Some thoughts on the book Reading Lolita in Tehran:

1. The book is described as triumph of literature and a lifeline of sanity (or whatever) in the difficult world of Islamic revolution in Iran, yet I see the author as deliberately using literature to subvert the revolutionary culture. Nafisi uses her faith in novels not so much to maintain her personal freedom as to teach, to spread her open approach among her students. For her, teaching is used intentionally as an anti-revolution propaganda tool.

Now, you might or might not like that revolutionary culture — personally, I think it’s evil — but that’s not the point. Her attempts to force her students to adopt her beliefs in Western freedom, in literature as the means to that freedom, are not as different from Islamic brainwashing as you might expect, and that’s a very different purpose from the one expressed on the back cover.

2. As a group, the books she presents are classics, and part of the standard western syllabus. As individual books, the novels chosen (Lolita, Gatsby) are particularly uncomfortable ones. In the context of a generally religious society, they would absolutely be unappreciated — even in the U.S., I imagine that most religious high schools and colleges don’t choose these books course material.

It’s difficult to believe that Nafisi could have created her curriculum without realizing that even moderate Iranians would be offended by her choices and resist her efforts. Knowing that, the question begged is: Why did she deliberately choose these books?

3. In discussing Lolita, Nafisi finds a theme of tyranny: of those in power trying to form others in the image they want, maintaining total control of them, lack of empathy or respect for others as their own people.

In that context, she unexpectedly describes the students as “my girls” — part of a more pervasive attitude of her trying to create these girls over in her own, subversive image.

4. Disappointingly, the book is disjointed and doesn’t flow evenly. Too much space is devoted to literary criticism and plot discussion of the classics — remember, this purports to be a memoir. (Four pages alone are devoted to a biographical history of Henry James.)

The years and even the writing style jump around. First there are the semi-secret literary sessions in her home (which turn out to be the end of the story, not the beginning). The scene then shifts to her time as a university student in the United States, then to teaching in the  university in Tehran — with a backward step to teaching in a private women’s college.

This leaping about is not of the flashback sort; there is no apparent reason, no cohesion. Within a section, the book is for the most part very readable. Nonetheless, I am left with the impression that the book was written in little unrelated fits and spurts of essays and sections over many years, making it difficult to follow the author’s motivations.

5. Finally, and related to all of the above points, Reading Lolita in Tehran is permeated with a sense of the arrogance of author: her great knowledge, the importance of her writing and teaching to the world. The importance of literature.

One might suggest that if Nafisi still feels the power of literature after all she has been through, that itself proves its value. Yet somehow, I am not convinced. Is it possible that the deep value of literature for the author — a value equal sometimes to life or death — is because literature itself is her identity?

Nafisi doesn’t seem to fit in her culture, her nation. There’s a lot of “we this” and “we that”, yet the sense is one of separateness and detachment. Of not being one of the people. Of not joining the cast of characters.

I am left disappointed, but also wondering: Is this detachment, this isolation from the experience of the people ultimately the selfishness of arrogance?