Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

“Living in the Islamic Republic is like having sex with a man you loathe . . . if you’re forced into having sex with someone you dislike, you make your mind blank - you pretend to be somewhere else. You tend to forget your body; you hate your body. That’s what we do over here [in Iran]. We are constantly pretending to be somewhere else.”

This vivid description is one of hundreds given by Dr. Azar Nafisi, professor of literature. Born in Persia/Iran, she was educated in Europe and America, and returned to Iran in time to see the rise of the Taliban and the systematic quelling of both women’s rights and Western culture permeating Iran. As a professor, she meets some very intelligent, very gifted young women who all gravitate together because of the literature they read in her classes. Eventually, when Dr. Nafisi quits her job rather than being forced to wear the Veil, she starts her own class in her home. There, she invites seven of these certain young women, who have become her friends over the years, to join her. Together they read and discuss forbidden Western literature - Lolita, of course, but also Pride and Prejudice, Daisy Miller, and The Great Gatsby. What they do is illegal, and more than one woman is punished and beaten because of her interest in Western culture and higher education. Even though these women, including Dr. Nafisi, come from very different backgrounds and go on to lead different lives once the time period of this book ends, when they do come together, they loose themselves in their beloved novels for a time, and then trudge back into the world that both despises and controls them. This regular Thursday morning class continues for two years.

For most of this book, I was rather depressed, reading about Dr. Nafisi’s experiences and reminding myself it wasn’t a novel, but a memoir. This happened, and is still happening today. However, I was encouraged by the end of the book, when Dr. Nafisi and her family find the courage to emigrate to America, and many of her beloved students leave Iran as well.

If you enjoyed this book, please consider one of the following :
Fiction Recommendation : The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. Five women and one man meet periodically to discuss the work of (arguably) the greatest novelist in English. Six people, one for each Jane Austen title. It is California, a hot summer in the Central Valley early in the 21st century, and these are ordinary people, neither happy nor unhappy, but each of them hurting in different ways, all of them mixed up about love.
Fiction Recommendation : Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. There is a reason why this novel about a pedophile rapist who lusts after a bratty ‘tween’ is not only in the title of Nafisi’s memoir, but also still considered great literature.
Note : Jeremy Irons reads an unabridged recording of the audiobook of Lolita. He is wonderful, and I highly recommend it!
Nonfiction Recommendation : Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriquez. Rodriguez's account tells the story of one Michigan woman's quest to help women in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban the best way she knows how: by opening a beauty school. After spending a couple of years in her adopted city, she realizes that she is giving women the power to earn both money and autonomy, and fights fiercely to keep the school open.
Nonfiction Recommendation : Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. This memoir in graphic novel form goes into great detail of Satrapi’s childhood in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. The stark black-and-white drawings only add to the bleakness of her immediate future and barrenness of the landscape.