Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
This is the best-selling
'bibliomemoir' (a memoir in books) that was written by Azar Nafisi, who on every Thursday morning for
two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, held a secret gathering of her most
committed and brilliant female students (seven in total) to read and discuss
forbidden Western classics including Lolita,
Daisy Miller and The Great Gatsby. An all-female book club meeting may not seem
very radical to most of us, but what makes it a revolutionary act is that under
the Islamic fundamentalist state that existed in Tehran at the time, reading
Western works of fiction, not wearing a veil, owning a satellite, appearing in
public without a male relative (for women), wearing make-up(even applying nail
polish), expressing strong emotions publicly – were all illegal and punishable
by law.
As the so called morality squad under the regime of Khomeini
stages arbitrary raids, executes dissidents, imprisons rebels without notice,
shuts down universities and bookshops, and at a time when the censor of the
film board is blind( literally, the head of the censor board at the time was
blind!) – it is amidst these distorted and unnerving reality that the girls
with the guidance of Dr. Nafisi, their former professor, employ their readings
and discussions to make sense of a world that otherwise they couldn’t come to
terms with.
Writing against the tyranny of time and politics, in what I
have come to identify in her writing – a very lyrical prose, she travels down
memory lane as she reconstructs her life spent in Iran, but chooses to explain
that through the novels she deeply connects to. It is through the writings of
Nabokov, Henry James, Fitzgerald and Austen that we come to understand Tehran
and her life and times there during the revolutionary and war-torn regime that
effectively and meticulously strove to erase the liberal and culturally
advanced past of Iran.
The memoir has four sections each named for one author/work
in focus – Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen. As she begins
the first section we are in 1995, soon after she has resigned from her academic
post and having begun her secret rendezvous with her select group of students.
They are all keenly passionate about literature and have all been her students
at some point or other in the past. It is not a group that would have gathered
voluntarily if not for their ex-professor’s invitation. They all have different
ideological standpoints and have even suffered imprisonments at the hand of the
regime for revolutionary activities. You may come to ask why would they, who
have probably seen the crumbling world of hopes and dreams around them, turn to
fiction for sustenance? What could Nabokov’s Lolita or James’ Daisy Miller
teach them that they cannot live without?
For each writer she discusses, their works seem to gather a
significance attached to the state that Iran was in at the time. For instance
as they discuss Nabokov’s writings (they do discuss other writings by him as
well) we realize that Nabokov too was no stranger to totalitarian regimes, and
he does understand what they seem to be going through. His works were a way of
him telling the world to strive to keep their integrity in times of social and
political turmoil.
“ The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is
that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in
their crimes….the only way out is to find a way to preserve one’s
individuality.”
Azar Nafisi brings in other colourful characters from her
memories - eccentric professors, former colleagues, revolutionary student
leaders, idealistic fellow Iranians etc. Through it all she emphatically asserts
the epiphany of truth that are hallmarks of great literature. As she herself puts
it in her next venture The Republic of Imagination,
“If we need fiction today, it is not because we need to escape from
reality; it is because we need to return to it with eyes that are refreshed..” She continuously, relentlessly and
passionately upholds the case of fiction in face of surmounting odds that were
once against her.
For instance, when she teaches Gatsby in one of her classes, a lot of Islamic fundamentalist male
students react against the story by calling it an immoral tale of adulterous
love and materialistic greed – the very thing that the decadent West were characteristically
known for. So, Dr. Nafisi in a brilliant move, puts the book on trial – and thus
in section two, we have a highly stimulating discussion between the Islamic State
of Iran vs. The Great Gatsby (guess
who wins?).
A lot of political happenings that force a lot of the
professors and students to flee from Tehran ensue and gradually the University
is itself shut down indefinitely. She also narrates her personal stories in
between this, and helps us understand the depth of her belief in the power of
fiction to help us understand each other.
Admittedly the whole book isn’t around the book discussions
by Nafisi and her selected students. And
I felt Austen wasn’t discussed enough, hardly discussed in fact. But
nevertheless, it did show the impact that reading these works of fiction had a
transformative power on all their lives. What begins as a recollection of a few
years spend in Iran, subverting the edicts of authority by holding a secret
book club, ultimately comes to an end when Azar Nafisi, herself decides to move
to the U.S. with her husband and children. Soon her students also leave, only a
few stay behind in Iran.
What Azar Nafisi does in this captivating memoir is that she
pays an ode to the undying spirit of the Iranian men and women who despite the
tragedy that engulfed them, decided to look beyond their immediate realities to
fully understand the timeless magic of fiction and words that helped them weave
a protective garb for their imaginations instead.
She continues to write and includes political happenings and social tensions in her analysis of her beloved fiction. In this article here she discusses the need of the what The Little Prince can teach us in the heartless times we live in today.
If we read fiction, or have enjoyed fiction at any time in our lives, I believe what Azar Nafisi has to say in her works will be something we had long held to be true in our hearts but never completely realized in words. But she has done exactly that.
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