View Message

I recently reread the book Reading Lolita in Tehran and was struck by the Iranian names in the book. Dara, Azar, Nima, Mitra, Mahshid, Nasrin, Manna, Sanaz. I think those completely foreign syllables (to me, at least) are beautiful, and sort of a welcome relief from the Puritanical phase I was in (which probably stemmed from it being Lent, doing a Nathaniel Hawthorne project in English, and watching too much of The Tudors, which is so completely inaccurate it's really enjoyable).

---