海角大神

Which was more painful: growing up with a strong-willed, self-deluded mother who alienated husband and children alike, or leaning to live under a totalitarian regime? Both, seems to be the answer of Azar Nafisi in her new memoir, Things I鈥檝e Been Silent About.Nafisi is the author of the 2003 sensation 鈥淩eading Lolita in Tehran.鈥� You might not expect a book combining literary analysis with accounts of life in the Islamic Republic of Iran to become a global bestseller, but this one was, thanks to Nafisi鈥檚 skill in interweaving the political with the personal.

Now she returns to familiar territory.

Although literature plays only a small part this time around, Nafisi is again trying to integrate individual lives with the fate of a nation.

Here, she mingles the history of her family 鈥� mostly the story of her mother and their difficult mother-daughter relationship 鈥� with the story of contemporary Iran.

鈥淚 do not mean this book to be a political or social commentary, or a useful life story,鈥� she writes. 鈥淚 want to tell the story of a family that unfolds against the backdrop of a turbulent era in Iran鈥檚 political and cultural history.鈥�

The story of Nafisi鈥檚 family spans a turbulent era indeed.

As she points out in her prologue, her grandmother was born in an Iran governed by rigid religious laws. But her grandmother鈥檚 daughter (Nafisi鈥檚 mother) grew up in a Westernized Iran in which dancing in public was the norm and women were forbidden to wear the veil.

Yet by the time Nafisi鈥檚 own daughter was ready for school, the pendulum had swung again, and even young girls were covering their hair.

In some ways, however, the tumult of contemporary Iranian history pales next to the histrionics of Nafisi鈥檚 mother, Nezhat, as portrayed in this memoir.

Nezhat was a beautiful woman (as can be seen in the book鈥檚 photos) and she and Ahmad, Nafisi鈥檚 father, were both privileged members of Iran鈥檚 most elite circles.

But Nezhat carried crippling emotional baggage. As a girl she had lost her mother (perhaps to suicide) and she never recovered from a brief first marriage to a man who concealed from her his terminal illness.

Fretful and self-absorbed, Nezhat鈥檚 chronic dissatisfaction exacted a heavy toll on those around her. She became one of the first female members of the Iranian Parliament, yet constantly insisted that she would have been happier as a medical doctor.

And although she told anyone who would listen that her first husband was her only love, she was tortured by Ahmad鈥檚 infidelities and the eventual end of their marriage.

Ahmad was a politician as well and served as both the mayor of Tehran and the director of the Ministry of Finance under the Shah. Come the 1979 Islamic revolution, he ended up in jail.

(The years of his imprisonment, Nafisi suggests, were among the happiest of her mother鈥檚 life.)

Readers intrigued by 鈥淩eading Lolita in Tehran鈥� will appreciate the additional background offered by this memoir which also tells of Nafisi鈥檚 own education, two marriages, and life outside of Iran.

But frustratingly brief in this book are聽 the actual glimpses of life in Iran.

Nafisi does write lovingly of pre-revolutionary Tehran, a city filled with 鈥渟cents of fish, leather, coffee, and chocolate鈥� and 鈥渕ovie houses and restaurants and cafes with their lively music.鈥� She also mentions summer vacations by the Caspian Sea, flavored by moist air and large flowers so bright they seemed 鈥渋lluminated from within.鈥�

And there are occasional insights into what the Islamic revolution looked and felt like to the citizens who lived it. For instance, it is fascinating to read of the romance and exhilaration initially experienced even by Westernized Iranians like Nafisi鈥檚 parents 鈥� until they understood what life would be like under the new regime.

There are also intriguing hints of the intellectual wrestlings of Iranians like Ahmad who struggled to understand whether the Westernized or the Islamic vision of Iran was more authentic.

But such glimpses, unfortunately, are brief.

What dominates this book is the discomfort of a malfunctioning family mechanism.

There is love in the Nafisi family, but it is most often misdirected.

Nezhat torments everyone with her own pain, Ahmad retreats into affairs, and the children pay the price.

鈥淎 totaliarian mind-set destroys you not just with its impositions, but with its unexpected acts of kindness,鈥� Nafisi writes of life under the yoke of a mother who, blind to her own imperfections, ever nagged her daughter to be more perfect.

And that is what speaks most loudly in this memoir 鈥� the guilty feelings of a daughter who sees goodness in both her mother and her country, but cannot love either of them without serious聽 reservations.

Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor鈥檚 book editor.