Reading Lolita in Tehran - Gatsby (October 2013)

[Donna]

This thread is for discussion of section 2 of the book entitled "Gatsby."

[Donna]

Nafisi's trial of "Gatsby" in her university class was one of my favorite sections in the book. It was a brilliant teaching strategy that clearly took the teacher from center stage and got the students discussing the book. To what extent do you think the debate between Mr. Nyazi and Zarrin is a microcosm of the larger ideological battle being waged in Iran? Do you agree with Zarrin's assertion that Mr. Nyazi is unable to "distinguish fiction from reality" (128)? And this section prompts larger questions about the role and purpose of censorship in both totalitarian and democratic governments. So often it is defended as a means of "protecting" us from something.

[Ben]

I enjoyed this part more than the last and found it much easier reading. In part this was because there were far fewer characters to pay attention to, in part because I am very familiar with Gatsby which I read recently and in part because it feels a blunter and simpler section.

Like the conceit of the first part - a women's book group reading western books the second part's "trial" of Gatsby is an other populist conceit. It is entertaining enough but it says very little about anything, there is not scope to say much about Gatsby other than to spoil some point points for people who have not read it (if you have not read it then put this down and read it instead) and it says little about any of the characters or indeed about Iran. I did not feel I got to get under the skin of Mr Nyazi.

As for the protagonist herself, yes we got to know more about her and her history but I didnt really feel I got to know her that well.

There is an interesting tension within this book - is it fiction or non fiction - it heavily uses novelistic tricks and conceits to frame the narrative, it seems very selective of what is told and the events that are reported. It is presented as non fiction but it reads in a way that could easily be either.

At one point she suggests that this "trial" of Gatsby is of real significant importance-

"...You're loving it, admit it - you love this sort of drama and anxiety. Next thing you know you'll be trying to convince me that the whole revolution depends on this.
But it does - don't you see I implored."

This is happening at the same time as people are being arrested, beaten, assaulted, threatened and killed for their believes, actions, histories, rumors not only against themselves but also against family members. This is mentioned briefly but I get the sense that the author is shielded from the worst of everything - in part because she has family in the west (who can look after her if she does leave the country) and in part because what she is doing is far less radical and I would argue far less important than what many other people were doing in the country for the promotion of rights and freedoms.

This is just one example of the slight "smugness" that the reviewer I linked to in the previous part alludes to.

I also am a little puzzled by the ordering of the parts. The events in this part happen before the events of the last part but this reads more easily and is more simply constructed. I think it would work better to have this part first before the look at the book group section. Also the way the first part was set up I thought that the book group would feature much more prominently throughout the rest of the book but at least in this part it feels like it is barely there at all. Will I even remember all the other characters in the group by the time it comes round again?

Also the author tries to link the American dream of Gatsby with the Iranian Dream of some of the extremists and this didnt really work for me. The connection didnt fit and it felt forced, shoehorned on to try to suggest extra meaning that was not really there in my view and it did not really work for me.

We see so little of Nyazi as a real person that who knows whether or not he is able to distinguish fiction from reality I was not able to distinguish between him and his role of "prosecution" - all I got was a mouth piece on a generalization on a cliche.

I think there are interesting issues to be made around censorship and "protection" but the author is so clearly on one side of the argument and preaching to the same side that the consideration of this is not very interesting.

[Donna]

As a literature professor, I would expect her to be one-sided about the issue of censorship, but I don't get the sense that she has written a polemic.