Reading Lolita in Tehran

Warning - longest post ever...sorry :)
by Azar Nafisi

Wow - I just finished this and am totally in awe. It was really good, and I think one of those books that changes your outlook on a lot of things. The book is compelling because it was told from the point of view of Dr. Nafisi, an intelligent and passionate woman who came of age as a woman with the same rights as men, living in Iran. She was a literature professor, and as the regime became more strict (in th '80s), more and more of the classic literature she taught became banned and critiqued in the light of political regime changes. However, this was also how the constructed her memoir of the time - by paralleling the themes and plots of these popular and in certain political climates, controversial, books to the feelings and changes she and a few of her students were experiencing. After abandoning her job in academia, she starts a private class of a few chosen students to read banned literature and discuss it. The rebels - I love it.

In the beginning they read Lolita, a story that's about a pervy guy who lost his love, and tries to recreate his true love by possessing a 12-year-old girl and holding her captive. In the end, you feel sorry for Lolita, but feel a loss for who she might have become if not for Humbert taking advantage of her. This event defines her and limits her potential, and since it's a defining event in her life she clings to it in a weird way. She likens this to how the women in the reading circle feel - that wearing the veil and being oppressed by the conservative Islamist government brings them down and limits their potential, but it also is irrevocably a part of their being.

When the laws changed and became more rigid for women, which coincided with Dr. Nafisi quitting her job.

"Now that I could not call myself a teacher, a writer, now that I could not wear what I would normally wear, walk in the streets to the beat of my own body, shout if I wanted to or pat a male colleague on the back on the spur of the moment, now that all this was illegal, I felt light and fictional, as if I were walking on air, as if I had been written into being and then erased in one quick swipe." (p 167)

It was so interesting to read the sections that Azar recalls from the classes in her home, where the women became close and intimate friends, kidding each other and arguing and supporting each other. This for some reason hit home for me... you hear all the time how women are oppressed and have to wear scarves over their face and get stoned for adultery, etc, but it's so hard to conjur up the empathy you're "supposed to feel" sometimes... but reading this made me feel like they're just like us. When they were reading Jane Austen I was entertained by how they all made sarcastic plays on one of the most memorable lines of Pride and Prejudice - "It is a truth universally acknowledged... that a Muslim man, regardless of his fortune, must be in want of a nine-year old virgin wife." They were joking around and bantering and I just really related in that moment, and that made the book more real on a lot of levels.

I cannot imagine going through some of the things they went through. A few times, when her students tell Azar they're getting married, she asks them "Did you fall in love??" with giddy excitement. This struck me because you'd never even think of asking anyone that here... Also, the author has two children and is (semi?) happily married. She talks about how during the Iran/Iraq war Tehran was often the victim of massive overnight bombing attacks, and how she would go to be in the same place as her children because if something happened she wanted it to happen or not happen to all of them. Wow. And there were a few times where she mentioned they were having conversation amidst bombing attacks. I just can't even imagine.

The whole time I kept thinking - this woman is smart and obviously knows that the government that is oppressing her is corrupt, why doesn't she leave!? At the end, it was very interesting how she and her husband struggled with this decision, one that it seems like would be a no-brainer.

There was also the concept of "why read fiction at all" that the author revisted often (which undoubtedly had something to do w/ the fact she was a lit professor and pondered stuff like that :). For these women, it was an act of defiance, and perhaps more importantly, an escape from their depressing and oppressed lives in Iran. And one of the things I love about reading fiction is that it can tell you lots of truths about yourself and the world.

Banned Books - another thing that kind of gets to me :) And even more so now! When you look at those lists of the most often banned books it always makes me wonder...did those people not READ those books? When the author was a professor at the university and discussing Gatsby, her more conservative students was ranting against it because it preached Western decadence and immorality, when in fact, it's only a few characters who embody this and those characters don't end up looking so great in the book, you know? And I think when people have knee jerk reactions about books like this it's because they're not reading critically - they're just reading what they want to read. Ok, random rant over. :)

Azar describes a villian as "a creature without compassion, without empathy." And, "a hero becomes one who safeguards his or her individual integrity at almost any cost." (p 224) She was talking about novels, but it also rang quite true for living in Iran under mean dictators who suck away your rights.

They discussed Lolita, Great Gatsby, Henry James and Jane Austen, segmenting the book into 4 parts (making me really want to reread Gatsby :) ). It was really interesting on so many levels - as a woman, a book reader and lover, and a citizen of the world. It really throws a different perspective on the struggles women in the Middle East go through. Highly, HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who wants to have their world rocked. :)