Things I've Been Silent About

Things I've Been Silent About: Memories
By: Azar Nafisi
Copyright: 2008
Random House, New York

3 Bookmarks out of 5


I read this book after spotting it at a book sale at St. Mary's College of Maryland. I was visiting my sister along with our best friend and we stumbled upon a book sale at the school store. As a bibliophile, I can never pass a book sale without at least browsing the selections they have. I saw this book and was immediately intrigued. I find Middle Eastern culture fascinating and specifically I love to hear what really happens in Iran instead of the propaganda the government feeds the media. My twin bought it for me as birthday present and I finally got around to reading it about a month later.


At first, I was extremely excited. Azar starts off by explaining her childhood relationship with her parents. As with any human being, your parental relationship has a lot to do with your perception on life and helps craft you into the human being you became. I didn't realize the entire book would be about Azar's relationship with her parents. For 314 pages, Azar tells the reader of how Iran changed from the 1950s to the 1990s. Once she relates major events, she immediately goes back to how she relates to her parents. This is understandable to a certain extent since both her parents were involved in politics within Tehran. However, her descriptions quickly begin to seem more like complaints about her parents. I wanted to read about Azar's life in Tehran, not her apologizing for her parents behavior and how she wished her parents had been different. Every child could probably list many complaints against their parents, but in this memoir it is done to a ridiculous extent.

Furthermore, while I am no expert at grammar, Azar goes from past tense to present tense with too much ease. In some parts it is present-day-Azar remembering what happened and in other parts it is Azar reliving the moment as it happened. If one tense could not be used throughout, I feel as if the transition between the two could have been better. Each chapter could have started with a present tense memory and the rest of the chapter relates back to the memory at the beginning of the chapter. For those of you who become confused at tense changes, beware of this book.

Things I've Been Silent About was also devoid of emotion. The back cover of the book talks of falling in love with Tehran. Besides some moments when Azar says, "I fell in love with him" or "I was infatuated with him," I cannot believe that Azar loved anyone. She could have done a much better job relating her emotions to her readers. On that same note, I also feel as if Azar spoke too much of Iranian politics. I would have much rather the book been about how her life was the same - or how it changed - as the different political movements swept through Iran. Instead, the reader often becomes lost in a political world that he or she may not be familiar with. Yes, Azar does give the reader some references in the back of the book, but it is all too easy for the reader to be lost with whom she is talking about.

One of the coolest things about this book, though, is how Azar shares personal family photographs with the readers. By giving me pictures of herself, her mother, her father, her brother, and her husband, it made the book come alive. This is not the story of a made up person, but rather all these events happened to real people and actions had real consequences. It was nice to have an image in mind as to who was who, instead of trying to create images in my head about how these real people looked like. The pictures also do a nice job of solidifying events that Azar sometimes skims over, such as weddings and the affairs of her father.

All in all, this is a book that gives the reader a glance into Iran. As a woman, I found this book eye-opening but also annoying. Azar spends too much time being annoyed at her mother and not enough time reflecting on how her own actions may have further estranged their relationship. There is too much talk of politics and not enough personal touches. It took me awhile to finish reading this book because of the fast/slow pace of it. There were some parts when I could not put it down, but there were also parts when I couldn't wait to get through them. I'm not an expert in books on Tehran and Iran, but I'm sure that better books exist out there.