Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [135]
34
I stray for no good reason to a dark and musty antique shop in downtown Tehran. I had gone to a street lined with secondhand stores in search of an old book to give Nima, who had recently brought me rare videos of an old television series popular before the revolution. When I entered the shop, the owner, sitting behind the counter, was too busy reading the morning paper to bother to glance at me.
As I browsed around the semi-lit room, lost in the objects scattered haphazardly on old wooden tables and shelves, my eyes fell on an odd-looking pair of scissors. They were beautifully handcrafted; one of the handles was much bigger than the other, and they were shaped like a rooster. The blades were blunter than those of ordinary scissors. I asked the shopkeeper what it was. He shrugged. I’m not sure—maybe for trimming the mustache or beard. It probably came from somewhere in Europe, maybe Russia.
I don’t know why I was so fascinated by this object, but I found it quite extraordinary that perhaps a hundred years ago this pair of scissors—or mustache trimmer, or whatever it was—had been brought over all the way from Europe to finally end up on an old table in the farthest reaches of this dusty shop. Yet so much work had gone into this quite dispensable object. I decided to buy it for my magician. I had a theory that some gifts should be bought for their own sake, exactly because they were useless. I was sure he would appreciate it, that he would be pleased to receive something he did not need, a luxury item that was not luxurious. Instead of buying something for Nima, I left with my rooster-headed scissors.
When I gave them to my magician with my explanation, he was making coffee and was seemingly so involved in his task that he did not respond. He carried the tray with two mugs and his box of chocolates to the table, and went into the library. A few moments later he returned with a leather-bound book, in solemn green with gold lettering. It was The Ambassadors. Since you bought me the gift you should have gotten Nima, I have a gift for him: tell him to reread the scene in Gloriani’s garden. Your Nima sounds like a chap who needs to be reminded of things by someone such as myself. So why don’t you ask him to reread that scene?
In the book, my magician had marked two passages. One was in the preface, where James mentions a famous and oft repeated scene as the “essence” of his novel; the other was the scene itself. It occurs at a party given by the famous sculptor Gloriani. Lambert Strether, the hero of the novel, tells a young painter, little Bilham, whom he has unofficially appointed as his spiritual heir: “Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that what have you had? I’m too old—too old at any rate for what I see. What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. Still, we have the illusion of freedom; therefore don’t, like me to-day, be without the memory of that illusion. I was either, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it, and now I’m a case of reaction against the mistake. For it was a mistake. Live, live!”
35
We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.—Henry James
It was early in the morning, the first class of the day; the classroom was filled with light. I was summing up James. Last time we talked about certain traits in James, how they appear in different characters and within different contexts, and today I want