Reading Lolita in Tel Aviv - 7.8.25
The last movie we went to was a re-viewing of Paterson (2016) about a poet who is stymied by a well-meaning but limited wife. The wife grabbed my eye but she played such a bad part that I longed for more. Today we saw Reading Lolita in Teheran (2024) and I was thrilled to find her there. Golshifteh Farahani. This time, her role gave her something of the opportunity to show the range of her emotions.
What is the range demanded of her? love of a country that gradually turns from a promised democracy to a religious autocracy, defiance that gradually turns to defeat and is replaced by the power of self preservation. And throughout, a belief that literature can help extend the boundaries of the individual and open minds.
Of course as a professor of literature there was no way I could avoid identifying with her, and as a troubled citizen in Israel there was no way I could avoid the fear of extremism. When she explains her position to a friend ““My grandmother was the most devout Muslim I knew. She never missed a prayer. But she wore her scarf because she was devout, not because she was a symbol,” I could not avoid thinking of how many women in Israel dress – the Muslim women in a hijab, the settlers in long skirts and weird headpieces (Ezi calls them chamberpots)… I could go on but then I’ll never get to make up some of the sleep we missed during the Iranian bombing.
…absolutely loved this diary post today!
The comment about the “chamberpots” somehow reminded me of my favorite line in Kurt Vonnegut’s “G-d Bless You Mr. Rosewater”: “If you stop throwing cigarette butts in our urinals, we’ll stop pissing in your ashtrays”.
This was the first of Vonnegut’s novels I read…at your home on Westminster. It was the first time I ever laughed out loud, reading anything. It was late at night, and I was so afraid I would wake everyone in the house up! At that time, my bedroom was Marlyn Grossman’s old room…with the fireplace, I think? Anyway ~ more happy memories from your huge and wonderful home on Westminster. Those memories are indelible…even more so than some of the trauma that occurred decades later. And the skylight window, which didn’t quite close…so snowflakes would occasionally drift downward, softly, to my face…oh. my.
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Lorraine, I try hard not to add to the comments because they speak for themselves, but this one – oh my! You were in MY bedroom! I slept for 10 years under that skylight and it was my best friend! I slept under that window, stood on the bed, opened the window, smoked, and dreamt – even in snowstorms. Wow!
And my mother – I’m putting up a poem about her for you!