Lolita

Humbert's "Wanted" poem after Lo's gone. It has so much obsession that no movie's able to capture. Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.Hair: Brown. Lips: scarlet.Age: five thousand three hundred days.Profession: none, or "starlet."Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?Why are you hiding, darling?(I Talk in a daze, I walk in a mazeI cannot get out, said the starling).Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?What make is the magic carpet?Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?And where are you parked, my car pet?Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?Still one of those blue-capped star-men?Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays,And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!Are you still dancin', darlin'?(Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts,And I, in my corner, snarlin').Happy, happy is gnarled McFateTouring the States with a child wife,Plowing his Molly in every StateAmong the protected wild life.My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,And never closed when I kissed her.Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert?Are you from Paris, mister?L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita;Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie!Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita!Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie?Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.And again my hairy fist I raise,And again I hear you crying.Officer, officer, there they go--In the rain, where that lighted store is!And her socks are white, and I love her so,And her name is Haze, Dolores.Officer, officer, there they are--Dolores Haze and her lover!Whip out your gun and follow that car.Now tumble out and take cover.Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.Ninety pounds is all she weighsWith a height of sixty inches.My car is limping, Dolores Haze,And the last long lap is the hardest,And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,And the rest is rust and stardust.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~When Humbert found Lo again, married and pregnant. I find it to be a defining scene that distinguish our dear HH from the rest of the pedophiles. it's really about Lolita, not Lolita as the "nymph"..."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... 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."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~HH confronting Quilty before killing him:"Because you took advantage of a sinnerBecause you took advantage of my disadvantage...Because you cheated me of my redemption."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~After HH drives away from Quilty's house and reaches a hill where he can oversee a little town far away and he thinks he hears the sound of children play:"I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Vladimir Nabokov on this book:How he (accurately) foresees that the readers will skip... lol"The passage in between must be reduced to sutures of sense, logical bridges of the simplest design, brief expositions and explanations, which the reader will probably skip but must know they exist in order not to feel cheated." Meaning behind this book? I think he believes that literature should be an intrinsic quality instead of a mean to serve some higher purpose."Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. There are not many such books. All the rest is either topical trash or what some call Literature of Ideas... It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author..."

亨博特就没想到原来他喜欢上的是一个媚俗的女孩子。他希望他的小情人性感如小野猫，又智慧聪敏如他一般对知识、风景有着浓厚兴趣和理解力，缺不知洛丽塔其实是个再普通无脑不过的爱慕华而不实之物的女孩子。最适合她的道路当然不是亨博特式的讲史论理读书看风景的学术之路，而是和一群姐妹会女生们穿高跟鞋、涂口红、露大腿、下楼和运动员男生们酒醉。但即使这样，他也只能抱怨一下然后继续爱她，好似粗鄙成为她天然可爱的一部分。这便显出单恋时的不占有的卑微了。

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。