Contesting Bloomian anxiety : an intertextual reading of Azar Nafisi's reading Lolita in Tehran, a memoir in books

Abstract EN

Azar Nafisi’s memoir, reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), is noted for its subtitle, a memoir in books, since major literary works are interwoven into the very fabric of her account of her life story, thereby typifying Julia Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality.

the memoir is divided into four sections, each framed in relation to well-known novels and writers.

in so structuring her book, Nafisi may be said to contest Harold bloom’s theory of the anxiety of influence, which, as he postulates, results from a psychological struggle to gain aesthetic strength.

while bloom’s perception of influence denigrates intertextual connections as the source of the author’s / poet’s uneasiness with his / her predecessors, Nafisi’s recourse to canonical texts is a coping mechanism.

it is the aim of this paper to examine Nafisi’s memoir vis-à-vis bloom’s theory of influence, showing how she absolves herself of any impending anxiety through an array of western classics that intersect with her writing, instead of having her talent belligerently pitted against them.

in so doing, influence may be said to wield a liberating impact, rather than being the source of a writer’s anxiety and incapacitation.

in contradistinction to bloom’s theory of influence, Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality may be said to offer an apt lens through which Nafisi’s memoir can be read.