The memoir, set in Tehran in the mid-1990s, manages to achieve several things: narrate Nafisi’s personal story in the turbulent years when the Iranian government stepped up its censorship in the universities; depict life in Tehran with the stricter imposition of Islamic laws, particularly on women; discuss the value of literature in people’s lives; and analyze specific works, e.g. Nabokov’s Lolita, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, James’ Daisy Miller, and Austen’s Mansfield Park.
The book is split into four chapters under the headings, Lolita, Gatsby, James, and Austen. Nafisi cleverly interweaves her story and that of her students while discussing the various points of books she has chosen for her classes. The book feels like a class lecture in literature (a very good one!) in some parts that one is enticed to read more of Nabokov’s books, go through Fitzgerald again with a fine tooth comb, and re-read James no matter how tedious and belabored he sounded in one’s first reading of him.
One also can’t help thinking while “Reading Lolita in Tehran” how we take for granted certain simple pleasures like reading. While we give no second thought to picking up a book from the shelf, whether it be Wuthering Heights or Fifty Shades of Grey; in certain places, even in this day and age, a person’s choice in a reading material could land him in jail.
This is how much I loved “Reading Lolita in Tehran”: If I see Nafisi’s name in any class lecture, I will be one of the first to sign up.
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