Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [71]
“Mr. Nyazi, our esteemed prosecutor,” Zarrin said mockingly, “seems to be in need of no witnesses. He apparently is both witness and prosecution, but let us bring our witnesses from the book itself. Let us call some of the characters to the stand. I will now call to the stand our most important witness.
“Mr. Nyazi has offered himself to us as a judge of Fitzgerald’s characters, but Fitzgerald had another plan. He gave us his own judge. So perhaps we should listen to him. Which character deserves to be our judge?” Zarrin said, turning towards the class. “Nick, of course, and you remember how he describes himself: ‘Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.’ If there is a judge in this novel, it is Nick. In a sense he is the least colorful character, because he acts as a mirror.
“The other characters are ultimately judged in term of their honesty. And the representatives of wealth turn out to be the most dishonest. Exhibit A: Jordan Baker, with whom Nick is romantically involved. There is a scandal about Jordan that Nick cannot at first remember. She had lied about a match, just as she would lie about a car she had borrowed and then left out in the rain with the top down. ‘She was incurably dishonest,’ Nick tells us. ‘She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard jaunty body.’
“Exhibit B is Tom Buchanan. His dishonesty is more obvious: he cheats on his wife, he covers up her crime and he feels no guilt. Daisy’s case is more complicated because, like everything else about her, her insincerity creates a certain enchantment: she makes others feel they are complicit in her lies, because they are seduced by them. And then, of course, there is Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby’s shady business partner. He fixes the World Cup. ‘It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.’ So the question of honesty and dishonesty, the way people are and the way they present themselves to the world, is a sub-theme that colors all the main events in the novel. And who are the most dishonest people in this novel?” she asked, again focusing on the jury. “The rich, of course,” she said, making a sudden turn towards Mr. Nyazi. “The very people our prosecutor claims Fitzgerald approves of.
“But that’s not all. We are not done with the rich.” Zarrin picked up her book and opened it to a marked page. “With Mr. Carraway’s permission,” she said, “I should like to quote him on the subject of the rich.” Then she began to read: ” ‘They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . .’
“So you see,” said Zarrin, turning again to Mr. Farzan, “this is the judgment the most reliable character in the novel makes about the rich. The rich in this book, represented primarily by Tom and Daisy and to a lesser extent Jordan Baker, are careless people. After all, it is Daisy who runs over Myrtle and lets Gatsby take the blame for it, without even sending a flower to his funeral.” Zarrin paused, making a detour around the chair, seemingly oblivious to the judge, the prosecutor and the jury.
“The word careless is the key here,” she said. “Remember when Nick reproaches Jordan for her careless driving and she responds lightly that even if she is careless, she counts on other people being careful? Careless is the first adjective that comes to mind when describing the rich in this novel. The dream they embody is an alloyed dream that destroys