While rocking in my comfortable recliner last night, I was trying to get through the novel Reading Lolita In Tehran. It was not an easy read for me, as I have a limited knowledge of history of the middle east and the Iranian revolution (the where and when of the book). I was mainly interested in the book for the story of a female professor of Western literature in Tehran. I was not prepared for the history lesson the book gives on the war, even though it is well-told and engaging via Mrs. Nafisi’s first person point of view.
I got to a passage around page 200 and started to weep. My husband, who was working on his computer in the same room, sighed in my direction and asked “Why are you reading that if it makes you sad?”
It was a fair question, I guess, but I had just reached the part of the story where Mrs. Nafisi is remembering a female student she used to teach, who was later jailed and executed. That was enough to make me empathetic and fall farther into the story, but when it was revealed that Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier was this this particular student’s favorite book, I couldn’t hold my tears in any longer. See, Rebecca is my favorite book also.
To know that I had something in common with someone who died so young for her beliefs.
To realize that we both loved the same story.
To understand there is a tiny thread connecting us all.
Books can do that.
