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5431fc2
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Modern fiction brings out the evil in domestic lives, ordinary relations, people like you and me -- Reader! Bruder! as Humbert said. Evil in Austen, as in most great fiction, lies in the inability to "see" others, hence to empathize with them. What is frightening is that this blindness can exist in the best of us (Eliza Bennet) as well as the worst (Humbert). We are all capable of becoming the blind censor, or imposing our visions and desir..
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Azar Nafisi |
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084ab88
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There are different forms of seduction, and the kind I have witnessed in Persian dancers is so unique, such a mixture of subtlety and brazenness, I cannot find a Western equivalent to compare it to. I have seen women of vastly different backgrounds take on that same expression: a hazy, lazy, flirtatious look in their eyes. . . . This sort of seduction is elusive; it is sinewy and tactile. It twists, twirls, winds and unwinds. Hands curl and..
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iran
persian
seduction
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Azar Nafisi |
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bc68842
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Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies. In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. The affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great wo..
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reading-thinking
tragedylolita-in-tehran
why-we-love-reading
reading
lolita
tehran
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Azar Nafisi |
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342224c
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We all had to pay, but not for the crimes we were accused of. There were other scores to settle.
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Azar Nafisi |
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03b6967
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lnsHb l~ Hlmn qd ykwn khTran
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Azar Nafisi |
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ca0d6ed
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American students, we are told, are falling behind in reading and math; on test after test, they score below most European students (at the level of Lithuania), and the solution, rather than seeking to engage their curiosity, has been testing and more testing-- a dry and brittle method that produces lackluster results. And so resources are pulled from the "soft" fields that are not being tested. Music teachers are being fired or not replace..
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Azar Nafisi |
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a3427fe
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It is not accidental that the most unsympathetic characters in Austen's novels are those who are incapable of genuine dialogue with others. They rant. They lecture. They scold. This incapacity for true dialogue implies an incapacity for tolerance, self-reflection and empathy.
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narcissists
narcissism
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Azar Nafisi |
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a431018
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I was reminded of a painter friend who had started her career by depicting scenes from life, mainly deserted rooms, abandoned houses and discarded photographs of women. Gradually, her work became more abstract, and in her last exhibition, her paintings were splashes of rebellious color, like the two in my living room, dark patches with little droplets of blue. I asked about her progress from modern realism to abstraction. Reality has become..
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reality
dreams
art
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Azar Nafisi |
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161d539
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Hope for some means its loss for others; when the hopeless regain some hope, those in power--the ones who had taken it away--become afraid, more protective of their endangered interests, more repressive.
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Azar Nafisi |
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fc441c5
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I searched modern fiction and poetry for clues to how we confronted and evaded reality, how we articulated our experience and turned to language not to revel ourselves but to hide. I was as sure then as I am now that by looking at contemporary Iranian fiction I could gain access to a real understanding of political and social events. (p289)
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how-fiction-informs-reality
purpose
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Azar Nafisi |
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4e72d86
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It was one of those rare nights when I was kept awake not by my nightmares and anxieties but by something exciting and exhilarating. Most nights I lay awake waiting for some unexpected disaster...I think I somehow felt that as long as I was conscious, nothing bad could happen...
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Azar Nafisi |
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6782dfd
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You yourself told us that in the final analysis we are our own betrayers, playing Judas to our own Christ
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Azar Nafisi |
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51784a1
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You don't understand their mentality. They won't accept your resignation because they don't think you have the right to quit. They are the ones who decide how long you should stay and when you should be dispensed with. More than anything else, it was this arbitrariness that had become unbearable.
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Azar Nafisi |
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5f9cf4a
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fklW mn yDmur fy dkhlh yhwdh lmsyHh lkhS
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Azar Nafisi |
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b876aa6
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We envy people like you, and we want to be you; we can't, so we destroy you.
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Azar Nafisi |
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b76c031
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The only way to leave the circle, to stop dancing with the jailer, is to find a way to preserve one's individuality, that unique which evades description but differentiates one human being from the other.
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totalitarianism
women-writers
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Azar Nafisi |
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ac9d64c
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Stories are not mere flights of fantasy or instruments of political power and control. They link us to our past, provide us with critical insight into the present and enable us to envision our lives not just as they are but as they should be or might become. Imaginative knowledge is not something you have today and discard tomorrow. It is a way of perceiving the world and relating to it.
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Azar Nafisi |
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b53319d
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st lthwr@ lslmy@ llslm 'kthr mn 'y Gryb kn ymkn n ysy, wdhlk bstkhdm lslm wsyl@ llystbdd wljw
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Azar Nafisi |
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e6ac245
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How can we protect ourselves from a culture of manipulation, where tastes and flavors are re-created chemically in laboratories and given to us as natural food, where religion is packaged, televised and tweeted and commercials influence us to such an extent that they dictate not only what we eat, wear, read and want but what and how we dream. We need the pristine beauty of truth as revealed to us in fiction, poetry, music and the arts: we n..
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the-republic-of-imagination
memoirs-of-a-geisha
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Azar Nafisi |
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aee64bc
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We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the ..
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Azar Nafisi |
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a0633e4
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The crisis besetting America is not just an economic or political crisis; something deeper is wreaking havoc across the land, a mercenary and utilitarian attitude that demonstrates little empathy for people's actual well-being, that dismisses imagination and thought, branding passion for knowledge as irrelevant.
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imagination
thought
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Azar Nafisi |
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3ba75ac
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As women, do we have the same rights as men to enjoy sex? How many of us would say yes, we do have a right, we have a equal right to enjoy sex, and if our husbands don't satisfy us, then we have a right to seek satisfaction elsewhere.
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Azar Nafisi |
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1387e9c
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The feelings I thought I had left behind returned when, almost nineteen years later, the Islamic regime would once again turn against its students. This time it would open fire on those it had admitted to the universities, those who were its own children, the children of the revolution. Once more my students would go to the hospitals in search of the murdered bodies that where stolen by the guards and vigilantes and try to prevent them from..
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Azar Nafisi |
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5b31ea5
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Our personal fears and emotions are at times stronger than public danger. By keeping them secret, we allow them to remain malignant. You need to be able to articulate something if you want it to go away, and to do that, you must acknowledge that it exists.
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fear
secret
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Azar Nafisi |
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a273c74
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Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark," Baldwin said in an interview in 1961. "Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an il..
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Azar Nafisi |
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8a30887
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The truth was that upsilamba was one of Nabokovs fascinating creations, possibly a word he invented. I said I associate Upsilamba with the impossible joy of a suspended leap. Yassi, who seemed excited for no particular reason, cried out that she always thought it could be a name of a dance- you know, "C'mon, baby, do the Upsilamba with me". Manna suggested that the word upsilamba evoked the image of small silver fish leaping in and out of a..
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Azar Nafisi |
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b50acd6
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This is Tehran for me: its absences were more real than its presences
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Azar Nafisi |
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f33e19e
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Fiction is an antidote, a reminder of the power of individual choice. Every novel has at its core a choice by at least one of its protagonists, reminding the reader that she can choose to be her own person, to go against what her parents or society or the state tell her to do and follow the faint but essential beat of her own heart.
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Azar Nafisi |
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7eb6c7d
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you cannot just be stubborn against something, you need to be stubborn for something as well
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Azar Nafisi |
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23595a9
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I no longer believe that we can keep silent. We never really do, mind you.
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Azar Nafisi |
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0cfa7f7
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There was something, both in fiction and in his life (Nabokov), that we instinctively related to and grasped, the possibility of a boundless freedom when all options are taken away. I could invent violin or be devoured by the void.
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azar nafisi |
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868d7d5
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One cancels the other, and yet without one, the other is incomplete. In the first photograph, standing there in our black robes and scarves, we are as we had been shaped by someone else's dreams. In the second, we appear as we imagined ourselves. In neither could we feel completely at home.
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Azar Nafisi |
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b29ac11
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We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts and feelings. To me it seemed as if we had not really existed, or only half existed, because we could not imaginatively realize ourselves and communicate to the world, because we had used works of imagination to serve as handmaidens to some political ploy.
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Azar Nafisi |
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ee9dd7e
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Living in the Islamic Republic is like having sex with a man you loathe.
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Azar Nafisi |
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0b89440
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hy ft@ mshtt ldhhn Gfl@ 'l ykfy nh lm ttzwj b`d
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Azar Nafisi |
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8c0f9f3
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All violence is based on blindness, on a lack of reflection and empathy.
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Azar Nafisi |
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1c2e73c
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So few American novels have happy endings. Perhaps this is not surprising in a nation whose declaration of independence provides its citizens not with the right to happiness, but the right to its pursuit.
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happy-endings
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Azar Nafisi |
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936a318
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w lknn fy dhlk lwqt lm nkn qd w`yn b`du l~ 'y md~ kn nkhwnu 'Hlmn.
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Azar Nafisi |
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cc8113b
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She resented the fact that her veil, which to her was a symbol of her sacred relationship to God, had now become an instrument of power, turning the women who wore them into political signs and symbols. Where do your loyalties lie, Mr. Bahri, with Islam or the state?
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Azar Nafisi |
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ef07994
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It wasn't courage that motivated this casual, impersonal manner of treating so much pain; it was a special brand of cowardice, a destructive defense mechanism, forcing others to listen to the most horrendous experiences and yet denying them the moment of empathy: don't feel sorry for me; nothing is too big for me to handle. This is nothing, nothing really.
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Azar Nafisi |
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c766f94
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Jefferson, who spent his life collecting books, many of which he donated to the Library of Congress, boasted that America was the only country whose farmers read Homer. "A native of America who cannot read or write," said John Adams, "is as rare an appearance . . . as a Comet or an Earthquake."
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reading
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Azar Nafisi |
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31b3ca0
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Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.
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Azar Nafisi |
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d80348b
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jb! kyf ymkn llHZ@ nftH ytym@ 'n ttHwl l~ Hry@ hy'l@?
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Azar Nafisi |
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b230e25
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Our patents' old age shocks us in the same manner that our children's growth to maturity does , but without the joy.
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Azar Nafisi |