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Fw: Nabokov in Iran
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EDNOTE. Dr. Azar Nafisi's book _Reading LOLITA in Tehran_ has received wide
coverage in recent weeks. In the course of arranging an interview for
NABOKV-L, Azar Nafisi mentioned that one of her former students is now in
the U.S. That student, Nahal Naficy, a cultural anthropology grad student
in Texas, provides a moving account of her Nabokov experience in Iran.
NABOKV-L thanks Nahal for sharing her memories.
----- Original Message -----
From: <nahal@rice.edu>
> A pleasure to hear from you. Even though it's been a while since i was
> an English major in Tehran (I currently study cultural anthropology), I
> would love to be involved in discussions about my favorite literary works
> and people => Do add me to your Nabokov list, if you may.
> As for personal Nabokov-related recollections, Azar says it almost all, in
> her book Reading Lolita in Tehran, about what it was like for our small
> group to be reading Nabokov in Tehran, so i feel short of any insightful
> additions, but i will think about it. I have had to part with so many
favorite
> books and precious class notes and journals in packing to come to the
> US simply because you can't fit everything in those stupid suitcases, i
> realized! Now that you are asking, I wish i had my own copy of Azar's
> book or my own xeroxed copy of Lolita here with all the markings on
> them, i wish i had my notes from her classes with me, but i really don't
> have anything of that sort to turn to. This is a real material loss the
> impact of which i had never anticipated (unlike the loss of all the many
> beloved people and places back there that you kind of expect anyway
> once you make the decision). So I'm anxious that what i might have to
> say about my experience of reading Nabokov in Tehran is going to be
> more scattered and impressionistic than the International Nabokov
> Society or those 700 people on your Nabokv-L list would care to hear.
>
> BUT the fact is this all may not be too far from and unrelated to some of
> the most intriguing aspects of Nabokov for me, actually; i mean this out-
> of-reachness and loss i'm talking about and my dependence on a
> handful of significant details for re-creating what it was like to read
Lolita
> in Tehran . I remember that some translator i knew had difficulty
> translating Nabakov's "Speak Memory" because he wasn't sure if by
> 'memory' Nabakov meant that device in your brain that keeps the
> information or those personal accounts that you have kept for their
> significance in one way or another --there are two very different words
for
> these in Persian. At any rate, i never read his translation, as i heard
> from Azar it was really bad; nevertheless one of the most intriguing
> things that has stayed with me from reading Nabakov in those days in
> Tehran is not only a painful and brutal sense of loss and confiscation --
> of childhood, of sanity, of beauty, of confidence, of homeland, of
property,
> of love, of life-- but also this stubborn insistance on the power of
> memory and imagination and on remembering and creating die-hard
> details with passion and compassion as a way of defeating the loss.
> Through remembering and artistic creation, both Nabokov and his most
> interesting characters seem to come to re-claim and re-gain what is lost
> to them in separation and disownment, of physical and metaphysical
> sorts. And i may be a Romantic here, but i think there's a lot to be said
> about what this all has meant to me in Iran and here in the context of my
> own firsthand experiences of loss and separation and longing, and why
> i think reading Nabokov was one of the most inspiring and empowering
> things that happened to me in Tehran . But that all depends on what
> you have in mind by 'Nabokov-related recollections'!
>
> Sorry this mail got to be so long. You got me started on this subject
like
> offering a rare pastry to a child who has been deprived of and longing for
> it for a long time; so i jumped at it headfirst! >
Yours, Nahal
> Nahal Naficy
> Graduate Student in Anthropology
> Rice University, Houston, TX
>
>
coverage in recent weeks. In the course of arranging an interview for
NABOKV-L, Azar Nafisi mentioned that one of her former students is now in
the U.S. That student, Nahal Naficy, a cultural anthropology grad student
in Texas, provides a moving account of her Nabokov experience in Iran.
NABOKV-L thanks Nahal for sharing her memories.
----- Original Message -----
From: <nahal@rice.edu>
> A pleasure to hear from you. Even though it's been a while since i was
> an English major in Tehran (I currently study cultural anthropology), I
> would love to be involved in discussions about my favorite literary works
> and people => Do add me to your Nabokov list, if you may.
> As for personal Nabokov-related recollections, Azar says it almost all, in
> her book Reading Lolita in Tehran, about what it was like for our small
> group to be reading Nabokov in Tehran, so i feel short of any insightful
> additions, but i will think about it. I have had to part with so many
favorite
> books and precious class notes and journals in packing to come to the
> US simply because you can't fit everything in those stupid suitcases, i
> realized! Now that you are asking, I wish i had my own copy of Azar's
> book or my own xeroxed copy of Lolita here with all the markings on
> them, i wish i had my notes from her classes with me, but i really don't
> have anything of that sort to turn to. This is a real material loss the
> impact of which i had never anticipated (unlike the loss of all the many
> beloved people and places back there that you kind of expect anyway
> once you make the decision). So I'm anxious that what i might have to
> say about my experience of reading Nabokov in Tehran is going to be
> more scattered and impressionistic than the International Nabokov
> Society or those 700 people on your Nabokv-L list would care to hear.
>
> BUT the fact is this all may not be too far from and unrelated to some of
> the most intriguing aspects of Nabokov for me, actually; i mean this out-
> of-reachness and loss i'm talking about and my dependence on a
> handful of significant details for re-creating what it was like to read
Lolita
> in Tehran . I remember that some translator i knew had difficulty
> translating Nabakov's "Speak Memory" because he wasn't sure if by
> 'memory' Nabakov meant that device in your brain that keeps the
> information or those personal accounts that you have kept for their
> significance in one way or another --there are two very different words
for
> these in Persian. At any rate, i never read his translation, as i heard
> from Azar it was really bad; nevertheless one of the most intriguing
> things that has stayed with me from reading Nabakov in those days in
> Tehran is not only a painful and brutal sense of loss and confiscation --
> of childhood, of sanity, of beauty, of confidence, of homeland, of
property,
> of love, of life-- but also this stubborn insistance on the power of
> memory and imagination and on remembering and creating die-hard
> details with passion and compassion as a way of defeating the loss.
> Through remembering and artistic creation, both Nabokov and his most
> interesting characters seem to come to re-claim and re-gain what is lost
> to them in separation and disownment, of physical and metaphysical
> sorts. And i may be a Romantic here, but i think there's a lot to be said
> about what this all has meant to me in Iran and here in the context of my
> own firsthand experiences of loss and separation and longing, and why
> i think reading Nabokov was one of the most inspiring and empowering
> things that happened to me in Tehran . But that all depends on what
> you have in mind by 'Nabokov-related recollections'!
>
> Sorry this mail got to be so long. You got me started on this subject
like
> offering a rare pastry to a child who has been deprived of and longing for
> it for a long time; so i jumped at it headfirst! >
Yours, Nahal
> Nahal Naficy
> Graduate Student in Anthropology
> Rice University, Houston, TX
>
>