Through different eyes

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Random House, 2003

Well, I know it's only January and there are months of reading ahead, but so far, this is my favorite read of the year! It is a "memoir in books," in which Azar Nafisi tells her story of teaching English literature in Iran, primarily to young girls struggling in that country full of revolution and religion mixed with politics. First of all, I must admit that I will never be able to discuss this well. I have no idea, although now just a glimpse, of what their lives were like and can only barely grasp how the English novels affected them living in Iran. I know now only a little bit of how much I don't know about women whose lives are such. I dare not try to speak of it.

The book is divided into four sections: Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen. Of these four, I have never read anything by James, but would like to suggest it to my reading group. I just finished Lolita. I read Gatsby in high school and can only remember pastel colors and a swimming pool. And of Jane Austen, I know only Pride and Prejudice.

The first thing that struck me in the Lolita section was the difference between my perspective and "take" on the novel and that of Nafisi's "girls." I related to the villain, Humbert, and his struggle (or lack of) with his despicable nature. The Iranian girls' related to Lolita, who had not only her future taken from her, but her past and present stolen as well. I learn from this that much goes into reading a novel, and the lenses through which I read have much to do with it's meaning to me. When Nafisi describes to her reader (me) the story of Lolita, she says, "This was the story of a twelve-year-old girl who had nowhere to go....the desperate truth of Lolita's story is...the confiscation of one individual's life by another. (p. 33)

Of Lolita, her students and herself, Nafisi writes, "It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom." (p. 28)

Other good words from Nafisi:

We are also informed of her "real" name, Dolores, the Spanish word for pain. (p. 36)

Nafisi's Manna: "It's strange," she said, "but some critics seem to treat the text the same way Humbert treats Lolita: they only see themselves and what they want to see." (p. 50)

The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted....I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes. (p. 94)

A novel is not an allegory...It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. (p. 111)

It (a novel) can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.

The chair trick: "I asked a few students to stand in different places around the room, and asked both those standing and those sitting to describe the same chair. You see this is a chair, but when you come to describe it, you do so from where you are positioned, and from your own perspective, and so you cannot say there is only one way of seeing a chair, can you? (p. 199) Postmodernism? The description of the chair may very with perspective, but do they all agree that it is a chair?

I believe this is how the villain in modern fiction is born: a creature without compassion, without empathy. (p. 224)

And then there is The Ambassadors, I continued, where we find several different kinds of courage, but the most courageous characters here are those with imagination, those who, through their imaginative faculty, can empathize with others. When you lack this kind of courage, you remain ignorant of others' feelings and needs. Does that sound like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird? Walking in someone else's shoes.

I really enjoyed this book and what it has spoken to me about not only reading fiction, but about women in Iran.