Sleeping Lolita in Tehran

After reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, I wanted to get hold of some of the books that I had never read . . . or previously slept through.  I thought about doing a report on education in Iran, but since I had a used copy of The Great Gatsby coming from Amazon (I think it was like a sign!), and since I wanted an excuse to sit down and read it, I chose that prompt for my paper. 

I am more global in my thinking, so I took detailed notes on every page, which is not the best way to “enjoy” a book, but it certainly has utility value.  Even so, the language was a pleasure, even with all my interruptions to fill my notebook with illegible scrawl and red arrows and stars. 

The difficulty has been pinning myself down to a thesis.  The prompt allowed for various avenues of exploration; and when I would settle on something and go back and read the prompt, it’s like the idea would explode and I’d go off in another direction!  Since this was not supposed to be a twenty-five page tree killer, I knew I had to decide and just go for it; but with all the reading I’d been doing, I still could not come up with a thesis.  A few days ago, as I was in that state of dreaming but almost awake, I started hearing a thesis statement in my head.  I finally couldn’t stand it, and I forced myself to get out of bed in the Arctic air of our no-heat house (insert “frugal husband” here), and I wrote down the sentence and the notes that were coming to me.  Hey, maybe I’m a prophet!  Maybe it was a vision!  Maybe I was channeling Jennifer or Nafisi.  No, probably a lot of reading sifting down into the paper-writing section of my taxed brain. 

I wrote the introduction and sketched out some other ideas; then, I got rather stuck again.  It wasn’t what you call writer’s block.  It was more like writer’s web—too many sticky strands.  (In the meantime, I was going through RLiT again, taking more notes.)  I really love the Reading Lolita in Tehran book, and I really love the Gatsby book, and there are so many ideas to explore.  I really wanted to explore the use of color in both, but I would have had to shoe-horn that one into the prompt.  So yesterday morning once again, I was in that dream state, the room still dark, the dog snoring.  I started getting text in my head again for some of the main points.  (And it was not in textspeak, but proper English!)  The paper is writing itself . . . kind of.  This time I jumped out of bed before the words vanished like mist and started writing.  I tell you, if I start getting lotto numbers, you guys are going to be so jealous!  

So as of now, the paper is probably two-thirds done, but I’m still trying to rein in all the thoughts pinging in my head and connect all the dots with proper transitions.  Rabbit trails r us.  I still have a few days to work on it, but if I get stuck again, I tell you what:  I’m going to go take a nap!