Jasmine and the Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran
Fatemeh Keshavarz
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
2007
176 pp, $16.95
Fatemeh Keshavarz is an Iranian American who grew up in Shiraz and obtained her doctorate at London University. She is a Muslim, a feminist, a literary scholar and a poet. Since 1987, she has lived in the US and is currently a professor of Persian and comparative literature, and chair of the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis. In “Jasmine and the Stars,” she draws on all these aspects of her identity and expertise to build bridges of East-West understanding and, in her words, to promote “global cooling” after all the mistrust and fear spread in the international arena since 9/11.
Other books and essays have been written to the same purpose. What makes Keshavarz’s book uniquely valuable is that it begins by critiquing what she terms the New Orientalist narrative which is often rendered as an eye-witness account by a native, semi-native, or other supposed insider. Here she is referring to a number of relatively recent books such as Asne Seierstad’s “The Bookseller of Kabul,” Khaled Husseini’s “The Kite Runner” and Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” While these accounts may seem to present the reality of a different culture in a way that can be easily understood in the West, they actually do not, and Keshavarz eloquently explains why.
The New Orientalist narrative often replicates “old” Orientalism in its “strong undercurrent of superiority and of impatience with the locals, who are often portrayed as uncomplicated. The new narrative does not necessarily support overt colonial ambitions. But it does not hide its clear preference for a western political and cultural takeover. Most importantly, it replicates the totalising - and silencing - tendencies of the old Orientalists by virtue of erasing, through unnuanced narration, the complexity and richness in the local culture”. (p. 3)
As the book which impacts most on her (and other Iranian Americans), Keshavarz singles out “Reading Lolita in Tehran” for an incisive, point-by-point critique, revealing all the misinformation and out-of-context impressions that it conveys, especially by selectiveness whereby only the negative aspects of post-revolutionary Iran are portrayed. In terms of literature, Nafisi’s account ignores the lively literary production in Iran before and after the 1979 revolution, and implies lacking interest in literature by the Iranian population at large. In the social field, it attributes any negative behaviors to Islam, while never criticising Western attitudes or actions vis-à-vis the Middle East.
This critique is eye-opening, but the most compelling and informative aspect of Keshavarz’s book is that she presents the reader with an alternative vision of Iran based on her personal experience, extensive research and long-term interest in literature and culture generally. This is the origin of the book’s title and subtitle. “Jasmine and Stars” are metaphors for joyful, inspiring and culturally interesting experiences from her own life which she shares with the reader. In her words, “I turn my narrating voice into a vehicle for the rainbow of the faces and words that filled my childhood and youth in Iran.” (p. 5)
These “faces and voices” range from family members to well-known and new Iranian literary figures, revealing personalities and ways of thinking that are absent in New Orientalist narratives such as “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. There is Keshavarz’s uncle who is an army officer but also a painter, as well as her father, a bank accountant by profession, who was extremely well-versed in classical Persian poetry and saints’ stories. She also examines the lives and works of vanguard women such as the poet, Forough Farrokhzad, the novelist, Shahrnush Parispur and many others. All in all, Keshavarz gives a rare glimpse into post-revolutionary Iran , showing that while there are a host of political problems and unresolved social issues, still literature, culture and Iranians’ love of life and beauty are alive and well. Reading this book makes one wants to be able to attend one of Keshavaraz’s classes - or travel with her to Tehran and Shiraz!
