Henry James : Washington Square

Yet another book that Azar Nafisi was reading in Tehran - and then briefly discussed as a memorial to Razieh, one of her students who especially liked it and was later executed by the fundamentalist regime.

And I liked it, too -- being completely sucked into those finely drawn moments of human interaction, as seen from the inside of each character's mind.

The entire story seemed to run with the precision and inevitability of clockwork - indeed, that is the metaphor that is used to summarize the story:

"From her own point of view the great facts of her career were that Morris Townsend had trifled with her affection, and that her father had broken its spring"

And as the author had me peer into the crania of his subjects - I'm afraid that I was peering also into my own, and I share Catherine's challenge of growing up with a parent who was as brilliant, rational and perceptive as he was self-centered -- a combination which seems especially American with its pursuit of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (a phrase which my father must have recited a thousand times)

And poor Catherine's lover was the same way -- so, though it was delightful for the reader to notice how quickly both men perceive each other as enemies -- it was something of a disaster for her -- except that, in the long run, she probably had a happier life as a spinster than she ever would have had as wife to the self centered Morris Townsend.

Nafisi refers to Catherine as the heroine of this story - celebrating the triumph of her indendence - and indeed, she was confronted by three formidable adversaries who all claimed to be looking out for her best interests -- but weren't.

"A hero becomes one who safeguards his or her individual integrity at almost any cost"

That was certainly a shocking moment as her father expresses his excitement rather than his concern over her predicament.

But Catherine's success is a very small one: she will never raise a family or really accomplish anything other than her little "morsels of fancywork".

There's something that's dark and creepy about all this -- as if the main character were just a big juicy bug trapped in a spider web and waiting to be eaten -- while the author is a distinguished entomologist.

Nafisi remarks that Catherine's father (Dr. Sloper) is a modern villain : "a creature without compassion, without empathy" -- and relates this to the regime that is oppressing Iran.

But when has an adversary ever been perceived as empathetic?

And the ayatollahs were/are desparately trying to reject the modernism that so defines all the characters in this story. As Henry James notes on the first page of his story, Dr. Austin Sloper explifies a profession which, in America, "more successfully than elsewhere has put forward the claim of "liberal" -- as he pursued his life's ambititon to "learn something interesting, and do something useful"

I admire and kind of empathsize with Dr. Sloper -- as, indeed, I do with all of the characters in this story (unlike my negative feelings towards all the characters in either Gatsby or Lolita)

I even empathize with the neer-do-well Morris Townsend who would rather explore the world and enjoy himself instead of grinding out a profession --- and the dreamy aunt Penniman who wants to immerse herself in the romance of others.