Where we live

[mamculuna]

I've been completely overwhelmed by Reading Lolita in Tehran. It's the kind of book that makes me have to get up and pace around every fifteen minutes or so while I'm reading. I keep thinking of my students in Beijing, which by 1994 certainly was nowhere near as difficult as her experience, but so much is similar--the idea that these old boys (Fitzgerald, etc.) could really be subversive, the semi-clandestine meetings in someone's home, the joy of meeting minds. But above all, the seriousness of the class. I saw this also in Africa. We don't realize here how every flip comment betrays our privileged status.

That ideas can have meaning, that a book is worth a life.

Comments

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

A big part of the problem with the U.S. is that people are so out of touch with the world. When the disaster happened in 2001, people were so shocked because they didn't realize the level of hatred and jealousy out there (especially in the Arab world).

I thought for a while that it would lead to greater understanding, but it has only led to greater inequality.

[haytanbello.livejournal.com]

I heard an interview with the author -- I can't remember where -- and it was fascinating.

When I was a little kid I was pretty sure that one day I'd have to face severe persecution and probably torture because of the beliefs I received from my fundamentalist missionary parents. Partly as a result, I identify strongly with people in situations such as those described in Reading Lolita. Would I have the courage to defy the authorities? Would I be able to stand myself if I didn't? What would life be worth if I couldn't muster the courage?

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I agree--I admire the people who keep their integrity in those situations so much. At the same time, I know that there are those who had to sacrifice their personal desire to speak out because they couldn't put family at risk. It's a terrible choice, and it affects the people in the country for years afterward.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. It was startling back in the 70's when someone you met in the USSR told you they'd read Dr. Zhivago or something by Yury Daniel or been at a poetry reading by Josef Brodsky. It was a fairly 'civilized' time in the USSR. The government was back in the cycle of cracking down on dissent, but offenders were mostly getting sent to insane assylums instead of prisons. There were still deportations to awful places in Siberia, but it was nothing compared to what had been going on 15 to 20 years earlier. No one knew the worst wouldn't come back at anytime.

It turns out Daniel couldn't write worth a lick, and while Brodsky was a fine poet, he was the last person you wanted to have reciting poetry to you, even his own poetry. But, they tried to say brave things in a country where it had been dangerous for a long time to be brave. The people who struggled and 'crept through the shadows' to read them and to hear them, were just as brave in their own way.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I really loved Reading Lolita. I was especially struck by the idea that the worst kind of tyranny is someone imposing their dreams on another, because it doesn't apply only to governments but also to everyday relationships. And that novels are dangerous because they teach empathy. Such a good book.