Another summer reading list featuring Jane Austen and her characters
Ellen Goodman recommends, among other books, three relating to Jane Austen: Jane Austen in Boca by Paula Marantz Cohen; The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler; and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, about a group of Iranian women who meet clandestinely to discuss Western literature such as the work of Jane Austen (and, of course, Nabokov).
July 18th, 2004 at 9:08 am
I’d definitely recommend this book, though not particularly for its insights into Austen.
It’s excellent for two reasons. First, and most obviously, for providing insight into the changing feelings of a woman professor of English Literature who returned to Iran from the US, hoping for the best possible outcome from the revolution against the Shah, and for allowing a glimpse of the crushing power of the “revolutionary” regime.
Secondly it challenges us to ask ourselves why we value “great” literature such as Austen’s.