Reading Lolita in Tehran

¶ … Lolita in Tehran -- the Threats of Western Literature and Freedom

Reading the great classics of Western literature in Tehran during the height of the fundamentalist Iranian regime's power over its citizens was a threatening and radical act of defiance. This was not simply because these books were banned. Specifically, Western literature and Western fiction in particular offered the girls who gathered for discussions in the author's living room the ability to express opinions contrary to the fundamentalist regime. Western novels always involve choices for the protagonist and the reader. What do I do, wonders the character? What do I think about what he or she does, wonders the reader? The main characters studied by the girls under the tutelage of Azar Nafisi, like Daisy Miller or Jay Gatsby, make choices -- some of them very dangerous, like going outside during a fever season, or risking a fortune for love. The idea of choice and multiple perspectives on life was not something good Muslim girls were supposed to entertain. They were supposed to obey their husbands, fathers, and sons, and do what they were told. But to read a novel, stresses the author Azar Nafisi, is to make a choice. The writer does not tell the reader, in Western literature, what to think of Lolita. Rather, the reader must make a choice with her own mind and will about the plight of the character.