Reading Lolita

I just finished Reading Lolita in Tehran for my book club. In one of those happy coincidences, there is a flurry of articles about Iran in the press these days, so I've been able to compare RLIT's view of the 1980s against the contemporary situation. It reinforces one of the themes of the book: whether one should remain steadfast in one's beliefs, or bend a little in order to survive. At several points in the book Nafisi regards the small concessions of the regime as being inconsequential changes compared to overall repression of women. Yet, I keep wondering, isn't lasting change always a bit on the incremental side? In our democracy, which Nafisi prefers to Iranian autocracy, our major law-giving institution, Congress, was purposely designed to be slow to change. And women's rights in America have been two centuries of fits and starts, with a lot of slower social change alongside the leaps of legislation. Perhaps there is still so much of the revolutionary in her, she can't abide any remnant of the revolutionary in the other side. And what happens when two sides lock themselves into a battle of all or nothing?