Reading Lolita in Tehran to be made into a movie
It is mentioned in this NY Times article about the actress who will be playing Dr. Nafisi. If you haven't read the memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, you can find an excerpt in the Spring 2003 issue of the Middle East Quarterly. (Corbin--please let me know if you have read and/or already possess this--and if you don't, do not buy it but watch your mail for late presents--oops).
The book itself for me was interesting on two levels. Dr. Nafisi devotes a lot of space in the book discussing how she has read particular books. As an academic, she is particularly interested in interpreting literature. Some of her readings of Nabokov (not just Lolita, but that's a good start) will have you running to the library or the bookstore. Her perspective is interesting not just because of her location and background at the time of certain readings, but she presents a way of looking at these novels that you may have missed when you first read them (many of the books she discusses she is rereading during very tense times in Iran). Just for the academic end this memoir is a great read. There are two types of English majors, readers and writers. Obviously, I belong to the former. I love this book as a companion to some of the novels she discusses, and it certainly isn't as dry as some straight-up literary criticism.
The other level of this memoir is precisely why it has been optioned for a movie. Dr. Nafisi, after being fired by the University for dress-code violations, conducts a semi-secret class for some of her favorite female students. They are there only for the love of literature, and obviously not for credit. Most of the novels they read in the course are banned in post-Shah Iran.
What I fear this movie will do is portray this class as an Oprah Book Club in a burka. Or worse yet, cheapen the whole experience with some sort of Message about the Transformative Power of Literature. Yes, literature and free thought can powerful weapons against oppression; if they weren't totalitarian regimes wouldn't ban such activities. However, when you meet the women of the class, most of them are the same before the class as after. Nafisi, too, was not magically changed. They all approached the novels with their own perspectives, personalities, and beliefs. Some of the women (like Nafisi) were very much opposed to the Theocratic Laws laid down by the Ayatollah's regime, like the forced wearing of the veil. Others that were comfortable living in that society. For these women, the laws governing dress, arranged marriages, etc., actually provided them some sort of safe feeling, a comfort zone within which they were free (though none of use would probably recognize it as freedom. Perhaps the closest I can come is thinking about Thomas Merton's "four walls of freedom"?). However, all of the women in the class, whether they admitted it or not, desired desperately the freedom to choose the path of their lives.
So I hope that the filmmakers will extend the effort to portray the many faces of the Iranian women in the book. I am so afraid that there will be some big Moment where after reading Lolita some of the women become more defiant than they actually were. I fear some sort of mass, public de-veiling. I hope they don't lose some of the heartbreaking stories, or the heroic men (like some of the husbands), or some of the brutal stories, like when Sanaz is imprisoned for nothing at all and severely beaten. Well, THAT one will probably make the film, as well it should.
There is just more to the memoir, to the experiences of the women and men in Nafisi's life at the time, than will probably make the film.
The book itself for me was interesting on two levels. Dr. Nafisi devotes a lot of space in the book discussing how she has read particular books. As an academic, she is particularly interested in interpreting literature. Some of her readings of Nabokov (not just Lolita, but that's a good start) will have you running to the library or the bookstore. Her perspective is interesting not just because of her location and background at the time of certain readings, but she presents a way of looking at these novels that you may have missed when you first read them (many of the books she discusses she is rereading during very tense times in Iran). Just for the academic end this memoir is a great read. There are two types of English majors, readers and writers. Obviously, I belong to the former. I love this book as a companion to some of the novels she discusses, and it certainly isn't as dry as some straight-up literary criticism.
The other level of this memoir is precisely why it has been optioned for a movie. Dr. Nafisi, after being fired by the University for dress-code violations, conducts a semi-secret class for some of her favorite female students. They are there only for the love of literature, and obviously not for credit. Most of the novels they read in the course are banned in post-Shah Iran.
What I fear this movie will do is portray this class as an Oprah Book Club in a burka. Or worse yet, cheapen the whole experience with some sort of Message about the Transformative Power of Literature. Yes, literature and free thought can powerful weapons against oppression; if they weren't totalitarian regimes wouldn't ban such activities. However, when you meet the women of the class, most of them are the same before the class as after. Nafisi, too, was not magically changed. They all approached the novels with their own perspectives, personalities, and beliefs. Some of the women (like Nafisi) were very much opposed to the Theocratic Laws laid down by the Ayatollah's regime, like the forced wearing of the veil. Others that were comfortable living in that society. For these women, the laws governing dress, arranged marriages, etc., actually provided them some sort of safe feeling, a comfort zone within which they were free (though none of use would probably recognize it as freedom. Perhaps the closest I can come is thinking about Thomas Merton's "four walls of freedom"?). However, all of the women in the class, whether they admitted it or not, desired desperately the freedom to choose the path of their lives.
So I hope that the filmmakers will extend the effort to portray the many faces of the Iranian women in the book. I am so afraid that there will be some big Moment where after reading Lolita some of the women become more defiant than they actually were. I fear some sort of mass, public de-veiling. I hope they don't lose some of the heartbreaking stories, or the heroic men (like some of the husbands), or some of the brutal stories, like when Sanaz is imprisoned for nothing at all and severely beaten. Well, THAT one will probably make the film, as well it should.
There is just more to the memoir, to the experiences of the women and men in Nafisi's life at the time, than will probably make the film.
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