, which at their most basic level tie us to each other in fundamental ways. After all we’ve been gathering around campfires and kitchen tables for thousands of years and doing just that. We are, all of us, story beasts, made to tell stories, built for them.”

p. 321

I highly recommend that you make your acquaintance with Zada, the camel, and that you read her stories and the story of the haboob and how Zada and her friends survived in it. We’ve all been experiencing our own massive “dust storms” through the past couple of years, and perhaps a fictional West Texas camel can help us find our own survival strategies. And even if there are no profound lessons to be learned from Zada, a little humor and a light story never hurt in the midst of a storm.

Heidi and Toasted Cheese

Sep16

For our Cultivating Beauty and Truth study feast, we’re reading Heidi by Johanna Spyri. It’s not the first time I’ve ever read Heidi, but it has been a long time since the last time I read it, probably out loud to my now-adult children. I am savoring the story and the characters and the scenery.

From The Storybook Cookbook by Carol MacGregor: A delightful variation of this Alpine treat, Heidi’s Toasted Cheese Sandwiches:

INGREDIENTS:

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. salt

8 slices of Swiss cheese or 8 slices of American cheese

8 slices of bread

4 Tbsp. butterCurrant jelly (optional)

1. Crack the eggs on the edge of a bowl or piepan and drop them into the bowl. Beat the eggs slightly with a fork. Stir in the milk and the salt.

2. Make the cheese sandwiches by putting two slices of Swiss cheese or two slices of American cheese between two slices of bread. (American cheese has a stronger flavor.)

3. Put a frying pan on the stove and turn the heat to medium. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in the pan, but do not let it burn. 

4. Dip the sandwiches on both sides in the egg-and-milk mixture. Let them soak a minute. When the butter is hot, brown 2 of the sandwiches on both sides, turning them with a spatula. Add the rest of the butter to the frying pan and brown the last 2 sandwiches. A teaspoon of currant jelly on top each sandwich makes them even tastier.Makes 4 sandwiches.

I’ve never made grilled cheese sandwiches with soaked in an egg mixture nor have I ever put any kind of jelly on top. But it sounds as if it could be good. So, other than an appetite for grilled cheese and fresh goat’s milk, what do you remember about reading Heidi?

Admiral Byrd of Antarctica by Michael Gladych

May23

Another Messner biography, published in 1960, Admiral Byrd of Antarctica is a solid, decent read, but not as enthralling or inspiring as other Messner biographies I’ve read. Gladych characterizes Byrd, who explored both the Arctic and the Antarctic, as resourceful, persistent, brave and somewhat driven by a desire to do something important and noteworthy.

The most celebrated event of Byrd’s life came in 1934 on his second Antarctic expedition when he spent five months alone gathering meteorological data in a base station during the antarctic winter. He almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a poorly ventilated stove. He later wrote an account of his experiences when isolated and on his own in his book, Alone. Gladych quotes Byrd saying about his motivation for manning the station by himself:

“There comes a time in every man’s life when he should take stock of himself—sort of check on his navigation, so to speak. . . . You see, it has taken me a long time to get where I am today. And we are all like aircraft on nonstop flights, with time like precious fuel which we cannot replenish. God alone knows how much time-fuel I have left, and I’d like to check my course—make sure that where I am headed is where I should be going. I can do it best alone—out there.”

p.156

I don’t know if that’s an actual quote from Admiral Byrd, or a paraphrase of something he said, or entirely made up by author Gladych. However, while the idea of checking your course by way of an extended retreat is a good one, I think it could have been accomplished with less drama and danger, to Byrd and to his compatriots who eventually had to come to his rescue. But, then, what do I know about polar exploration or the compulsion to adventure and challenge the unknown?

Admiral Byrd was one of the most highly decorated Navy officers in U.S. military history. He also got all kinds of awards and commendations from various non-governmental organizations. But the fact that his wife, Marie, stayed married to him and raised their four children by herself for a good bit of their marriage seems like the best commendation of all. She must have seen something in him. He did name a region in Antartica after his long-suffering wife, Marie Byrd Land.

Some other books about Admiral Byrd and his adventures:

  • Black Whiteness: Admiral Byrd Alone in the Antarctic by Robert Burleigh. Picture book about Byrd’s famous near-death experiment in solitude.
  • Something to Tell the Grandcows by Ellen Spinelli. Picture book. Hoping to have an adventure to impress her grandcows, Emmadine Cow joins Admiral Richard E. Byrd on his 1933 expedition to the South Pole. I have this book in my library.
  • Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure by Richard Evelyn Byrd.
  • Explorer: The Life of Richard E. Byrd by Lisle E. Rose. An adult biography of the explorer published in 2008.
  • Richard E. Byrd: Adventurer to the Poles by Adele de Leeuw. A children’s biography from the series by Garrard Publishers, Discovery biographies.
  • Byrd & Igloo: A Polar Adventure by Samantha Seiple. A narrative account for children of the daring adventures of the legendary polar explorer and aviator and his loveable dog companion draws on letters, diaries, interviews, newspaper clippings, and expedition records.
  • Admiral Richard Byrd: Alone in the Antarctic by Paul Rink. Original title: Conquering Antartica: Admiral Richard E. Byrd.
  • We Were There With Byrd at the South Pole by Charles S. Strong. Juvenile fiction set during Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition.

The Horse Without a Head by Paul Berna

May4

Paul Berna was the pseudonym for French journalist Jean Sabran who wrote children’s books in French during the latter half of the twentieth century. The Horse Without a Head (French title: Le Cheval Sans Tête, 1955) was also published in English with the title A Hundred Million Francs, and it tells the story of a gang of poor working class French children who own one treasure: a headless horse on tricycle wheels that carries them on dangerous and thrilling rides down the narrow streets of Louvigny, a small town in northwest France. The story takes place just after World War II, and there are a few references to leftover bomb craters and deserted warehouses that were abandoned during or after war.

I was reminded as I read of the movie, The Goonies. The ten children in the self-styled “gang” are all under thirteen, street savvy, but also honest and innocent. Their leader, Gaby, “purposely kept the numbers down and never accepted anyone over thirteen, for as he said, ‘When you turn thirteen you get dopey, and you’re lucky if you don’t stay that way for the rest of your life.'” Each child has a distinct personality, but the central figures in the story are Gaby, Fernand, the original owner of the headless horse, and Marion, a somewhat mysterious dog whisperer and amateur vet.

To an adult reader, the book is obviously a translation and of a different era. Some of the dialog is awkwardly phrased in English, and the transitions in the action and logic are sometimes abrupt and difficult to follow. At one point in the story, one of the children brandishes an old rusty revolver and says that although he knows it won’t shoot, “I don’t feel so frightened when I’m holding it.” This bit of business, not at all vital to the plot, would certainly be excised by any editor nowadays. The crooks in the story actually shoot real guns at the children, but of course no one is injured. This is an adventure story, not a treatise on violence and gun safety. The horse rides themselves are quite dangerous, described as going forty or even sixty miles an hour (probably exaggerated) downhill and involving inevitable crashes and spills along the way. The adventures of the children are not meant to be imitated at home, although they very well may lead to some experimentation with wheeled vehicles.

I found the book to be quite a nice escape on a rainy Monday evening, and I would recommend it, if you can get past the Frenchiness and playing with guns. My Scholastic paperback edition from 1964 carries a price of 45 cents on the cover, and I surely got at least 45 cents worth of entertainment from the story. (The price has gone up to about $10.00 for a used paperback, more than twenty for a used hardcover copy.) I thought as I was reading that The Horse Without a Head would make a good movie with some editing and rearranging, and I see that Walt Disney made a movie based on this book; it’s available to rent from Amazon Prime video. Has anyone seen the movie? Or read this little French gem?

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Mar27

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

This book is one that I might have enjoyed more had I discovered it on my own rather than hearing about it for ages before I finally tried it out for myself. Published in 2003, Reading Lolita has gotten rave reviews, has been recommended widely and repeatedly, and was a best selling memoir. Maybe it was just too inflated for me to appreciate the book for what it was.

Reading Lolita starts out well. In the fall of 1995, the author is meeting with a group of students, all female, in her apartment after she resigned from the university where she was a professor of English-speaking literature. One of her former students reminds her: “She reminded me of a warning I was fond of repeating: do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.” This rather pithy statement seems like a good truth to keep in mind, but in this book there is a fine line between reality, epiphany, and truth. And the line, to extend the metaphor, gets really blurred by the end of the story.

Next, the author introduces her girls, the group who have come to discuss literature in a place where they can do so openly and honestly and without veils and chadors that hide not only their bodies but also their ideas and dignity as persons. Eight women including the author herself. Ms. Nafisi describes them vividly: Manna the poet, Mahshid the sensitive lady, Yassi the comedian, Azin the fashionable divorcee, Mitra the artist, Sanaz the conformist, and Nassrin, the one that the author calls a Cheshire cat.

But after the introductory chapters, maybe even within the first few chapters, the book becomes scattered and sometimes incoherent. The narrative moves from the Thursday morning literary society to insights on Nabakov and The Great Gatsby to the history of Ms. Nafisi’s feud with the Islamic purity police to someone that the author calls her “magician.” The Magician is a sort of literary hermit who’s decided to withdraw from society as long as the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to shame and persecute intellectuals, but who also wields great influence as entertains carefully selected guests in his apartment and gives them advice and counsel? He’s a shadowy figure, and I never was sure whether he was an imagined character (for some literary purpose?) or whether he was real.

The timeline of Nafisi’s narrative jumps around like a cat (yes, on a hot tin roof), and the book is structured around the books and authors that the women read and discuss together: Lolita by Nabakov, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Miller by Henry James, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Although Nafisi mentions and sometimes discusses other books and other authors these four define the four sections of the book. I’m not sure why these four, but I suppose it’s because these are the books that resonated with Ms. Nafisi’s students. Of the four I’ve read Austen and Fitzgerald, and dabbled in Henry James (but not Daisy Miller). Of course, I found the allusions to and commentary on the books I have read more illuminating than those I haven’t. (Nabakov just sounds tawdry and distasteful.)

I had trouble keeping the women and their individual stories straight in my mind. I had a hard time figuring out the chronology of Ms. Nafisi’s life and story. I sort of understand why the women identified so strongly with Lolita; like women in the Islamic Republic, Lolita is a victim of misogyny and abuse and entrapment. But why Daisy in Great Gatsby or Daisy Miller? Both of these ladies are rather careless exploiters of others, rather than being helpless victims or overcoming societal expectations.

Maybe I read too fast. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough to tie the narrative together and mine the diamonds out of it. Nevertheless, it just won’t go on my personal list of all-time great memoirs.