Misunderstanding Literature

I just finished "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi, an Iranian woman who was a professor of Western Literature in Iran after the Shah was overthrown and the Ayatollah Khomeini was re-fashioning the country into his own “Islamic” vision. Through discussion of the works of Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James, Austen and others, she talks about the impact of the “morality police” on her society.

It was a tough read for me. Since this was a book club assignment, I was reading it to prepare for a discussion – so I ended up with a lot of markings in my book. I’m not used to reading this sort of thing – non-fiction and “academic” besides. It took me back to literature courses (both my own and Todd’s) and my frustration with trying to find the ‘right’ hidden meaning. I didn't understand.

“What is the author trying to say here?” I never really knew.

But this book is full of the most remarkable revelations about literature and life. I went back at the end to look at some of the many the passages I highlighted:

Regarding “Lolita:” “Humbert, like most dictators, was interested only in his own vision of other people.” He was a villain “because he lacked curiosity about other people and their lives.” “All oppressors have a long list of grievances against their victims.” “Humbert exonerates himself by implicating his victim.”

“Dreams… are perfect ideals, complete in themselves. How can you impose them on a constantly changing, imperfect, incomplete reality? You would become a Humbert, destroying the object of your dream; or a Gatsby, destroying yourself.”

Relating “Gatsby” to Iran: “He wanted to fulfill his dream by repeating the past, and in the end he discovered that the past was dead, the present a sham, and there was no future. Was this not similar to our revolution, which had come in the name of our collective past and had wrecked our lives in the name of a dream?”

Nietzsche: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

Or, finally, regarding James’s unhappy characters: “It is because these characters depend to such a high degree on their own sense of integrity that for them, victory has nothing to do with happiness. It has more to do with a settling within oneself, a movement inward that makes them whole. Their reward is not happiness… What James’s characters gain is self-respect.”

So this is my own conclusion: Education is largely wasted on the young. How much more I could have learned – and how much more I would have done in life as a result – if I’d been educated in my 40s and 50s instead of my teens and 20s.

And also: There is really nothing to "misunderstand" about literature. Except perhaps to think there is only one way to understand.