It is believed that when there is a controversy between free imaginative practices and ideology, it is ideology that wins the encounter but is defeated in the main battle. This is the core issue examined in the book “Reading Lolita in Tehran” written by Azar Nafisi, which is the gripping narration of existence, and literary learning in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The book interlaces the different accounts of how she learns from her own experiences of teaching in the Iranian universities, her students, her husband and other entities that she comes across during her teaching career in Iran. Nafisi is clear in depicting her opinion and resisting the attempts of Islamic ideologists in suppressing her for what she taught, for the purposes of justifying the practices being followed in the name of Islam. The major theme of the book incorporates the interactions she had with the students as also those that students had with each other in regard to the books read by them.
Nafisi has divided her book into different parts on Lolita, The Great Gatsby, novels by Jane Austen and Henry James, most of it being from the book Pride and Prejudice. She has found a theme from the texts they discussed and with delicate indirection related each of these with the problem faced by the group in the context of their daily routine and life in Iran. For example in the chapter on the Great Gatisby she narrates the dreams of people in regard to the future, the dangers associated with fulfillment of such dreams, and the frustration resulting from the dreams going sour in the face of reality dawning upon them within the given framework of the religious set up. The books read by Nafisi and her group of students were banned by the government, and they had to meet secretly in sharing photocopies of the novels. The group kept meeting for two years in discussing the subtle issues highlighted in the given novels. The entire group which comprised of women was shy and scared of the implications of what they were into but soon got over it and boldly used the meetings as opportunities to freely express their viewpoints on the political, cultural and social implication of life in the strict rule and atmosphere of Islamic rule. The women often gave vent to their anger in such meetings at the high handedness with which they had to face the indignities on a daily basis by the so called morality guards of Ayatollah Khomeini. They also shared their frustrations in regard to the Iraq – Iran war of the 1980s, marriage, love, and about over all life circumstances in the Iran of that time. These narrations enabled readers of Nafisi’s book to have a detailed insight at revolutionary Iran and the strict code of conduct required to be followed by women in the country. However all the discussions hovered in the context of the books referred to in Nafisi’s novel. In this context, Nafisi wrote in her book, that they were “essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity”.
Noted authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vladimir Nabokov and Jane Austen were discussed by the women in being emboldened to witness the examples of the people who were able to successfully assert their freedom and rights in the face of great odds. In this way they could gather the strength to speak against the authoritarian and repressive practices in regard to both minor and major issues confronting them, as Nafisi writes in her book, “There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom.” The fact is that the students and Nafisi are of different age groups and the older ones can compare the past with the present and differentiate between the circumstance prior to the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini in rightly saying in the book that “making us exiles in our own country.” They feel that the present is empty as compared with the past while the younger students, who have no past to cite, now know of the movies they have not been unable to see, music they have not enjoyed and the intimate kisses they have not experienced. Hence the two generations look forward to having some balance in life whereas the rulers view this thought pattern as highly dangerous and rebellious in diverting the believers away from Islam. In essence, Nafisi has stressed the spectacular nature of the issues raised and has been fairly outspoken in narrating the issues in a truly democratic spirit. The space provided by the novel in making one to realize the power of imagination in creating and living the desired moments is remarkable. Indeed it is a rare book in putting forth the arguments as no book as ever made before.
References
Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran, 2003, Random House Paperbacks