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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

Book by Azar Nafisi · 10 quotes · Tehran, Empathy, Reality

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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books Quotes

“I see a bird like a cock, which means good news, but you yourself are very agitated. A road that looks bright. And you are on the first step. You are thinking of a hundred things at the same time. One road is closed and dark, and the other is open and full of light. Both could happen; it is your choice. There is a key; a problem will be solved. ... A small ship that is still in the harbor and has not yet started to set sail.”

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“That was the first time I experienced the desperate orgiastic pleasure of this form of public mourning: it was the one place where people mingled and touched bodies and shared emotions without restraint or guilt. There was a wild, sexually flavored frenzy in the air. Later, when I saw a slogan by Khomeini saying that the Islamic Republic survives through its mourning ceremonies, I could testify to its truth.”

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“The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in ones own home." Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes.”

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“There are different forms of seduction, and the kind I have witnessed in Persian dancers is so unique, such a mixture of subtlety and brazenness, I cannot find a Western equivalent to compare it to. I have seen women of vastly different backgrounds take on that same expression: a hazy, lazy, flirtatious look in their eyes. . . . This sort of seduction is elusive; it is sinewy and tactile. It twists, twirls, winds and unwinds. Hands curl and uncurl while the waist seems to coil and recoil. . . . It is openly seductive but not surrendering.”

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“I was reminded of a painter friend who had started her career by depicting scenes from life, mainly deserted rooms, abandoned houses and discarded photographs of women. Gradually, her work became more abstract, and in her last exhibition, her paintings were splashes of rebellious color, like the two in my living room, dark patches with little droplets of blue. I asked about her progress from modern realism to abstraction. Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams.”

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“«Signora, le posso parlare un attimo?» [...] C'era un problema con Gatsby. Lo diceva per il mio bene. Per il mio bene? Che strana espressione. Con tutto il rispetto che aveva nei miei riguardi [...] aveva una lamentela da fare. Contro chi, e perché a me? Contro Gatsby. Gli domandai se avesse per caso sporto una formale denuncia contro il signor Gatsby, e gli rammentai che in ogni caso sarebbe stato inutile, dato che la morte estingue il reato. Ma c'era poco da scherzare. «No, professoressa, non contro il signor Gatsby; contro il romanzo». Era immorale. Insegnava ai giovani le cose sbagliate; avvelenava la loro mente - dovevo essermene senz'altro accorta anch'io. Veramente no, gli dissi. Gli rammentai che Gatsby era un'opera di narrativa, non un manuale di istruzioni per la vita. Di sicuro mi rendevo conto, insistette, che c'era chi prendeva a modello quei romanzi e quei personaggi. Forse il signor Gatsby andava bene per gli americani, ma non per la nostra gioventù rivoluzionaria. [...] Per Nyazi fra la realtà di tutti i giorni e quella immaginata da Fitzgerald non c'era differenza. Il grande Gatsby era un'opera emblematica, parlava dell'America, e l'America per noi era come il veleno. Era così e basta. Dovevamo insegnare agli studenti iraniani a combattere l'immoralità americana. Era serissimo, e in assoluta buona fede.”

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