Name: Reading Lolita in Tehran
Year: 2003
Plot: Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi’s living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.
The readers wanted to tell me before we even started: they did not finish the book. Well, one of them finished, so 4/5 did not finish it. I assured them that’s okay, and that in and of itself can make for a good discussion of the book. I asked them why they thought this was more difficult. One reader cited how dense the novel is: it contains politics, history, personal stories, and literary analysis. “She’s doing a lot!” Another reader didn’t love when Nafisi detracted from her own personal story too much. All of them, however, were interested in reading many of the novels that she and her students read. In many ways, this memoir is a love letter to reading and literature, and for that, they were grateful to have read (at least part of) the book.
The readers loved getting to read about another book club that takes place in an unusual setting. While they felt they could not relate to a lot of aspects of the memoir, reading books as a means to escape and experience the world was one they could relate to. “How many times do we laugh about our crimes here?” one reader said. Like the readers in the memoir, they are accustomed to their circumstances. They liked how the women were nonchalant about everything, and didn’t treat it as some huge deal, even if some may have viewed it otherwise.
Our discussion was brief due to scheduling and timing this evening at the prison. But they did relate the prison fences they are in to the garden gates Nafisi’s group had–both create an enclosed world, set aside from the outside world. The reader that finished the novel shared a quote that resonated with her: “Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke” (317).
Thanks for joining us. Next week, we’ll be reading The Liars’ Club.
Feel free to leave comments below. We’d love to hear what you think.
Until next time,
E.
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