Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

by Azar Nafisi

“Manna: I am scared of myself, nothing I do or have is like that of others around me. Others scare me. I scare me.” Throughout, from start to finish, I observe that they have no clear image of themselves; they can only see and shape themselves through other people’s eyes—ironically, the very people they despise.

Lolita belongs to a category of victims who have no defense and are never given a chance to articulate their own story.

“Perfectly Equipped Failures.”

After a while, I began to make requests. I asked for classics, like Jules and Jim and Modern Times, or films by Howard Hawks, John Ford, Buñuel or Fellini. These names were new to him, and at first it was more difficult for him to find them, perhaps because they were of little interest to sailors.

He was not very creative himself; his creativity went into a benign form of self-promotion and self-improvement.

There were so many young men like him on all our campuses, those who had been very young at the beginning of the revolution, many from the provinces or from traditional families.