On the bookshelf

I am currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Before reading the memoir I read Lolita and so the timing is appropriate. Here is one passage of the book that I have enjoyed, thus far:

"I wrote on the board one of my favorite lines from the German thinker Theodor Adorno: "The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one's own home." I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes."

It is worth noting that Lolita is not the only novel read in the meetings between Nafisi and her students, even though the title may misled some readers. They also read Persian classical literature and the following Western novels: Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Madame Bovary, Daisy Miller and The Dean’s December. I always get excited about knowing what novels get picked for instruction (or reading) and why. This may be a symptom of all the time I’ve spent sitting through literature courses.