Reading a Crappy Book on the Subway

Today, on my way out to work I was browsing my bookshelf for something to read on the subway. I needed something literary, since reading anything theoretical/academic at that hour is a proven way of putting me to sleep, and I decided to give a shot to Reading Lolita in Tehran, purchased not by me - thank Allah.

I say that because right now I am on page 16, and somewhere around page 10 I started contemplating whether I have to actually finish this book to be able to opine on how self-congratulatory, blah and almost carelessly malicious it is, all at the same time. While I am tempted to think that Oberlin trained me well, this is so blatantly a pile of orientalist bullshit (so much that it excuses employing the otherwise exhausted o-word) that its lack of sincerity should be clear to all, save for white book club ladies and Christopher Hitchens.

You and the people you write about say "Islamic Republic of Iran" every time you refer to your country, really?

Here's the extreme Hamid Dabashi critique:
Native Informers and the Making of American Empire

Here's the idiotic Christopher Hitchens critique:
The Captive Mind Now (I want to believe the whole essay is an exercise in sarcasm, but it might not be)

Here's the one I tend to agree with, mostly because Dabashi's anger is very similar to Finkelstein's too careful study of "Of Time Immemorial"; the book is dishonest alright, but it is also so horrible as literary work that the anger is not worth it:
Pawn of the neocons?

Note that in life reaching total happiness is impossible and thus the last article too manages to fuck up in its last sentence. Which makes me go full circle and end up with Dabashi.

Lastly, for our following immersed in academia:
Reading Nafisi in the West: Authenticity, Orientalism, and "Liberating" Iranian Women

Hamish: New York Times Bestseller don't mean shit.