Lolita in Tehran

I had a hard time with Lolita. I read it in a college lit class, and had the benefit of an insightful prof who loved his work. I can see the genius in the writing, I get the whole verbal trompe l'oeil, I understand the concept of the unreliable narrator. What I had trouble getting past was the whole aesthetic treatment of crime; how as a student with an assignment I was as trapped into reading this horror as Lolita was trapped into living it.

Why would young women in Iran want to read and discuss this book? Aren't their lives hard enough?

The author is a professor herself, a lover of English language literature. She uses Lolita and other famous English language works to build a bridge between our cultures. Maybe we are familiar with these works, the author seems to say, maybe the themes speak to us, maybe we can get a glimpse into life in a nation so different from our own.

Entrapment and captivity. Lolita is entrapped by a perverse captor. Women in Tehran are entrapped behind veils, their every move measured, governed, subject to censure. Lolita resonates with them, and I am in the uncomfortable position of suddenly getting insight into the lives of oppressed women.

How would I function in a place like Iran? I was always the proverbial square peg in a round hole, a bit of a rebel, a person who didn't even realize there existed a box from which to think outside of. Oh my, I'd be in trouble. Would I be careless with my veil? Would I give in one too many times to the temptation of lipstick? Would I make eye contact with the wrong person? Surely I would. Would someone see past the veil to the secret rebellion in my heart?

"... I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country, that, by then, in retrospect, was no more than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires and her sobs in the night—every night, every night..." - From Lolita by V. Nabokov

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