A Look Back at Line Gamache’s Hello, Me Pretty
The past year or so has seen many great Canadian graphic novels published: Seth’s fantastic George Sprott (1894 – 1975); Jeff Lemire’s inventive post-apocalyptic Sweet Tooth; Kathryn and Stuart Immonen’s intriguing Moving Pictures; and let’s not forget the Canadian rock star of comics, Bryan Lee O’Malley, and the last installment of his Scott Pilgrim vs. the World series, which is also coming to theatres. I think it’s fair to argue we are in the middle of a big enough groundswell of talent and output to look back and re-examine the works of a few old and new masters.
One such book, Line Gamache’s Hello, Me Pretty, was published by Conundrum Press in May 2007 as the first title in their (then) new BDang! imprint, which specializes in bringing French Canadian books to an English Canadian readership. Originally published as Te Malade, Toi! for top-notch Quebec publisher Les 400 coups in 2005, Hello, Me Pretty is a sensitive, naïve story of growing up with Josée, the author’s developmentally delayed younger sister.
Three things stand out in Hello, Me Pretty: the wonderfully engaging art; the acceptance of Gamache’s eternally optimistic view, which looks past the pain of Joseé’s disability; and the placement of the story within Francophone Montreal of the 1960s and ’70s. The art is very detailed. The two-dimentional primitive drawings depict the subtlest details in each scene, bringing them to our attention as only this kind of art can. Bold lines, almost as if from a lino-block, make simple, bold statements about the story’s place and time. This simple organically lends itself to our understanding of how Jossée perceives the world—she is eternally happy, if forever in the present and, despite some bad experiences (being hit by a car, the eventual loss of her mother), she never shuts herself down.
Josée has a very limited vocabulary, which is where the title comes in—her first and favourite word is “Hello,” which she repeats constantly. Later, after she applies makeup very freely over the course of many hours, Josée declare how much she likes herself—”Me pretty,” she says over and over.
The narrator’s main message lies in the characterization of his sister as a “little angel” whose presence in the family and the community draws people together and reminds them to cultivate their own positive energy. However, the actual challenges and problems of having a child such as Jossée are glossed over, and I believe some meat may be lost from the bone at times.
A few recent other titles to keep in mind when looking for some summer reading are Drawn and Quarterly’s wonderful John Stanley retrospective, Thirteen Going on Eighteen and their Walt And Skeezix collection and classic Red Snow translation. In terms of newer talent coming down the pipe, such artists as Michael DeForge, who won a Doug Wright Award for his head-spinning Lose, and Ethan Rilly, who won the Gene Day Award for his wonderfully down-to-earth Pope Hats, are real winners.
Making Memories with Ann Brashares
What if you had lived past lives? What if you could remember them? What would you do? Ann Brashares, the beloved author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, explores these questions and more in her second novel for adults, My Name Is Memory. The novel’s protagonist, Daniel, has spent countless lifetimes searching for Sophia, whom he met waaaaaay back in 541 AD, when he burned her house down and murdered her and her family. Since then, Daniel’s obsession with finding her has dominated his many lives.
Ann Brashares chatted with Books@Torontoist about writing for adults and constructing a compelling new mythology, in which readers can fall in love, lifetime after lifetime.
Torontoist: Tell us about your new book, My Name Is Memory.
Ann Brashares: At it’s core, My Name Is Memory is about its characters. Daniel, the main character, is unusual and remarkable. He’s unusual in that he can remember everything, from his past deaths and births to the beginning of his life. He keeps with him a brutal and searing memory from his first life, the face of a girl who has become a centerpiece of his memory. He spends each lifetime trying to find her again, and connect with her again. To him, she represents some form of completion.
TO: Where did this idea of playing with reincarnation come from?
AB: It first came about as an image that came into my head. At once, there was a young man and woman in some uncertain peril, facing a dire situation. In the face of death, he comforts her and says “I will find you again, this won’t be the end, I promise.” I don’t know why, but I started to question own imagination. Why does he know that? Why did he think that? Maybe he died before and remembers past it, maybe he’s lived many times and remembers back and back and back. What sort of life would you lead? What would it be like to have many lives and many mothers?
A Q&A with Scars author Cheryl Rainfield
The 519 Church Community Centre is hosting a very special book launch this evening to raise funds for the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre and Multicultural Women Against Rape. The event, which also features live music, door prizes, refreshments, and even a wen-do demonstration, will honour the publication of Cheryl Rainfield’s Scars, a novel for teens that explores the disturbing issues of sexual abuse, self-harm, and cutting.
Books@Torontoist editor James Grainger spoke with Scars author Cheryl Rainfield about her new novel.
Torontoist: When did you decide to write a novel on a subject that most people don’t even want to hear or talk about?
Cheryl Rainfield: I decided to write Scars years ago; it was a part of my own speaking out and breaking silence about something that holds a lot of societal shame and judgment. I wanted so badly to know that I wasn’t alone when I was a teen being abused and using self-harm, and in the years afterward. So that’s a big part of what drove me to write Scars.
Torontoist: How long did it take you to write it?
CB: The initial draft probably took a few months. But then I revised it, and revised it, and revised it. I edited Scars more than 40 times over a 10-year period.
Torontoist: Is the protagonist of your story, Kendra Marshall, based on a real-life person?
CB: There’s a lot of me in Kendra. There’s a lot of me in the book. But Kendra is far more spunky than I ever was. She is both fiction and bits of truth, infused.
Torontoist: How has reader response been so far?
CB: I’ve had some fantastic responses. I had one reviewer say that before he read Scars, he couldn’t understand how anyone could self-harm, and after he read Scars, he GOT it. That is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. I’ve also had a LOT of people write or talk to me about their own experiences of self-harm or sexual abuse (or both), telling me that they see some of themselves in the book, or that they found it moving or powerful. Again, that’s something I was really hoping for. And most readers tell me that they couldn’t put Scars down once they started reading; I love hearing that!
Torontoist: Ideally, what would you like readers, especially young readers, to take away from their reading of Scars?
CB: I would like readers to know that there is hope and there are good people in the world, and that healing can happen. I also really want people who use self-harm or are sexual abuse survivors or queer to know that they’re not alone. And I really want people who do not have those experiences to come away with more compassion for those that do.
Torontoist: How did you come to partner with the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre for the launch?
CB: I turned to the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre help line myself once when I was a teen being abused, and it was a helpful experience for me, some support in a crisis. And I turned to them once or twice over the years and I always knew that they were there if I absolutely needed them. That felt important to me; sometimes it can feel incredibly hard just getting through some memories of abuse or times of crisis. I wanted to give them something back. And I wanted to help create awareness of the rape crisis center, to let women know it’s out there, and also try to raise money for them. They do an amazing job.
(Tonight’s book launch is at the 519 Church Community Centre, Auditorium Room 206, 519 Church Street, 6:30 p.m. reception, event from 7-9 p.m. For more information about Cheryl Rainfield’s work go here.)
Knowing What You Don’t Know: An Interview with Michelle Berry
Author Michelle Berry has just released I Still Don’t Even Know You, a collection of short stories that collectively ask the question: Is it possible to truly know another person? This is Berry’s third story collection, and she’s also published three novels, demonstrating an easy proficiency for both forms. She recently spoke with Books@Torontoist editor James Grainger about shuffling between forms, genres, and themes.
Torontoist: Your latest book is a short story collection, your third. You’ve also published three novels. Do you think you’ll ever favour one form over the other or do you see yourself shuffling between genres?
Michelle Berry: I’m a shuffler. In fact, I do the three step (I’m working on a novel of a TV show right now too, which is a whole new genre). It depends where I am in time, mood, how busy I am, etc. The short stories in I Still Don’t Even Know You were written over a long period of time—12 years—in between the writing of novels and collections. I find that a story flashes at me—an image, scene, sentence, a piece of dialogue jumps out at me. A novel is more solid, more a “concept” than a flash of something.
That being said, some of my stories could easily be novels. Some of my novels could have been a long short story. Each of the chapters in Blind Crescent, for example, could have been individual stories as each chapter deals with a different set of characters (until they all collide in the middle of the crescent at the end). The story, “The Cat,” in this recent collection, could potentially be a novel. There is a lot in that story about the character and his past and future that could have been dealt with. So I’m basically writing novels and short stories at the same time…? Maybe it’s just my energy—do I want to finish something and move on? Or do I want to stay with something for a long time and really study it?
Torontoist: At what point in the writing process do you know or “feel” that a piece is going to be a novel as opposed to a short story? Do some themes or characters demand a longer hearing?
MB: I answered this above, in a small way. But I do think there is a particular moment when suddenly you say, “Hey, this is a novel.” I think the energy suddenly slows down and the view opens up. A short story for me feels like the 100 metre race in track and field—it’s quick and wild and comes out of me in bursts (and then is edited slowly). A novel feels more like the 1600 metre: you pace yourself at the beginning and then speed up at the end (and you feel out of breath most of the time). And then you edit slowly. I don’t think the theme really matters. I can deal with huge important themes in a tiny short story as well as in a 300 page novel. For example, in What We All Want, my first novel, I deal with the death of a mother. In “Just Like Rain,” a story in this collection, I also deal with a mother’s death. Both are completely different forms, different characters, different situations, but both have the same sensibilities and I think the reader will take away the same feeling from both. The only difference between the themes of a short story and a novel is that the author demands that the reader do most of the figuring out, most of the analysis of that theme in a story (because there isn’t enough time), whereas in a novel the reader can sit back a little and let the idea creep up on them, the reader can trust the author to take control occasionally. Novels can be easier for readers, I guess. Or, not easier, but give the reader time to dwell on an idea.
I Want to Make Things Difficult Again: An Interview with Jeff Latosik
“…Now they’ve pulled
out the basement that was in the brick
and now they’re breaking windows
in a nucleus.
From “The Backwards Builders”
Scroll down for the rest of the poem
Toronto poet Jeff Latosik’s first book, Tiny, Frantic, Stronger, is a heady circus show of surrealist gambit and apologetic memoir. Using every available part of the language, the collection expands on a traditionally lyrical base to include the kind of big ideas few of his peers can set to music. It’s a wonderful book: keen, variegated, and value priced at a recession-friendly twelve bucks.
Jeff exchanged pleasantries with Books@Torontoist’s Jacob McArthur Mooney earlier this month. What follows is the result of that conversation. We hope you like it.
Jacob McArthur Mooney: Thanks for doing this, Jeff. The title of the book is very striking. I wonder what it’s meant to describe. Does it point to the ethic of the poems, their aesthetic, or something else? Are the poems tiny, frantic, and strong? Are you trying to be all these things while writing them? What is the ideal you’re striving to in those three brave adjectives?
Jeff Latosik: With many thanks in return and kudos to this great series.
The title here is probably a good place to start, and I hope I don’t disappoint or confuse by beginning with the suggestion that in fact the title does not really describe the poems very well. Perhaps in some loose, tentative manner—and I do not mean the gaff of suggesting the poems are “strong,” though I know you are a good person and will forgive me.
However, that is not to say the title is a complete failure. What worked in it for me was how described a movement— of something (in the poem I cribbed it from, a cockroach) getting away, out, through, and so on. That survival, ingenuity, durability – that’s the engine of life. Looking back, I know that’s what the poem writing process entailed for me: a chase or, to put it in a way that will make me seem like less of a philanderer, a kind of reaching out for something (maybe that still doesn’t work…). I suspect this feeling is not unique to poetry and constitutes a larger project of imposing form/structure etc. on the difficult world.
JMM: The idea of imposing structure is an interesting one. Your poems tend to have little obvious formal signifiers (the odd sonnet, maybe, or near-sonnet, but that’s it). However, they do tend to look, sound, and feel quite controlled. At their best, the form of these poems approaches that ideal of the “invisible and essential” part of the piece, something you can’t easily put your finger on, but you couldn’t imagine attempting to remove. I wonder how you look at form, but also about your take on the more philosophical bent of that question. Basically, does a poem “contain” itself, or attempt to remain “uncontained” by itself?
JL: There are a number of ways of addressing this question. First, we might want to distinguish unique metrical forms (sonnet, pantoun, villanelle, etc.) and what you describe as “controlled verse.” Controlled verse is just the Frostian edict that good verse isn’t just free and the ways of addressing prosody are many.
I’ll say that I’ve many times felt the danger of controlled verse, which is the feeling that one’s work is too fawned over, like china in a cabinet. If you’ll grant me a flighty analogy here, when one is learning to sing and they begin to breathe from the diaphragm, often an excess of power is generated and manifests itself as excessive loudness—that’s the misuse of form, or, of too much control. And this is why I admire Don Paterson, for example, because he writes with the attention to the meeting point of technique and talent that a musician has (I think there are also a number of Canadian writers who do this well).
Robert Lowell once described the transition from his early work to Life Studies/For the Union Dead by saying that he couldn’t fit his experience into tight metrical forms. I do like this. But, upon reading those books, one can see that the antidote was not to sway completely in the direction of formlessness: it was to feel and write through the tension of rationality and irrationality that makes great art and to write out from that.
If you’ll bear with my plebeian pace, I may need some clarification on the distinction between a poem containing itself and attempting to remain uncontained. Or, I may ask—is an answer to that important?
JMM: I guess that question is only nominally about form, in that it’s not about the nuts and bolts of metre and rhyme, but more the overarching philosophy of whether a poem is a container or an uncontainable thing. I guess a more specific example of the problem, and one divorced from my attempts to limit this to a discussion only of “form,” would concern endings. Some endings internalize the poem, make it finite; these are the denouements of Petrarchan Sonnets and pop songs. While other endings push the poem outward, into unsaid future musings. These are the climaxes of, say, certain Shakespearian end-couplets and symphonies. Some endings (and, by extension, some poems), self-summarize, which is a way of saying they contain themselves, or as Lowell said in your example, they “fit” the poet’s experience inside themselves. Others can be launch pads to new considerations.
In essence, which of these images best represent what your work tends toward?
JL: Let me try to formulate my own understanding of this distinction. In Gwendolyn MacEwen’s “Dark Pines Under Water” we have this final stanza:
But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.
That last line is summative or self-referencing right? I probably wouldn’t call the poem self-contained because of that, though. The idea of containment is no doubt a leitmotif in poetry, though as a way of speaking about a poem containing itself par excellence, I think that perhaps no poem does, because poetry is an exercise in being confusingly clear. That means its meaning is secured not only by its literal dimension but the host of denotative meanings that bubble just underneath—and beyond—it.
As far as my own poems go, I’m not sure, though looking back on my book I see that your instinct is bang on, as my last poem is an abstract piece that involves a box (I assure you it is very exciting). But in that poem, I try to formulate the reading of a poem as a place where the reader brings his or her own experience and perspective to place inside the poem, completing a kind of contract. Maybe that’s naive—surely, as Paterson says, we can read a poem into anything. Oh well. Ladies and gentleman, please tear out the final poem of my book (should you choose to purchase it) until further notice.
Luminato: Fighting About the Future of Fiction
(Photo by Marc Lostracco/Torontoist)
When five publishing heavyweights, authors Paul Theroux, Katherine Govier, publisher Sarah MacLachlan, retailer Joel Silver and moderator Atlantic deputy editor Scott Stossel, gathered at the Isabel Bader Theatre Saturday afternoon to talk about “Fiction in the Age of E-Books,” we knew shots were going to be thrown. Publishing houses haven’t exactly embraced the digital age, and many are currently debating DRM and the price points of e-books. It’s a conversation happening in publishing houses across the country, so we entered this discussion expecting the worst and hoping for the best. The result? Nothing that was said hasn’t been said before, but it was a frank and lively discussion that let readers in on the publishing industry’s ongoing conversation about e-books.
No one was safe: not readers, not e-readers, not laptops, not other writers, and certainly not Google. Paul Theroux was the panelist taking most of the shots, but everyone on stage managed to squeeze in a zinger or two. Theroux proved to be the biggest dinosaur of the bunch, claiming using Google diminishes people’s intelligence, laptops diminish the ability to write well and that e-books are “compromising one’s intelligence and sensory experience.” Theroux’s opinions must be pretty popular (or everyone is terrified of him), as no one on the panel tried to solidly take him down, instead aiming to change the subject when he got going.
The business side of publishing—House of Anansi’s president and publisher, Sarah MacLachlan, and Indigo Books and Music’s president, Joel Silver—were much more receptive to the idea of long-form narrative fiction being readily available in electronic form. MacLachlan and Silver came prepared, tossing around facts like readers with e-readers buy more books and more men buy books because of e-readers, proving what the audience echoed in the Q&A: e-readers are here and people are buying fiction in bunches because of them. Their biggest concern was the e-reader’s impact on publishing and retailing models, both of which are experiencing drastic shifts no one is sure what to do about it. MacLachlan and Silver understand that publishing is a business and they need to cater to the consumer. However, both admitted a personal preference for the printed book and acknowledged that the overhanging uncertainty made them proceed with caution. It was refreshing to see two people with the ability to make waves talk about the changing tides, but no one on the panel could offer a concrete vision for what “fiction in the age of e-books” actually looked like.
The authors—Theroux and Govier (a last-minute replacement for Richard Bausch)—were much more concerned that the reading experience and their work would be compromised by e-readers. Govier went so far to argue that books shouldn’t even be made available online because the process devalues her work. Authors deserve to be compensated, we won’t argue that, but such resistance to technology is worrisome. Thankfully, Silver and moderator Stossel, provided a more Internet-friendly point of view, pointing out the marketing, publicity and accessibility benefits of putting books online, despite it’s ability to increase piracy.
The biggest theme of the conversation was that reading on an e-reader is a different experience than reading a book. Most of the panelists argued that the experience of reading a physical book is inherently a better experience (a popular argument throughout the industry right now, but, really, it’s a personal preference and not a universal truth), and a more immersive one. This application of personal preference to an entire audience of readers is problematic. Why assume everyone everywhere wants to read everything in the exact same way? Different readers want different kinds of experiences, and publishers should be creating opportunity for consumers to make that choice.
The most surprising part of the day was when the audience proved how out of touch many of the panelists were. Comprised of mostly middle-aged women (a key reading demographic), many attendees rallied in the Q&A to talk about their Kindles, their Kobos, and their kids’ multimedia mash-ups. One keen audience member even told Theroux he should read Don Tapscott. The audience, at least those who spoke up, loved their e-books and are excited by what’s happening with the written word.
It was fascinating to see these passionate publishing types debate the future of fiction. They were thoughtful, prepared, and articulate. MacLachlan even brought several different kinds of e-readers to show the audience when the panel was over, and stayed after the formal Q&A to do so. However, as interesting as the panel was, it demonstrated one of two things: either Luminato organizers didn’t do their research to make sure a variety of voices were heard on the panel (we would’ve loved to see another author take Theroux to town instead of passively agreeing with him, as Govier did), or the publishing industry is more out of touch with readers than they’re willing to admit.
Luminato: Talking Place in Can Lit Can Not Suck
(Photo by Tanya Keigan)
On Wednesday evening in the Toronto Reference Library’s still spanking-new-feeling Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, Luminato hosted an event that had the potential to manifest as a parody of a CanLit reading gone wrong. All the trappings were there: several authors (whose work is too divergent to be on the same bill) each giving readings (that would probably go on too long) interspersed with a moderated conversation (that would probably be awkward) about regionalism (because this is Canada and we just really like talking about place, okay?). Call us jaded, but this all could have gone so badly. And it didn’t! In fact, “East/West in Canadian Fiction,” featuring Lynn Coady, Lorna Crozier, Anosh Irani, and Michael Winter and moderated by Noah Richler, was really kind of great.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Luminato went right. Much credit certainly goes to the authors, who all seemed to really get that readings should be brief, commentary pithy, and a sense of humour about oneself abundant. A huge amount of credit, too, goes to Richler, who was casual, poised, and prepared, and who let the oh-so-Canadian theme put a little weight on the conversation without sinking it. No one quoted Northrop Frye. Nice.
Over the course of the event, Coady, Crozier, Irani, and Winters produced everything from just-telling-it-like-it-is zingers (“I went from Cape Breton, where people are poor and unhappy and drunk, to Vancouver where people are entitled and happy and stoned”) to earnest meditations on identity (“home for me is just a sense of very intense longing”), and none of it felt forced.
On the whole, the evening proved to be less a revealing conversation about Canadian literature than a series of stories and anecdotes that we left feeling glad to have heard. The readings themselves were kept brief, so rather than the head-spinning saturation that multiple readers sometimes brings, we were given casual samples of several very different works. Michael Winter never read at all: when his turn at the podium came, Winter (seemingly by accident) launched into a lengthy and very funny anecdote that captured the spirit of his momentum-filled novel The Architects Are Here just as well as any reading would have done.
We Got Sloane Crosley’s Number
Sloane Crosley, who rose to writerly fame in 2008 with I Was Told There’d Be Cake, is back with another set of humorous travel stories and essays about the trials and tribulations of watching your twenties pass you by. With How Did You Get This Number? the author and book publicist by day digs a little deeper and takes situations that are spectacularly unfunny (in one essay she watches a bear become road kill) and turns them into touching, laugh-out-loud pieces that comment on so much more than dancing monkeys in Lisbon.
Torontoist: This book is your second highly confessional essays. What can readers expect to be different?
Sloane Crosley: Well, it’s a darker set of the essays than the first one. There are fewer essays, and each essay has more words in it. If the first book is about disappointment, this one is a reflection on now and what that means. There’s a thread of disappointment, but it’s not the focal point. Oh, and I travel more. It’s definitely not travel literature (ask anyone who’s been to any of these places), but Paris, Lisbon, and Alaska all make an appearance.
TO: Did you feel any “sophomore slump” pressure putting together the second book?
SC: It was a little intimidating, but you have to push that out of your mind. You can’t think like that. However, this book is still me. I pushed myself, but the outcome isn’t a surprise. It’s like a music album. Let’s say the first album was a hit and for my second album, I wanted to make the record of my dreams and put out a record of ukulele music for my grandmother. I knew I could mess around within this genre genre, as I already had some approval as an essayist, but I wasn’t going to turn around and put out the ukulele album. It’s probably good I didn’t turn around and come out with a novel. But as for the pressure itself, you can do two things with it: become paralyzed or use it to stretch your work, which I think I did here.
TO: Have you considered writing fiction?
SC: I grew up wanting to write fiction. I really wanted to be a short story writer. I’m working on a novel now and have written fiction before. It’s not a stretch, but it’s been interesting. The transition from fiction to non-fiction was a private one, but the transition from non-fiction back to fiction is a public one. It’s nice to have both in your life, as both have perks and problems. With non-fiction, you get frustrated because there’s limits to where you can take the story. With fiction, you miss the crutch of reality and can just go and add fairies if you get stuck. It can lose resonance without reality to bounce off, if you’re not careful.
Book Marks: Mabel’s Fables
Mabel’s Fables is a kid-lit lover’s dream. A neighbourhood cornerstone on Mount Pleasant Road since 1988, this cheerful book store stocks the classic The Cat in the Hat, the trendy Twilight, and almost everything in between.
The walls are brightly painted, the shelves are stuffed, and there’s a comfy reading room upstairs where you can cuddle with an oversize bear or take in a reading or two. The store also offers regular story time and language classes for children of all ages. Dozens of authors have read at Mabel’s, and their autographs adorn the walls. It’s a bit of a scavenger hunt to find your favourite authors, but if you long enough, you’re sure to find them!
Mabel’s Fables believes in quality and customer service, ideals that are reflected in the staff and stock. The staff, lead by owner and lifelong reader Eleanor LeFave, is knowledgeable, friendly, and are quick to offer thoughtful suggestions for readers of all ages and abilities. The store is cleverly laid out by age categorie, with deep selections in kid-friendly topics like science, nature, fantasy, and sports. A large soccer collection is currently on display, celebrating the World Cup, alongside the other requisite seasonal displays. “It’s a great time to be a reader,” LeFave says. “We’re vampired out, and young adult fiction is fantastic right now. There’s a great mix of subjects selling right now, and there are so many talented writers out there writing for younger readers.”
Luminato: Reading Nafisi in Toronto
Azar Nafisi, the internationally renowned Iranian author and scholar whose bestselling memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran has been translated into more than 30 languages, possesses the rare ability to extract meaning and beauty from life’s ugliest fragments. And, as Nafisi demonstrated somewhat unexpectedly to Tuesday night’s sold-out crowd at the Al Green Theatre, she is also funny. Settling breezily into her chair opposite interviewer Eleanor Wachtel, Nafisi’s first action is to crack open a Tetra Pak. “This is water,” she jokingly assured her audience following a lengthy swig, “not wine.”
Still, Nafisi is serious when it comes to the subject of literature and her beloved “dead white men,” whose words once posed a very real threat to her existence. Reading Lolita in Tehran detailed the author’s experience as a teacher of banned Western classics to a group of female students in Iran, and since the book’s release she has not returned to her home country. The risk is too great, she says. One never knows what might happen.
As Nafisi explains, the current state of Iran is “not just a political struggle, but an existential one,” a crisis borne of conflicting narratives and stifled ingenuity. Nafisi points out that the number of journalists in jail is higher in Iran than anywhere else in the world, and the voices of artists and writers are constantly being stifled. This is the problem of totalitarian regimes, says Nafisi: “[They have] everything at their command but imagination.”
Literature is the antidote to a crisis of imagination, and Nafisi’s veneration for both the written word and the material history of the book, as artefact, bears an almost childlike fervour. She refers to a series of book portraits taken by Slovak-Canadian photographer Yuri Dojc with admiration, noting how these books—which, photographed in an abandoned Jewish school in eastern Slovakia, had remained untouched since the moment in 1943 when the school had been emptied by invading Nazis—had preserved history by defying death. “You want to hug these books,” she says.
For Nafisi, books are a connective tissue between past and present. Nafisi still keeps in touch with some of her former students from the clandestine reading group profiled in Reading Lolita in Tehran. “Books connect you to who you should be connected to,” Nafisi explains. “That is the miracle of writing and reading, the way you keep the connections.”
—Kelli Korducki