Reading Lolita in Laureate

What an utterly grey, dreary afternoon I walked into as I left school.  I wanted to just go home and curl up with a good book, a cup of chai and my stubborn little dog, Ginny.  But I had a tutoring session with a young girl who is hospitalized with an eating disorder.  This was our third session, and I had very quickly come to admire her work ethic and rapid grasp of all the chemistry topics we covered, so I forced myself to get back out in the drizzle and keep my promise.

As much as I marveled at the rapidity at which she learned, I also noticed she was always apologizing for the least little thing, most of which were entirely out of her control (such as interrupting our session to plug in her laptop or picking up a pencil case which had gotten pushed to the floor).  Today, as we began our session, I noticed she had a copy of Nabokov's Lolita in her clear tote bag.  Without thinking that she might not welcome a comment on that particular book, I blurted out, "So, you're reading Lolita?"  And then because she blushed slightly, and lowered her eyes, I plowed on.  "So have you read Reading Lolita in Tehran?"

At this question, she raised her eyes and looked at me wonderingly.  "No," she said, "but I want to!"  I then told her I had read Lolita years ago, but got an entirely new perspective on it when I went to hear Azar Nafisi speak at the University of Tulsa a few years back.  I said, "Nabokov always hated and denied the criticism that Lolita was a work of pornography, but Nafisi and her group of students helped me understand what true pornography is: the denial of the other person to define him or herself.  The tyranny of censorship that limits a person's right to explore whatever ideas they want to.  To circumscribe their identity. Like Humbert did with Lolita."  

My young tutee nodded eagerly, "Yes, I read a wiki article about Nafisi!  I was afraid when people saw me reading this book, that they would think I was bad! You're the only person who looked at it and saw it in another way."  I then told her, "Did you know some of the young girls who were in the reading group in Tehran were jailed and one was executed?  Just for daring to be female and think."  We both fell silent for a moment considering that act of courage, and then I said, "Well, I guess we need to work on some chemistry."  So we did.

But on the way home, I kept mulling over that idea of control.  Of how we truly violate the essence of another human when we make a judgement about them being 'weird' or different or anything we think they shouldn't be.  Or should be. And I wondered again at the ability of literature to create a sudden, certain bond that two minds from very different circumstances could completely understand each other, if only for a moment.  Epiphanies can happen even on the greyest of days.