When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's u...
When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness.
Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love–love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
With an Introduction by Martin Amis
作者简介
· · · · · ·
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Nabokovs were known for their high culture and commitment to public service, and the elder Nabokov was an outspoken opponent of antisemitism and one of the leaders of the opposition party, the Kadets. In 1919, following the Bolshevik revolution, he took his family into exile. Four years la...
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Nabokovs were known for their high culture and commitment to public service, and the elder Nabokov was an outspoken opponent of antisemitism and one of the leaders of the opposition party, the Kadets. In 1919, following the Bolshevik revolution, he took his family into exile. Four years later he was shot and killed at a political rally in Berlin while trying to shield the speaker from right-wing assassins.
The Nabokov household was trilingual, and as a child Nabokov was already reading Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, alongside the popular entertainments of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. As a young man, he studied Slavic and romance languages at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his honors degree in 1922. For the next eighteen years he lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin and supporting himself through translations, lessons in English and tennis, and by composing the first crossword puzzles in Russian. In 1925 he married Vera Slonim, with whom he had one child, a son, Dmitri.
Having already fled Russia and Germany, Nabokov became a refugee once more in 1940, when he was forced to leave France for the United States. There he taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He also gave up writing in Russian and began composing fiction in English. In his afterword to Lolita he claimed: "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions–which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way." [p. 317] Yet Nabokov's American period saw the creation of what are arguably his greatest works, Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962), as well as the translation of his earlier Russian novels into English. He also undertook English translations of works by Lermontov and Pushkin and wrote several books of criticism. Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.
Reading Nabokov is like doing him a blowjob 词句是纤巧蝴蝶,头韵在唇齿摩挲,纯粹审美地玩弄语言。可从任何角度解读:前现代的退行(nymph与非理性狂恋;寡妇竟然就被撞死;不申请监护人是不敢制度化),弗洛伊德(男人要变形回男孩,童年却又烦人浅薄,她要喝每一杯冰饮,她是美国最喜欢的顾客),历史(“欧洲被诱奸”),儿童发展学(怎样正确引导洛丽塔?最可恶可怕是伊...Reading Nabokov is like doing him a blowjob 词句是纤巧蝴蝶,头韵在唇齿摩挲,纯粹审美地玩弄语言。可从任何角度解读:前现代的退行(nymph与非理性狂恋;寡妇竟然就被撞死;不申请监护人是不敢制度化),弗洛伊德(男人要变形回男孩,童年却又烦人浅薄,她要喝每一杯冰饮,她是美国最喜欢的顾客),历史(“欧洲被诱奸”),儿童发展学(怎样正确引导洛丽塔?最可恶可怕是伊甸)…它精细如现实,原始如传说,仅看金句化用频率,也可称现代莎剧;也如莎剧,总能吸引道德家。但我做不到了,从头就给亨伯特留了门隙,读到下部第二十九章,是真的心神颤抖,悲从中来。谎言和感动一体两面,交织出无处容身的绝望之爱,look at this tangle of thorns. 我无法视而不见。(展开)
Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my specter shall come at him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. And do not pity C. Q. One had to choose between him and H. H., and one wa...
2017-05-23 10:10:583人喜欢
Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my specter shall come at him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. And do not pity C. Q. One had to choose between him and H. H., and one wanted H. H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secrete of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita."引自 36
Humbert最后一句话里满溢着矛盾的悲哀和欣慰。艺术是他和Lolita分享不朽的唯一形式,其根源在于他对Lolita的爱不曾得以回应,其为悲哀。同时他却相信他的爱尽管得不到回应,却足以成为不朽——《洛丽塔》在二十世纪文学史上的地位证明了这点——此为欣慰。他最后称呼Lolita为 "MY lolita”。他有什么资格说“我的洛丽塔”?如果前文里他还可以无视种种暗示,自欺欺人地相信Lolita对他有所依恋,在这里Lolita让人心寒的拒之门外也该使Humbert完全放弃了希望。诚然,Lolita的爱从来都不属于他,但不可否认,Humbert最后的举动让他成为了一个为爱而死的殉道者,Lolita也因此成为了他在毁灭中获得人格升华的契机,从而成为了他的一部分。 最终,Lolita回应与否对Humbert这个角色的塑造来说已经全无所谓,甚至可以说正是Lolita的拒绝所引发的Humbert自我牺牲的悲剧,让这场单方面的爱情获得了摆脱了兽性的高尚,成为不朽。
纳博科夫对自己这部作品的非同寻常之处深具自知之明。在前言当中,他就借虚构的编者John Ray之口,以辩护者的姿态,袒露了他对Lolita的定位:“…and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise.”同样的口吻,也暗示了他对这本书的争议地位的预期。因此,前言一定程度上被用作读者与作品中间的缓冲区,一剂镇静剂,当然,也是他对自己...
2017-04-18 22:31:022人喜欢
纳博科夫对自己这部作品的非同寻常之处深具自知之明。在前言当中,他就借虚构的编者John Ray之口,以辩护者的姿态,袒露了他对Lolita的定位:“…and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise.”同样的口吻,也暗示了他对这本书的争议地位的预期。因此,前言一定程度上被用作读者与作品中间的缓冲区,一剂镇静剂,当然,也是他对自己作品的辩词。有时,他近乎站在了读者的立场上,安抚般地指摘Humbert Humbert的堕落败坏之处:“that had our demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psychopathologist, there would have been no disaster”;“No doubt, he is horrible, he is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity, that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman.”似乎是要预告他的种种不是,好让读者在直面这些令常人不齿的话题时,反感不致于被惊异所放大。但是这些话的背后,无疑有“尽管如此这般”的潜台词。所有这些冒天下之大不韪的内容,都无法作为埋没和排斥这部作品的理由,因为——纳博科夫此时仍圆滑地讨好着传统读者——尽管如此,仍不妨碍读者们为Humbert对Lolita温柔而热烈的情诗而着迷(“But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!”),还因为这部作品自有它迫切的道德说教意义(“They warn us of dangerous trends; they point out potent evils. Lolita should make all of us - parents, social workers, educators - apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world.”)。
不过,这些都并不是Lolita最重要的意涵。纳博科夫所做的最破天荒的事,就在它引起争议的“新”里。即使躲在John Ray的面具后面,碍于阅读传统的力量,他自然也无法理直气壮地为自己辩白。但是,他能把对迂腐的阅读传统的讽刺融在讨好中。“For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the 'real' people beyond the 'true' story, a few details may be given as received from Mrs. 'Windmuller'…”两个引号中的"real"和"true",暗中批评了“虚构小说建立在真人真事上”的成见。而随后那六个带引号的“化名”,又反过来消解了它们自己的真实性。讽刺的口吻在这一段末露了头,“The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk”,故事中死者都已经入土为安,不再在真实世界里出没——一笔就划清了虚构与真实的界限。下一段中讽刺的口吻更为辛辣直白。纳博科夫对照了Lolita中对色情内容的艺术化处理,和那些“robust philistine”所惯见的庸俗恋爱作品,指责了能够毫无怨言地容忍庸俗的情爱却指摘Lolita的低俗的读者的自我矛盾和过分拘谨(“paradoxical prude”)。
前言当中,纳博科夫狡猾地把对Lolita最重要任务的暗示夹藏在了那些貌似重要的文学意义预告中。他的关怀之一,就是探索欲望(爱欲)与文明(禁忌)的关系。他并非着意要制造不道德的娈童争议,而是要用艺术的文字呈现热烈的爱情和兽性的欲望缠绕交融的真实爱情状态。Humbert也承认,自己那不道德的兽欲,一旦触碰Lolita,就会化为柔情和温存。于是人类奉为纯洁永恒的爱情和突破道德边界的兽欲之间的界限在哪里呢?Humbert显然是个常规意义上的“性变态”人物,他为热烈的爱火蒙蔽了双眼,主动违逆社会禁忌,又徒劳地为自己辩护的行为,是为道德卫士所不齿的。但是他的辩护是不是也可以看作对社会规约的反嘲呢?Humbert无奈又语中带刺:“…I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve”。Humbert还进一步引证:在更原始的群岛社会或者印度东部省份,社会对性行为年龄的管控要宽松得多。进一步我们就要随着他问:文明规约的本质是什么?什么是道德?道德规定和人性能完全相符么?这样看,“不道德”又意味着“不人性”么?Humbert(纳博科夫)的观点自然没有那么偏激,完全否认社会规范的合理性。他也会动用科学知识,证明Lolita已经到了天然性成熟的年龄——他并没有违反天然的人性。
对文明的探讨并不局限在爱情上。可以说,Humbert冗长而平淡的“环美游记”,正是把Humbert所代表的过分精致的欧洲文明与美国文明的冲撞,带到以全美为范围的舞台上——一个移动的舞台。这一点在“The Enchanted Hunter”旅馆的章节就埋下了伏笔。汽车旅店是鱼龙混杂的社会场所,是文明风貌的窗口,遍布冷嘲的Humbert可以下口讽刺之处。冗长而单调的行程,把Lolita小妖精的魅力之下粗野低俗的口味、肮脏混乱的生活习惯、堕落的教育全盘暴露出来。尽管叙述者的矛头指向了战后美国文化(“Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous”在作者层面上显然是反话),很难说纳博科夫对Humbert身上那种旧大陆的过度文明(over-civilization)是不加批判的。从Humbert光怪陆离得不真实的童年经历,到充满矛盾的第一段婚姻,再到道貌岸然的第二段婚姻生活,再到Lolita床前的如履薄冰和对自己意图的“纯洁”狡辩,都是对Humbert和他身上的文明气质的暗中讽刺。
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my lions. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. TA. 第一段,不是中文翻译所能翻译的好的。其实第二段也不是中文能翻译的好的,太长了但是。(3回应)
2011-03-06 19:05:054人喜欢
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my lions. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. TA.引自第1页
Page 5 The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other. but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children wo...
2013-05-08 21:32:43
Page 5
The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain.
All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other;
hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other.
but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do.
There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious journey; sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other's salty lips.These incomplete contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief. 引自 Chapter 3
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a p...
2017-03-06 01:51:41
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.引自 Part One 1
It is a question of local adjustment of certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount, and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse delight.
2013-08-03 23:31:07
It is a question of local adjustment of certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount, and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse delight. 引自第17页
◆ 4 >> But that mimosagrovethe haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me,and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever sinceuntil at last,twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another. ◆ 5 >> Between the age limits of nine and fourteen thereoccur maidens who, to certain bewitched tr...
2022-05-18 15:19:10
◆ 4
>> But that mimosagrovethe haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me,and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever sinceuntil at last,twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
◆ 5
>> Between the age limits of nine and fourteen thereoccur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, revealtheir true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosencreatures I propose to designate as “nymphets.”
>> It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the readersee “nine” and “fourteen” as the boundariesthe mirrory beaches and rosy rocksof anenchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea
>> either aregood looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a given community terms so, does notnecessarily impair certain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as areincomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena than on thatintangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes
>> Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part in the matter, the student shouldnot be surprised to learn that there must be a gap of several years, never less than ten Ishould say, generally thirty or forty, and as many as ninety in a few known cases, betweenmaiden and man to enable the latter to come under a nymphet’s spell.
>> It is a question of focaladjustment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount, and a certain contrastthat the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse delight.
>> We loved eachother with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives. I was astrong lad and survived; but the poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open,and soon I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five tocourt a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve.
>> A shipwreck. An atoll. Alone with a drowned passenger’s shivering child. Darling, this is only agame! How marvelous were my fancied adventures as I sat on a hard park bench pretending tobe immersed in a trembling book.
>> Once a perfect little beautyin a tartan frock, with a clatter put her heavily armed foot near me upon the bench to dip herslim bare arms into me and righten the strap of her roller skate, and I dissolved in the sun,with my book for fig leaf, as her auburn ringlets fell all over her skinned knee, and the shadowof leaves I shared pulsated and melted on her radiant limb next to my chameloenic cheek.
>> Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden.Let them play around me forever. Never grow up.
◆ 6
>> I had a date with her next day at 2.15 P.M. in my own rooms, but it was less successful, sheseemed to have grown less juvenile, more of a woman overnight.
◆ 7
>> Exceptional virility often reflects in the subject’s displayable features asullen and congested something that pertains to what he has to conceal. And this was mycase
>> Well did I know, alas, that I could obtain at the snap of my fingers any adult female Ichose; in fact, it had become quite a habit with me of not being too attentive to women lestthey come toppling, bloodripe, into my cold lap
>> Had I been a francais moyen with a taste forflashy ladies, I might have easily found, among the many crazed beauties that lashed my grimrock, creatures far more fascinating than Valeria.
>> My choice, however, was prompted byconsiderations whose essence was, as I realized too late, a piteous compromise. All of whichgoes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert always was in matters of sex.
>> y choice, however, was prompted byconsiderations whose essence was, as I realized too late, a piteous compromise. All of whichgoes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert always was in matters of sex
◆ 8
>> Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, ananimated merkin, what really attracted me to Valeria was the imitation she gave of a little girl.
>> I, on my part, was as naive as only a pervert can be
◆ 9
>> I see them dividedtidily into ample light and narrow shade: the light pertaining to the solace of research inpalatial libraries, the shade to my excruciating desires and insomnias of which enough hasbeen said. Knowing me by now, the reader can easily imagine how dusty and hot I got, tryingto catch a glimpse of nymphets (alas, always remote) playing in Central Park, and howrepulsed I was by the glitter of deodorized career girls that a gay dog in one of the officeskept unloading upon me.
>> I felt curiously aloof from my own self. No temptations maddened me
>> The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me than Dr.Johnson had. Nymphets do not occur in polar regions.
◆ 10
>> “That was my Lo,” she said, “and these are my lilies.”“Yes,” I said, “yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”
◆ 11
>> What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphetof everynymphet, perhaps; this mixture in my Lolita of tender dreamy childishness and a kind ofeerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed cuteness of ads and magazine pictures,from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants in the Old Country (smelling ofcrushed daisies and sweat)
>> and from very young harlots disguised as children in provincialbrothels; and then again, all this gets mixed up with the exquisite stainless tendernessseeping through the musk and the mud, through the dirt and the death, oh God, oh God.
>> And what is most singular is that she, this Lolita, my Lolita, has individualized the writer’sancient lust, so that above and over everything there isLolita.
>> “poor me should know, I went through that when I was a kid: boys twisting one’s arm,banging into one with loads of books, pulling one’s hair, hurting one’s breasts, flippingone’s skirt. Of course, moodiness is a common concomitant of growing up, but Loexaggerates
>> Sullen and evasive. Rude and defiant. Struck Viola, an Italian schoolmate, inthe seat with a fountain pen
◆ 28
>> And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my fist was in my pocket, she was mine. In the course of evocations and schemes to which I had dedicated so many insomnias, I had gradually eliminated all the superfluous blur, and by stacking level upon level of translucent vision, had evolved a final picture
>> Naked, except for one sock and her charm bracelet, spread-eagled on the bed where my philter had felled herso I foreglimpsed her; a velvet hair ribbon was still clutched in her hand
>> her honey-brown body, with the white negative image of a rudimentary swimsuit patterned against her tan, presented to me its pale breastbuds; in the rosy lamplight, a little pubic floss glistened on its plump hillock. The cold key with its warm wooden addendum was in my pocket.
◆ 29
>> I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let’s even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling.
>> I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me.
But the awful point of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif. 真讽刺啊,这竟然是我可以提供给她最好的生活。可怜的Lolita,连那种最糟糕、最悲惨的家庭生活也过不上。
2022-05-08 10:17:47
But the awful point of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif.引自第287页
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, leaning back on the cushion, one felted foot on the floor. The wooden floor slanted, a little steel ball would have rolled into the kitchen. I knew all I wanted to know. I had no intention of torturing my darling. Somewhere beyond Bill's shack an afterwork radio had begun singing of folly and fate, and there she was with her ruined looks and her adult, ...
2022-05-08 10:00:12
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, leaning back on the cushion, one felted foot on the floor. The wooden floor slanted, a little steel ball would have rolled into the kitchen. I knew all I wanted to know. I had no intention of torturing my darling. Somewhere beyond Bill's shack an afterwork radio had begun singing of folly and fate, and there she was with her ruined looks and her adult, rope-veined narrow hands and her goose-flesh white arms, and her shallow ears, and her unkempt armpits, there she was (my Lolita!), hopelessly worn at seventeen, with that baby, dreaming already in her of becoming a big shot and retiring around 2020 A.D.---and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past; an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds...but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshiped. What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart, mon grand peche radieux, had dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish vice, all that I canceled and curse. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and half-throttled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I oved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine; Changeons de vie, ma Carmen, allons vivre quelque part ou nous ne serons jamais separes; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fate to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torn---even then I would go mad wit htenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your racuous young voice, my Lolita.引自第277页
I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many ties we reopen "King Lear," nevery shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic ...
2022-05-08 09:50:55
I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many ties we reopen "King Lear," nevery shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the facts we have ordained would dtrike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.
22 有用 Troubadour 2012-01-23 17:46:05
sometimes I feel that the sole purpose of my life is to prepare myself to read a single book.
112 有用 已注销 2011-01-31 15:48:35
纳博科夫那种软软的情绪,在软软的法文中轻轻地流淌。当时我一点法语都不懂,看的有点恼火,总觉得他在背着我卖弄风情。
8 有用 Lucinda 2017-10-11 17:58:16
数年后重读,难掩惆怅。对于她,美的光华与生命的激情来得太早,逝去得也太匆匆;而他空怀一心拥抱美的灵魂,却背负令人不齿的恶名,在镣铐下虚掷一生。世间再无美丽少女,因为那双眼睛已经混沌腐朽;他们唯一能共度的永恒,散落在新大陆辽远哀凉的万里沃土上。
68 有用 小波福娃 2010-05-11 16:19:30
我一度非常迷恋Nabokov的语言,这是我读的最最细的几本原著之一,虽然语言上借鉴的价值不大。
4 有用 Pluto&Piaget 2020-08-31 09:36:23
Reading Nabokov is like doing him a blowjob 词句是纤巧蝴蝶,头韵在唇齿摩挲,纯粹审美地玩弄语言。可从任何角度解读:前现代的退行(nymph与非理性狂恋;寡妇竟然就被撞死;不申请监护人是不敢制度化),弗洛伊德(男人要变形回男孩,童年却又烦人浅薄,她要喝每一杯冰饮,她是美国最喜欢的顾客),历史(“欧洲被诱奸”),儿童发展学(怎样正确引导洛丽塔?最可恶可怕是伊... Reading Nabokov is like doing him a blowjob 词句是纤巧蝴蝶,头韵在唇齿摩挲,纯粹审美地玩弄语言。可从任何角度解读:前现代的退行(nymph与非理性狂恋;寡妇竟然就被撞死;不申请监护人是不敢制度化),弗洛伊德(男人要变形回男孩,童年却又烦人浅薄,她要喝每一杯冰饮,她是美国最喜欢的顾客),历史(“欧洲被诱奸”),儿童发展学(怎样正确引导洛丽塔?最可恶可怕是伊甸)…它精细如现实,原始如传说,仅看金句化用频率,也可称现代莎剧;也如莎剧,总能吸引道德家。但我做不到了,从头就给亨伯特留了门隙,读到下部第二十九章,是真的心神颤抖,悲从中来。谎言和感动一体两面,交织出无处容身的绝望之爱,look at this tangle of thorns. 我无法视而不见。 (展开)
0 有用 cyanotype 2022-07-01 22:36:47
罪犯视角的叙事,爱上他眼中的lolita的同时,不由得感到惋惜与怜悯,而这恰恰是他缺失的感情, and what makes him a criminal indeed
0 有用 砍第四 2022-06-30 10:47:06
文笔太好了。发现自己很喜欢这种第一人称神神叨叨有点不能完全信任的narrator。
0 有用 anima 2022-06-26 05:43:44
第二遍读的时候突然想到一个问题:洛为什么没怀孕?书里没有提过避孕的事情,出版时(1955)contraceptive大概也没普及,而通常来说那个年纪已经可以怀孕了。一个现实主义的版本:按照一些天杀的法律她无法堕掉强奸+乱伦的孩子,而根据亨伯特的想象,他会在洛长大、不再能满足他的性癖之后,把她的孩子变成另一个洛。纳博科夫还是对女性的恐惧和苦难没有想象力啊。
1 有用 AmiZ米 2022-05-28 19:13:22
在讀到最後幾章之前想給三星的,最後幾章,讀到humbert對於lolita遠遠超過了他的戀童,是超越了偏執的一種愛,最後復仇的描寫也精準有力有節奏,完全可以visualize電影畫面,同時也喜歡最後humbert作為加害者對這個社會的觀察:「根本就沒有人會關心lolita被她的變態父親怎麼樣了,如果有人關注的話,那這個社會就是個笑話。」文筆太美了,作者都不是native speaker啊,好讓人羨... 在讀到最後幾章之前想給三星的,最後幾章,讀到humbert對於lolita遠遠超過了他的戀童,是超越了偏執的一種愛,最後復仇的描寫也精準有力有節奏,完全可以visualize電影畫面,同時也喜歡最後humbert作為加害者對這個社會的觀察:「根本就沒有人會關心lolita被她的變態父親怎麼樣了,如果有人關注的話,那這個社會就是個笑話。」文筆太美了,作者都不是native speaker啊,好讓人羨慕... 不過雖然文學史上確實需要這樣的書,文學作品也不應該從道德角度去批判,但是humbert真的一直在給自己找理由看得我好憤怒,不過感謝小高的idea,lolita不同於房思琪不是順從的受害者,這也許是給humbert的邪惡上了一把枷鎖,他最終無法擁有lolita。 (展开)
0 有用 cucumberCat 2022-05-27 08:48:36
Dolores Haze哪去了,通篇就都是他的lolita。文笔自然是妙的,可还是掩盖不了龌龊,这种题材我真的读不下去,可能我太狭隘了。