洛丽塔
2000-12
外语教学与研究出版社
（美）弗拉基米尔・纳博科夫
335
无
于晓丹， 廖世奇 “我承认自己不相信时间，我喜欢把我的魔毯用完叠起后，让它的图案的一部分叠印在另一部分之上。” 纳博科夫：《诉说吧，回忆》 弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫出生于旧式俄历1899年4月10日。如果换成西历，应该是4月22日。他一周岁时，正好是二十世纪新千年的开始，这一年因为旧式俄历较西历晚了一天，所以纳博科夫的周岁生日就成了西历4月23日，值得一提的是，这一天正是备受他 推崇的莎士比亚的生日。 纳博科夫家世相当显赫，他的祖父曾是两代沙皇的司法大臣，家里既有钱又有文化，而且还属亲英一派。纳博科夫幼年受过的教育一般人根本望尘莫及。他小的时候，家里走马灯似的为他请了许多家庭教师，而他凭借天资聪慧，很小就掌握了英语、法语和德语。据说，他在会写俄文前就先学会了写英文。七岁时，他开始迷上了蝴蝶，收集蝴蝶标本的嗜好陪伴了他的一生，而且后来做得相当专业，还发表过几篇有关蝴蝶的昆虫学论文，使得他以作家成名之后，还常常被冠以“昆虫学家”的称号。纳博科夫有一位酷爱文学的父亲，也许是遗传的作用，纳博科夫很早就与文学结下了难解之缘。他最初的创作兴趣是写诗，十五岁上出版第一本诗集，三年后出版第二本，被当时舆论誉为“神童”。他一生写下的诗实在不算少，而且自视不低，但他的诗名却一直不怎么响亮。不过，他后来许多小说行文中那种醉人的诗意恐怕也得部分归功于他写诗的努力吧。 纳博科夫曾把自己离开俄罗斯前的二十年光阴说成是一段“十全十美的过去”。父母的宠爱，无忧无虑地读书，写诗，捉蝴蝶，旅游，度假，甘涩交织的初恋，都在他心中留下了温暖的痕迹。但这段“过去”恰恰是俄罗斯历史上最动荡血腥的年代。纳博科夫的一位评论者曾说纳博科夫的家世为他观察俄国革命提供了“一个拳击场边的位子”。话虽是不错，但有意思的是，就在俄国革命进行得如火如茶之际，纳博科夫却并没有到场，而且似乎很有些恶作剧地摆出一副无动于衷的样子。事实上对任何大众化政治运动的冷漠是纳博科夫从为人到为文始终如一的禀性。这一点显然不是得自他父亲的遗传。作为立宪派民主党的创始人之一，纳博科夫的父亲是当时政坛上的活跃人物。1917年，沙皇尼古拉二世将皇位让给自己的兄弟，却遭到拒绝，拒位诏书就出自纳博科夫父亲之手，也正是这份诏书正式宣告了罗曼诺夫王朝的终结。十月革命爆发后，纳博科夫的父亲把家人送到克里米亚避险，自己留在彼得堡，企图推动西方式的立宪大会选举和苏维埃唱对台戏，因此被列宁下令逮捕，获释后也去了克里米亚。1919年，苏联红军攻入克里米亚，纳博科夫全家仓皇出逃，流亡德国。纳博科夫从此再也没有踏上俄罗斯的土地。 到柏林后不久，靠变卖母亲的首饰，纳博科夫得以赴英国进入剑桥大学就读，主修法、俄文学。就在他毕业前不久，他父亲在一次政治集会上为保护演讲者遇害身亡。这件事对纳博科夫的刺激极深，不少论者认为他日后作品中频繁出现的形形色色的血腥恐怖，与他父亲的死有很大关系。
《洛丽塔》的出版为作者赢了空前的声名，也引起了巨大的争议。该书叙述了一个中年男子与一个未成年少女的畸恋故事，小说始终笼罩在洛丽塔那种对人世淡然的态度之中，我们可以跟随着亨伯特穿越美国大陆的欲望之旅去深入一个少女迷茫的生活。一段罪恶的人生，一场绮丽的春梦，一个焦躁的欲望，一个狂妄的梦想，一场揪心的苦难。洛丽塔--一片凝聚男人所有梦想的雪花…… 本书通篇都是亨伯特滔滔不绝的第一人称独白。但第一人称叙述通常就象无未能佐证的一面之辞。读者一方面没有理由完全信任"我"的诚实，另一方面却又找不到更为可靠的客观依据。 《洛丽塔》所关注的也绝不仅仅是恋少女癖。亨伯特的确说过"要一劳永逸地确定小仙女危险的魔力何在"的话，但我们似乎也没有什么理由怀疑他最后的一段话不是认真的。在想永不褪色的秘密，预言家的十四行诗，艺术的避难所。这便是你与我能共享的惟一的永恒，我的洛丽塔。
纳博科夫（Vladimir Nabokov）1899年生于圣彼得堡。1940年他移居美国，成为著名的小说家、诗人、批评家和翻译家。其代表作《洛丽塔》、《微暗之火》进入现代经典之列，被誉为二十世纪最伟大的艺术作品之一。他曾在威斯利、斯坦福、康奈尔和哈佛教授文学。1961年起侨居瑞士，1977年在那儿去世。
The median age of pubescence for girls has been found to be thirteen years and nine months in New York and Chi cago. The age varies for individuals from ten, or earlier, to seventeen. Virginia was not quite fourteen when Harry Edgar possessed her. He gave her lessons in algebra. Jeminagrine cela. They spent their honeymoon at Petersburg,Fla. Monsieur Poe-poe, as that boy in one of Monsieur Humbert Humberts classes in Paris called the poet-poet. Now this was something the intruder had not expected.The whole pill-spiel (a rather sordid affair, entre nous soit dit) had had for object a fastness of sleep that a whole regiment would not have disturbed, and here she was staring at me, and thickly calling me Barbara. Barbara, wearing my pajamas which were much too tight for her, remained poised motionless over the little sleep-talker. Softly, with a hopeless sigh, Dolly turned away, resuming her initial position. For at least two minutes I waited and strained on the brink, like that tailor with his homemade parachute forty years ago when about to jump from the Eiffel Tower. Her faint breathing had the rhythm of sleep. Finally I heaved myself onto my narrow margin of bed, stealthily pulled at the odds and ends of sheets piled up to the south of my stone-cold heels - and Lolita lifted her head and gaped at me. To my surprise I found her dressea. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in slacks and T-shirt, and was looking at me as if she could not quite place me. The frank soft shape of her small breasts was brought out rather than blurred by the limpness of her thin shirt, and this frankness irritated me. She had not washed; yet her mouth was freshly though smudgily painted, and her broad teeth glistened like wine tinged ivory, or pinkish poker chips. And there she sat, hands clasped in her lap, and dreamily brimmed with a diabolical glow that had no relation to me whatever. 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. When the bride is a widow and the groom is a widower;when the former has lived in Our Great Little Town for hardly two years, and the latter for hardly a month; when Monsieur wants to get the whole damned thing over with as quickly as possible, and Madame gives in with a tolerant smile; then, my reader, the wedding is generally a quietaffair. The bride may dispense with a tiara of orange blos- soms securing her finger-tip veil, nor does she carry a white orchid in a prayer book. The brides little daughter might have added to the ceremonies uniting H. and H. a touch of vivid vermeil; but I knew I would not dare be too tender with cornered Lolita yet, and therefore agreed it was not worth while tearing the child away from her beloved Camp Q. My soi-disant passionate and lonely Charlotte was in everyday life matter-of-fact and gregarious. Moreover, I discovered that although she could not control her heart or her cries, she was a woman of principle. Immediately after she had become more or less my mistress (despite the stimulants, her nervous, eager cheri - a heroic cheri!) - had some initial trouble, for which, however, he amply compensated her by a fantastic display of old-world endearments), good Charlotte interviewed me about my relations with God. I could have answered that on that score my mind was open; I said, instead - paying my tribute to a pious platit-ude - that I believed in a cosmic spirit. Looking down at her fingernails, she also asked me had I not in my family a certain strange strain. I countered by inquiring whether she would still want to marry me if my fathers maternal grand- father had been, say, a Turk. She said it did not matter a bit; but that, if she ever found out I did not believe in Our Christian God, she would commit suicide. She said it so solemnly that it gave me the creeps. It was then I knew she was a woman of principle. It was then that began our extensive travels all over the States. To any other type of tourist accommodation I soon grew to prefer the Functional Motel - clean, neat, safe nooks, ideal places for sleep, argument,reconciliation, insatiable illicit love. At first, in my dread of arousing suspicion, I would eagerly pay for both sections of one double unit, each containing a double bed. I wondered what type of foursome this arrangement was ever intended for, since only a pharisaic parody of privacy could be attained by means of the incomplete partition dividing the cabin or room into two communicating love nests. By and by, the very possibilities that such honest promiscuity suggested (two young couples merrily swapping mates or a child shamming sleep to earwitness primal sonorities) made me bolder, and every now and then I would take a bed-and-cot or twin-bed cabin, a prison cell of paradise, with yellow window shades pulled down to create a morning illusion of Venice and sunshine when actually it was Pennsylvania and rain. We came to know - nous connuimes, to use a Flaubertian intonation - the stone cottages under enormous Chateau-briandesque trees, the brick unit, the adobe unit, the stucco court, on what the Tour Book of the Automobile Association describes as shaded or spacious or landscaped grounds. The log kind, finished in knotty pine,reminded Lo, by its golden-brown glaze, of fried-chicken bones. We held in contempt the plain whitewashed clapboard Kabins, with their faint sewerish smell or some other gloomy self-conscious stench and nothing to boast of(except good beds), and an unsmiling landlady alwaysprepared to have her gift (... well, I could give you...)turned down. I remember as a child in Europe gloating over a map of North America that had Appalachian Mountains boldly running from Alabama up to New Brunswick, so that the whole region they spanned - Tennessee, the Virginias,Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, appeared to my imagination as a gigantic Switzer-land or even Tibet, all mountain, glorious diamond peak upon peak, giant conifers, Le montagnard emigre in his bear skin glory, and Fells tigris goldsmithi, and Red Indians under the catalpas. That it all boiled down to a measly suburban lawn and a smoking garbage incinerator, was appalling.Farewell, Appalachia! Leaving it, we crossed Ohio, the three states beginning with I, and Nebraska- ah, that first whiff of the West! We traveled very leisurely, having more than a week to reach Wace, Continental Divide, where she passionately desired to see the Ceremonial Dances marking the seasonal opening of Magic Cave, and at least three weeks to reach Elphinstone, gem of a western State where she yearned to climb Red Rock from which a mature screen star had recently jumped to her death after a drunken row with her gigolo. ……
“我承认自己不相信时间，我喜欢把我的魔毯用完叠起后，让它的图案的一部分叠印在另一部分之上。” 纳博科夫：《诉说吧，回忆》 弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫出生于旧式俄历1899年4月10日。如果换成西历，应该是4月22日。他一周岁时，正好是二十世纪新千年的开始，这一年因为旧式俄历较西历晚了一天，所以纳博科夫的周岁生日就成了西历4月23日，值得一提的是，这一天正是备受他 推崇的莎士比亚的生日。 纳博科夫家世相当显赫，他的祖父曾是两代沙皇的司法大臣，家里既有钱又有文化，而且还属亲英一派。纳博科夫幼年受过的教育一般人根本望尘莫及。他小的时候，家里走马灯似的为他请了许多家庭教师，而他凭借天资聪慧，很小就掌握了英语、法语和德语。据说，他在会写俄文前就先学会了写英文。七岁时，他开始迷上了蝴蝶，收集蝴蝶标本的嗜好陪伴了他的一生，而且后来做得相当专业，还发表过几篇有关蝴蝶的昆虫学论文，使得他以作家成名之后，还常常被冠以“昆虫学家”的称号。纳博科夫有一位酷爱文学的父亲，也许是遗传的作用，纳博科夫很早就与文学结下了难解之缘。他最初的创作兴趣是写诗，十五岁上出版第一本诗集，三年后出版第二本，被当时舆论誉为“神童”。他一生写下的诗实在不算少，而且自视不低，但他的诗名却一直不怎么响亮。不过，他后来许多小说行文中那种醉人的诗意恐怕也得部分归功于他写诗的努力吧。 纳博科夫曾把自己离开俄罗斯前的二十年光阴说成是一段“十全十美的过去”。父母的宠爱，无忧无虑地读书，写诗，捉蝴蝶，旅游，度假，甘涩交织的初恋，都在他心中留下了温暖的痕迹。但这段“过去”恰恰是俄罗斯历史上最动荡血腥的年代。纳博科夫的一位评论者曾说纳博科夫的家世为他观察俄国革命提供了“一个拳击场边的位子”。话虽是不错，但有意思的是，就在俄国革命进行得如火如茶之际，纳博科夫却并没有到场，而且似乎很有些恶作剧地摆出一副无动于衷的样子。事实上对任何大众化政治运动的冷漠是纳博科夫从为人到为文始终如一的禀性。这一点显然不是得自他父亲的遗传。作为立宪派民主党的创始人之一，纳博科夫的父亲是当时政坛上的活跃人物。1917年，沙皇尼古拉二世将皇位让给自己的兄弟，却遭到拒绝，拒位诏书就出自纳博科夫父亲之手，也正是这份诏书正式宣告了罗曼诺夫王朝的终结。十月革命爆发后，纳博科夫的父亲把家人送到克里米亚避险，自己留在彼得堡，企图推动西方式的立宪大会选举和苏维埃唱对台戏，因此被列宁下令逮捕，获释后也去了克里米亚。1919年，苏联红军攻入克里米亚，纳博科夫全家仓皇出逃，流亡德国。纳博科夫从此再也没有踏上俄罗斯的土地。 到柏林后不久，靠变卖母亲的首饰，纳博科夫得以赴英国进入剑桥大学就读，主修法、俄文学。就在他毕业前不久，他父亲在一次政治集会上为保护演讲者遇害身亡。这件事对纳博科夫的刺激极深，不少论者认为他日后作品中频繁出现的形形色色的血腥恐怖，与他父亲的死有很大关系。
《洛丽塔》是作者流传最广的作品，绝大部分篇幅是死囚亨伯特的自白，叙述了一个中年男子与一个未成年少女的畸恋故事。小说最初未获准在美国发行，于1955年首次被欧洲巴黎奥林匹亚出版社出版。1958年终于出版了美国版，作品一路蹿升至《纽约时报》畅销书单的第一位。《洛丽塔》已被改编成电影。
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