06.26.06
Reading Lolita in Tehran: Third Post (Nima)
The discussions of words and books are really interesting and I’m enjoying it a lot. One thing I keep wondering about is Nima, the boy who wanted to be in the class, and his place in the story. Why did he want so much to be in Nafisi’s “class”? What did the girls feel about this? I understand him wanting to be a part of the class, but why was he so persistant? Did he think about how his presence would have affected the class? Did it occur to him that he would have made the gathering more dangerous for the women? Did he know that without him there the women had the freedom to remove their veils and robes, but if he had been there they could not have done that? He chafed at not having the right to be a part of this group when the women who were in the group didn’t have even half the rights he had every day. And yet, I don’t see him as bad or anything, just maybe a little clueless, I guess. I just can’t help thinking about what he is (almost certainly unintentionally) saying through his actions. It’s an interesting dimension that Nafisi has thus far spent little time discussing.