Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

On the same day that I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran, I had noticed a small leaflet pasted to the clear plastic of the bus-stop outside my home, a short walk from London’s Central Mosque. It called for Muslims to join a protest outside 10 Downing Street against the West’s gross misrepresentation of Islam in the media, in the attack on the faith that has stemmed from the hysterical reaction to the actions of extremists. And it’s undeniable that now must be a hard time to be a Muslim in a Western country. Knowing this, I had to wonder about a book that has spent a remarkable length of time in the New York Times’ bestsellers list, which has at its core a scathing critique of the Islamic regime in Iran by one who lived through its worst excesses. The book, Nafisi’s memoirs of life in Tehran when the revolution came, of being forced to unwillingly don the veil of Islam, yet of defying the regime and setting up a little study group in her own home to read forbidden books of Western decadence by writers like Nabokov, Fitzgerald and Jane Austen, is undeniably fascinating and undeniably a sincere and honest reflection of Nafisi’s impression of life under a brutal and misguided regime, but would I even be reading it if not for the current climate of fear and suspicion around Islam? If not for America’s defensive need to know that the lifestyle of its citizens is so much better than that of the countries of the Middle East?

Perhaps not, but then I should consider myself lucky, for if not for the sensationalistic aspects surrounding this book’s release, I would perhaps never have heard of it. And I must state that it was primarily the reference to Nabokov, perhaps my favourite writer of all time, in the title that drew me to the memoir, rather than its setting.

Reading Lolita in Tehran is essentially built up of two parts. One part is the story of Nafisi’s life, of her time teaching in a university during a period when student ideology suffocated nuance of artistic interpretation, forcing most of her students to either brand anything from the West that features flawed characters as decadent imperialist propaganda, or to rally against this opinion and veer in the other direction, to a time when the revolutionaries have gained power and morality squads are permitted to arrest and flog any woman who lets her hair show, who laughs too loudly. The other part is her literary criticism of Western writers, in particular Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James and Jane Austen, all of whom get a section that centres on their writing. Nafisi is quick to apply the lessons these writers can tell us to her own situation – for example, the monstrous Islamic Republic becomes equated with Nabokov’s ‘dragon’ Humbert Humbert, the female citizens with Lolita: like the young victim, they are captured, made to embody an image that exists only in the mind of one who does not fully understand them.

However, because of the predominance of such comparisons, readers looking for close reading are likely to be disappointed. Nafisi is a consummate academic, living and breathing the words of writers past and present, but this is not an academic work. Nothing she says about Lolita or Invitation to a Beheading is anything beyond superficial, anything that shows any deeper understanding that can be gleaned from a cursory read. But perhaps simplification is necessary when the audience is not necessarily familiar with the subject.

While it is not necessary, it’s a good idea to read the work of the above-mentioned writers before dipping into Nafisi’s world. For example, The Great Gatsby is one of those books I’ve long intended to read, but never have. While Nafisi contextualises everything she says so that her points were coherent, there will be few surprises left for me when I come to read the book.

Essentially, Nafisi’s work is structured around these writers because that is such a great part of who she is. She is an academic and a teacher of English Literature, to the extent that everything is coloured by the pigments of the novels she reads. The real story here is of her life, of how she lived through the oppression of a regime she did not agree with, until she finally left for America ten years ago, just as the power of the Ayatollahs was waning. But all great memoirs are built out of the characters of their creators, and as well as a wilful, generous, brave and slightly winsome woman who writes in a simple and journalistic prose that is easily understood and peppered with bits of imagery so obvious that the platitudes actually become quite sweet, Nafisi is a great lover of literature, so necessarily that love must be represented in her novel. A remarkable work, over and above suggestions of it being a propaganda tool, a spyhole through which voyeuristic Westerners can peer to assure themselves of their own supremacy, it is an honest and straightforward sketch of a life lived in a terrifying but fascinating time, one that any reader will almost certainly find rewarding – and encourage you to dig out the trusty old Henry James volumes from the bottom of that pile of unread books, too!

(originally written 31.8.07)