Reading Lolita in Tehran... the book I've recently discovered while browsing through the non-fiction area. it's about a teacher in the Islamic Republic of Iran who every thursday gathers with 7 of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. It's interesting their view of America, sometimes positive, mostly not. But it's even more intriguing how they escape from the horrors and sadness of their life into these fiction books, stories of The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, Daisy Miller... But I really like is so far, so here are some quotes from the book that stuck out to me.
"He is a hero because he refuses to become like all the rest."
"She was her own definition."
"Do not, under any circumstance, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth."
"We in ancient countries have our past- we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future."
"This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing."
"Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby- the biggest sin is to be blind to others problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence."
"Whoever fights monsters, should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
"Feel, Feel I say- feel for all you're worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live- and the only way to honour and celebrate these admirable beings, who are our pride and inspiration." - Henry James
"Greatest freedom of man was his 'independence of thought.'"
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