Azar Nafisi (51 page)

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Mario Vargas Llosa,
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Reading
Lolita
in
Tehran

Azar Nafisi

A READER'S GUIDE

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Questions for Discussion

1. On her first day teaching at the University of Tehran, Azar Nafisi began class with some questions: “What should fiction accomplish? Why should anyone read at all?” What are your answers to these questions? How does fiction force us to question what we often take for granted?

2. Yassi adores playing with words, particularly with Nabokov's fanciful linguistic creation
upsilamba
(18). What does the word
upsilamba
mean to you?

3. In what ways had Ayatollah Khomeini “turned himself into a myth” for the people of Iran (246)? Discuss the recurrent theme of complicity in the book: the idea that the Ayatollah, the stern philosopher-king who limited freedoms and terrorized the innocent, “did to us what we allowed him to do” (28). To what extent are the supporters of a revolution responsible for its unintended results?

4. Compare attitudes toward the veil held by men, women and the government in the Islamic Republic of Iran. How was Nafisi's grandmother's choice to wear the chador marred by the political significance it had gained (192)? Also, describe Mahshid's conflicted feelings as a Muslim who already observed the veil but who nevertheless objected to its political enforcement.

5. In discussing the frame story of the murderous king in
A Thousand and One Nights,
Nafisi mentions three types of women who fell victim to his unreasonable rule (19). What is the relevance of this story for the women in Nafisi's private class?

6. Explain what Nafisi means when she calls herself and her beliefs increasingly “irrelevant” in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Compare her way of dealing with this irrelevance to the self-imposed exile of the man she calls her “magician.” What can people who “lose their place in the world” do to survive, both physically and creatively?

7. During the
Gatsby
trial, Zarrin charges Mr. Nyazi with the inability to “distinguish fiction from reality” (128). How does Mr. Nyazi's conflation of the fictional and the real compare to the actions of the blind censor, who retains the authority to suppress performances when he cannot even see? Discuss the role of censorship in both authoritarian and democratic governments. Can you think of instances in the United States when art was censored for its “dangerous” impact upon society?

8. Nafisi writes: “It was not until I had reached home that I realized the true meaning of exile” (145). How do her conceptions of home conflict with those of her husband, Bijan, who is reluctant to leave Tehran? Also, compare Mahshid's feeling that she “owes” something to Tehran to Mitra's and Nassrin's desires for freedom and escape. Discuss how the changing and often discordant influences of memory, family, safety, freedom, opportunity and duty define our sense of home and belonging.

9. Fanatics like Mr. Ghomi, Mr. Nyazi and Mr. Bahri consistently surprised Nafisi by displaying absolute hatred for Western literature–a reaction she describes as a “venom uncalled for in relation to works of fiction” (195). What are their motivations? Do you, like Nafisi, think that people like Mr. Ghomi attack because they are afraid of what they don't understand? Why is ambiguity such a dangerous weapon to them?

10. The confiscation of one's life by another is the root of Humbert's sin in
Lolita.
Discuss how Khomeini likewise acted as a “solipsizer,” robbing individuals of their identities to promote total allegiance. What does Nafisi mean when she says that Sanaz, Nassrin, Azin and the rest of her girls are part of a “generation with no past” (76)?

11. Nafisi teaches that the novel is a sensual experience of another world, that it appeals to the reader's capacity for compassion. Do you agree that “empathy is at the heart of the novel”? How has this book affected your understanding of the impact of the novel?

12. Nafisi's account of life in the Islamic Republic transcends national and geographical boundaries. Discuss how the experience of censorship, fundamentalism and human rights, as well as the enjoyment of works of imagination and the desire for individual freedoms, may be similar in totalitarian societies and in democracies such as ours.

2004 Random House Trade Paperback Edition

Copyright © 2003 by Azar Nafisi

Reader's Guide copyright © 2004 by Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

RANDOM HOUSE
Trade Paperbacks and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This work was originally published in hardcover by Random House, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2003.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Estate of Vladimir Nabokov:
Extracts from the correspondence of Véra Nabokov. All rights reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov.

Harcourt, Inc. and Faber and Faber, Limited:
Excerpt from “Burnt Norton” in FOUR QUARTETS by T. S. Eliot, published in the United Kingdom as part of COLLECTED POEMS 1909–1962, copyright ©1936 by Harcourt, Inc., and copyright renewed 1964 by T. S. Eliot. Rights throughout the United Kingdom are controlled by Faber and Faber, Limited. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc., and Faber and Faber, Limited.

Liveright Publishing Corporation:
“somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond,” from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage, copyright © 1931, 1959, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, copyright © 1979 by George James Firmage. Reprinted by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Random House, Inc.:
Seven lines from “Letter to Lord Byron” from W. H. AUDEN: THE COLLECTED POEMS by W. H. Auden, copyright © 1937 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.:
Excerpts from LOLITA, by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1955 by Vladimir Nabokov. Reprinted by permission of Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books / Azar Nafisi
p. cm.
1. Nafisi, Azar. 2. English teachers—Iran—Biography. 3. English literature—Study
and teaching—Iran. 4. American literature—Study and teaching—Iran.
5. Women—Books and reading—Iran. 6. Books and reading—Iran.
7. Group reading—Iran. I. Title.
PE64.N34 A3 2003                  820.9—dc21                  [B]                  2002036724

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eISBN: 978-1-58836-079-3

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