*dimsumdolly* - the different morsels of the life of a foodie

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Since it's International Woman's Day today, I think it's quite fitting to put up this post. If you're a woman and you love literature, you HAVE to read Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi .

This book is a true life account of how this group of Iranian women meet every week to discuss literature. We are given an insight into the tyranny of the totalitarian regime these women are forced to live under and how they seek to escape from this cruel reality (albeit only for a few hours a week) through literature. Most interesting of all is how the author has dissected Lolita and other works by Nabokov and linked the themes to their situation. Other writers and their works discussed in the book are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James and Jane Austen.

Nafisi, who now lives and teaches in the US, is a literature professor who spent her growing years in the West and returned to Tehran , full of dreams, to teach literature at the University of Tehran. After a couple of years, she is disillusioned with the regime and their controlling ways. She then quits her job and withdraws herself from academia. In doing so however, she finds herself withdrawing from society and becoming increasingly isolated.

She then decides to set up a small class with a select group of students she once taught. The critieria on which she bases her choice centred only around one thing--that they have a genuine love of literature. The women, ranging from their early 20s to 30s, are all strong individuals who are vastly different in characters. Brought together by their common love for literature, we learn of how the totalitarian regime has impacted their lives.

In a country where intellectual life is suppressed and where women are treated as second-class citizens, we get a glimpse of how the women cope with the restrictions imposed on them. What women in more libertarian regimes take for granted, like the painting of nails, the freedom to dress and go whereever one pleases, these Iranian women will never know in their country.

I think this book resonates more with the female rather than male reader. As a
woman, I really felt for these women who are being made to live in a society that oppresses women. Many of Nafisi's students grew up not knowing what love and happiness were. Freedom and liberty also became foreign concepts. So much so that when an opportunity comes up to taste these forbidden fruits, Nafisi writes of the 'ordeal of freedom' and the 'burden of choice'. Ironic, isn't it?

Perhaps it's true though--those of us living in more libertarian societies DO suffer from the ordeal of freedom and the burden of choice. We have so many options that we do not know which to choose and end up being lost sheep.

Nafisi's succint prose emotionally engages the reader with her heartfelt descriptions of her personal struggles as well as those of her students. Her dissection of the great literary works brings the reader into her classroom, making one feel like one has just attended one of her literature lessons.

The book's an extremely compelling read and one which I highly recommend.

And yes, let's celebrate womanhood!

Posted by DSD at March 8, 2005 9:00 AM