Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.- Vladimir Nabokov
I am frequently reminded how lucky I am to live where I do. This is not to say that any place can be absolutely perfect, but there are so many opportunities and advantages available to me as a female in America that simply wouldn't exist if I were somewhere else. That thought struck me many times while I was going through
Reading Lolita in Tehran.
I can't imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and find that the leadership of my government has determined that I must dress, behave, and think a specific way. Do I agree with everything my government does? No, but I have the opportunity to disagree and vote for those who share my opinion.
That's a fairly idealized version of what we have, but when one stops to consider the alternatives there are many reasons to be happy with the potential inherent in our government. I find myself to be far too independent to accept being told what to do. That's not to imply that I have a terribly rebellious nature, please believe me when I say that I don't.
I am struck by the bravery and encouraged by the rebellious spirit of the women who join this literature professor in her home to continue reading and discussing and learning. I can't imagine an existence without books, so the premise of the memoir draws me in right away. Throughout the book, Azar Nafisi weaves a complex and compelling narrative of what she and her students had to endure both inside and outside her makeshift classroom.
There's a comment Nafisi makes in the opening pages of the text where she describes the women who made up the group and she talks about those who were not there at the end. Her comment is that the absences had become more real than the presences. That's something I think we can all relate to. Whether it's a place or a person or a particular time in our lives there is something that defines us as much if not more by no longer being there.
There's also something that we internalize about each of our experiences making them uniquely our own, even when they've been shared with other people. I often feel like every choice I've made, every experience I've had combined in an almost impossible way to bring to where I am at this very moment. Even though I didn't enjoy or appreciate all of them at the time, I believe that there was a reason for all of them. I don't have to understand it right away, but I do trust that it's there. I have faith in the notion that everything happens for a reason.
Another aspect of the story that resonates with me is the power these books have to bring these women together. It doesn't always have to be books, but I think we all need those things that provide reasons for creating and sustaining connections. We all need something, especially in difficult times, that gives some kind of affirmation that life can not only continue against all backdrops and all kinds of trials, but that there can be improvement. It's the power to find hope in the darkest of experiences that really characterizes the women in this story for me.
It's the idea that things can get better, that
we can get better.
To follow up to Reading Lolita in Tehran, I read Lolita. I don't know that I would have picked it up otherwise, but I wanted to see for myself what could make this story a classic and a frequent topic of study.
From that standpoint, the story is about his obsession and his delusion. It's about completely losing control by trying to take the ultimate control of another person. That's what I think draws people back to this book. Nabokov provides so much depth and so many layers to the depravity that makes up Humbert. It's possible to be taken in by his delusions and see the seduction he imagines is taking place. 
I am frequently reminded how lucky I am to live where I do. This is not to say that any place can be absolutely perfect, but there are so many opportunities and advantages available to me as a female in America that simply wouldn't exist if I were somewhere else. That thought struck me many times while I was going through Reading Lolita in Tehran. 
There's a comment Nafisi makes in the opening pages of the text where she describes the women who made up the group and she talks about those who were not there at the end. Her comment is that the absences had become more real than the presences. That's something I think we can all relate to. Whether it's a place or a person or a particular time in our lives there is something that defines us as much if not more by no longer being there. 
I just finished reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I thought this was an appropriate book to follow up yesterday's post about judging a book by it's cover. 
We see Orlando win the favor of Queen Elizabeth and develop a love for writing through an early interaction with Shakespeare. We watch as Orlando chases a beautiful Russian princess and has his heart broken when he finds her to be unfaithful. We lose ourselves in his writing of the Oak Tree poem as he does. We feel his frustration with the Archduchess as he does not return her affections. We follow Orlando as he leaves England behind to become the King's Ambassador to Constantinople. We wake up with her when she finds herself suddenly, but not surprisingly a woman. We travel through the hills with her and the gypsies. We join her on her voyage home to England and watch as she begins life in a new era. We watch her run away from love and finally embrace it. 
It's interesting to see the way even as her physical gender shifts, her psychology stays the same. The Lady Orlando frequently goes about in men's clothing and finds herself engaging in affairs with women. There's nothing that the Lord Orlando would want to do or experience that the Lady Orlando does not embrace with equal fervor and abandon. 
