A Note about Reading Lolita in Terhan

Other than wanting to live forever in our youth, what follows gets to the heart of the matter.

Reading Lolita in Tehran cover — Fair use

I was taken aback how much D and I held in common from early on. Being outdoors and running was great—youth can cover lots of sins—especially those of omission...

Though when she talked about her family, it was easy to see she wasn’t talking in abstracts, nor at a distance. What I love her for: she speaks directly, even when I may not want to hear it. But from first conversations, there was no distance between us, it didn’t seem. And we were simply running buddies back then. I was past wanting to play games—being lousy at them—and I can’t imagine she was ever into them.

Now and then I come on interesting persons, but the insincere ones, even those who need a face to hide behind, I can cheer but won’t love. I am my mother’s son. Yes, I’ve missed out on some good times, maybe even a good story, but that’s the way I was raised—not so much saintly as realistic.

So D and I ran work nights from the gym, down Leesburg Pike to George Mason Drive a mile or so to the WO&D trail, then a few more miles out and back. I’d been doing it night after night by myself, and it was great having company. Russ joined us for some of these. That first stretch of the bike path went past dark places, so I became her escort—not that I was more than a second shadow running beside her, and we’d laugh about it, but I paid attention. I told her ‘leave off the Apple device’ when you’re running.’

Though the worst we faced was nothing like Azar Nafisi wrote of in her memoir. Which gets to the point of this blog: D swore she would never date the Egyptian men her father encouraged her to meet. She was amused but resisted. Coming from another Middle Eastern society much like what Nafisi was writing about, she was born into a patriarchy in truth. Perfectly logical, I thought, her resistance.

When her family landed in New Orleans, I wish I were a witness taking notes. In the 60s and what they were falling into. One day I asked, did she ever think she’d return to her family’s Coptic religion, thinking people often fall back on where they come from, and she looked at me like I was from Mars. Huh. And she declared she’d never marry, given her parents’ sad marriage. My one failed marriage wasn’t a better an example.

I was raised differently—and outside of any kind of patriarchy I owed an obligation to. Perhaps because my father died before I knew him.

The only role models I knew were my mother and my grandmother—hardly flowers requiring protection. It went beyond ‘respect for women’ to thinking whatever differences might be between the sexes were not a difference in spirit. My mother never said my father would have claimed to be lord of the castle, but I have no way to prove that, except for the few letters left us.

So to return to Azar Nafisi’s sad story: I don’t understand—why would one want to dominate the person closest to you? Who you choose to live with, have children with? Children are stuck with who they’re born to; they get no vote in the matter, but a companion who’ll live with you past the bad parts—there are always bad parts—if the only way you can keep your companion is to chain them?

The question is whether the species will ever outgrow our worst habits and traditions.