Nakhjavani’s historical novel includes metaphors that underscore a link between the secular and the sacred through the material and metaphysical act of reading; cf. McClure’s Partial Faiths: Postsecular Fiction in the Age of Pynchon and Morrison.
published in Journal of Bahá'í Studies, 25:1-2, pages 73-99 Ottawa: Association for Bahá'í Studies North America, 2015
About: This article is a work of literary analysis. As such, it analyzes the reading motif in Bahiyyih Nakhjavani’s The Woman Who Read Too Much through a postsecular prism. Nakhjavani’s historical novel, as the title suggests, is densely woven with metaphors that underscore a link between the secular and the sacred through the act of reading. Through the metaphors employed in the novel, the act of reading is shown to be both a material and a metaphysical act. This study owes a significant debt to John McClure’s Partial Faiths: Postsecular Fiction in the Age of Pynchon and Morrison.