By Harold Bloom

Vladimir Nabokov—Lolita

By Harold Bloom

I

Lolita, baroque and subtle, is a book writing to be reread, but whether its continued force matches the intricacy of its design seems to me problematic. Little is gained for Nabokov by comparing him to Sterne1Lawrence Sterne勞倫斯·斯特恩（1713—1768），18世紀英國傷感主義小說的代表作家，著有《項狄傳》《感傷旅行》等。or to Joyce2James Joyce詹姆斯·喬伊斯（1882—1941），愛爾蘭作家、詩人，后現(xiàn)代文學的奠基者之一，代表作《尤利西斯》《都柏林人》，其“意識流”思想對世界文壇影響巨大。. Borges3Jorge Luis Borges豪爾赫·路易斯·博爾赫斯（1899—1986），阿根廷詩人、小說家、散文家兼翻譯家，著名作品有短篇集《虛構集》《阿萊夫》等。, who was essentially a parodist4parodist戲仿者。戲仿，又稱諧仿，是在自己的作品中對其他作品進行借用，以達到調侃、嘲諷、游戲甚至致敬的目的，屬二次創(chuàng)作的一種，戲仿的對象通常都是大眾耳熟能詳?shù)淖髌贰? is an apter parallel to Nabokov. Perhaps parodists are fated to resent Sigmund Freud5（1856—1939），奧地利精神分析學家，猶太人，被譽為“精神分析之父”。; certainly Borges and Nabokov are the modern writers who most consistently and ignorantly abuse Freud.

[2] Where Nabokov hardly can be overpraised is in his achievement as a stylist. This is one of the endlessly dazzling paragraphs of Lolita:

《洛麗塔》一書盡顯巴洛克藝術，筆觸微妙，令人百讀不厭。但是于我而言，其匠心獨具的精妙結構是否配得上持續(xù)至今的文學影響力還是個問號。比較納博科夫和勞倫斯·斯特恩、詹姆斯·喬伊斯意義不大，而博爾赫斯本質上是個戲仿者，與納博科夫是同道中人。也許戲仿者對西格蒙德·弗洛伊德的憎惡與抗拒是命中注定的，因此，博爾赫斯和納博科夫這兩位現(xiàn)代作家一直在盲目無知地批判弗洛伊德。

So Humbert6《洛麗塔》的男主人公，到美國任教時租住在夏洛特·黑茲家中，迷戀上了夏洛特的女兒洛麗塔，為了得到洛麗塔假意與夏洛特結婚。后因槍殺與洛麗塔私奔的奎爾蒂被捕，在獄中身亡。the Cubus schemed and dreamed—and the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights. Then, figuratively speaking, I shattered the glass, and boldly imagined (for I was drunk on those visions by then and underrated the gentleness of my nature) how eventually I might blackmail—no, that is too strong a word—mauvemail big Haze7即夏洛特·黑茲（Charlotte Haze），是洛麗塔的母親，無意間看到亨伯特的日記，受刺激沖出家門，遇車禍身亡。into letting me consort with little Haze8即洛麗塔，當時年僅14歲，母親身亡后與繼父亨伯特在一起，后與奎爾蒂（Quilty）私奔，又嫁給其他人，難產(chǎn)而亡。by gently threatening the poor doting Big Dove with desertion if she tried to bar me from playing with my legal stepdaughter. In a word, before such an Amazing Offer, before such a vastness and variety of vistas, I was as helpless as Adam at the preview of early oriental history, miraged in his apple orchard. [3] It is a grand prose-poem, and the entire book in little. Reading it aloud is a shocking pleasure, and analyzing it yet another pleasure, more inward and enduring. Humbert,more “cubus”9作者哈羅德·布盧姆自創(chuàng)詞匯，意思是沒有incubus程度嚴重。than “incubus”10incubus男性夢魔，指在女子睡覺的時候降臨并與之交媾的男妖，一般形象為美男子，會吸取女人的精氣。, casts the red sun of his lustful will over the aptly named Haze females, yet avoids incurring our moral resentment by the exuberance of his language, with its zest for excess. What could be more captivating and memorable than:“while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights?” That delicious double“succession” achieves a kind of higher innocence, insouciant and stylized, delighting more in language than in the actual possibility of sensual bliss. Shattering the sparkling glass, Humbert breaks the vessels of reverie in order to achieve a totally drunken vision of sexual exploitation, indeed like a new Adam overcome by the fumes of the fruit.

[2]讓納博科夫享有盛譽的是他在文體風格上的成就。以下是《洛麗塔》中精彩的段落之一：

因此，鬼魅般的亨伯特謀劃著，幻想著，欲望和企圖(這二者創(chuàng)造了一個生動的世界)如一輪紅日徐徐高升，在無窮無盡的浪蕩子聚集的陽臺上，觥籌交錯間，慶祝那所有過去和未來之夜的極度歡樂。然后，打個比方來說，我摔碎了玻璃杯，開始大膽地設想(那時我已經(jīng)完全迷醉在了這些幻想中，也低估了我天性中的溫和)我能怎樣脅迫——不，這字眼太重了——能怎樣誘哄夏洛特·黑茲。如果她試圖阻攔我和我的合法繼女玩耍的話，我就假裝要拋棄她，以此嚇唬這個可憐又軟弱的大鴿子，迫使她允許我和她女兒交往?？傊痪湓?，在我得到這個絕妙的允許之前，在實現(xiàn)如此遠大而宏偉的愿景之前，我都像遠古東方歷史中的亞當一樣無助，只能在他夢幻般的蘋果園中癡望。

[3]這是一段絕妙的散文詩，卻又只是全書的冰山一角。大聲朗讀這段文字會帶來一種震撼的享受，對其進行分析則是另一種快樂，沁人心扉、意蘊悠長。與其說亨伯特是“色魔”，倒不如說他是“心理扭曲”，他將紅色烈日般耀眼的欲望投向黑茲母女，卻又借助冠冕堂皇的言辭、滿溢的熱切，免于招致人們的道德憎恨。最令人難忘的一幕莫過于：“在無窮無盡的浪蕩子聚集的陽臺上，觥籌交錯間，慶祝那所有過去和未來之夜的極度歡樂?！眱蓚€“無窮”的妙趣疊用，使文意達到了一種純粹的升華，漫不經(jīng)心卻獨具風格的語言給人帶來的歡樂遠勝肉欲的真實愉悅。砸碎了閃爍著光澤的酒杯，亨伯特也摔碎了自己幻想的溫床。為了攫取情色探索的醉人享受，像是新的亞當一樣，他被欲望的果實所引誘。

[4] What Nabokov offers, in Ada11《阿達》，全名《阿達，或激情的快樂——家庭紀事》，是納博科夫最長的一部英文小說，小說具有互文性的寫作特點。as well as Lolita, is an almost pure revel in language, by no means necessarily allied with insight. His loathing of Freud reduces, I think, to a fear of meaning, to a need to defend against overdetermined sense, a sense that would extend to everything. Memory, in Nabokov, fears not so much Oedipal12Oedipal俄狄浦斯情結的，即戀母情結的。intensities as it does more-than-Oedipal genealogies. Here, Nabokov compares weakly to Proust13Maecel Proust馬塞爾·普魯斯特（1871—1922），20世紀法國最偉大的小說家之一，意識流文學的先驅與大師。代表作《追憶似水年華》是一部回憶錄式的自傳體小說。, his most daunting precursor. Lolita gives us Maecel14《追憶似水年華》的男主人公，娶阿爾貝蒂娜為妻。as Humbert and Albertine15《追憶似水年華》的女主人公，被馬塞爾發(fā)現(xiàn)是女同性戀，遭到丈夫的禁閉離家出走，最后不幸墜馬身亡。as Lolita, which is to replace a sublime temporal pathos by a parodistic cunning that unfortunately keeps reminding us how much we have lost when we turn from Proust to Nabokov.

[4]納博科夫在他的作品《阿達》和《洛麗塔》中所呈現(xiàn)的，不是對事物的洞察力，而是近乎純粹的語言盛宴。我認為，他對弗洛伊德的抵觸，是對語言意義的懼怕，是出于抗拒過度理智的一種需求，因為這種過度理智會無限蔓延。在納博科夫的記憶中，他害怕的不是俄狄浦斯情結有多強烈，而是害怕這種情結已經(jīng)烙印在家族血脈中。在這方面，納博科夫與他最令人望而生畏的先驅者——語言大師馬塞爾·普魯斯特沒有可比性?！堵妍愃分械暮嗖睾吐妍愃拖袷瞧蒸斔固亍蹲窇浰扑耆A》中的馬塞爾和阿爾貝蒂娜，納博科夫以巧妙的戲仿替換了普魯斯特作品中壯麗的現(xiàn)世悲情。不幸的是，這種替換不斷提醒，當我們的目光從普魯斯特轉向納博科夫時，失去的太多了。

II

[5] Early defenses of Lolita by John Hollander16（1929—2013），美國詩人與文學批評家。and Lionel Trilling17（1905—1975），美國社會文化批評家與文學家。centered upon the insistence that it was an authentic love story. Rereading Lolita now, when no one would accuse the book of being pornography, I marvel that acute readers could take it as a portrayal of human love, since Humbert and Lolita are hardly representations of human beings. They are deliberate caricatures, as fabulistic as Charlotte Haze and Clare Quilty18《洛麗塔》中代表“罪惡”的人物，一個與亨伯特極其相似的人，后被亨伯特槍殺，是喚醒亨伯特精神回歸的一面鏡子。. Solipsistic nightmares, they wander in the America of highways and motels, but would be more at home in Through the Looking-Glass19英國童話作家劉易斯·卡羅爾（LewisCarroll，1832—1898）所著，故事描寫了愛麗絲在夢中種種神奇虛幻的經(jīng)歷。卡羅爾鏡中影像與真實形象相反的基本原理，將夢發(fā)生的場地設計在鏡子之中，制造分荒誕而又滑稽可笑的效果。or The Hunting of the Snark20劉易斯·卡羅爾于1874年創(chuàng)作的打油詩。故事講了一群烏合之眾組成的獵人經(jīng)歷了一場痛苦的歷程，去誘捕虛偽狡詐的隱形生物蛇鯊，但它卻不是外來的野獸，而是一位被派出抓蛇鯊的獵人。. Poor Lolita indeed is a Snark, who precisely does not turn out to be a Boojum21劉易斯·卡羅爾的小說《獵鯊記》中的一種虛構怪物。.

二

[5]作為《洛麗塔》的早期辯護者，約翰·霍蘭德和萊昂內爾·特里林堅持認為這是一個確鑿的愛情故事。如今再沒有人會指責《洛麗塔》是色情讀物了，重讀這本書，敏銳的讀者認為它在描繪普通人之間的愛情，這令我不禁驚訝又欽佩，因為亨伯特和洛麗塔完全不能代表普通人，他們是精心創(chuàng)造的漫畫式形象，如夏洛特·黑茲和克萊爾·奎爾蒂一樣具有寓言性。他們深陷自我的夢魘，流連于美國的公路和汽車旅館。也許在《愛麗絲鏡中奇遇記》或《獵鯊記》中，他們才更感到自如吧?？蓱z的洛麗塔就是那頭蛇鯊，但她確實不是怪物。

[6]Nabokov, like Borges, is the most literary of fantasists, and takes from reality only what is already Nabokovian. Jane Austen22（1775—1817），英國著名女性小說家，作品主要關注鄉(xiāng)紳家庭女性的婚姻和生活。代表作《傲慢與偏見》。, a powerful Protestant will, was as interested in social reality as the compulsive Dreiser23TheodoreDreiser西奧多·德萊塞（1871—1945），美國現(xiàn)代小說的先驅，現(xiàn)實主義作家。代表作《嘉莉妹妹》《美國悲劇》。was, but Nabokov’s social reality died forever with the Bolshevik Revolution. Admirers who defend Nabokov’s writing as mimesis do him violence. His genius was for distorted self-representation. Whether the Proustian intensities of sexual jealousy lend themselves to the phantasmagoric mode of Gogol24（1809—1852），俄國批判主義作家，他的作品將現(xiàn)實和幻想結合，人稱“怪誕現(xiàn)實主義”，具有諷刺性的幽默。代表作《死魂靈》。is a considerable question, but Nabokov intrepidly did not wait for an answer.

[6]納博科夫和博爾赫斯一樣，是幻想作家中最具文學氣息的，并且只從納博科夫式的社會現(xiàn)實中取材。英國小說家簡·奧斯汀是一名虔誠的新教徒，與美國現(xiàn)代小說家西奧多·德萊塞一樣，都對社會現(xiàn)實甚感興趣。但是納博科夫對社會現(xiàn)實的關注隨著俄國十月革命的結束而灰飛煙滅了，他的崇拜者為他辯護，將其作品看成對現(xiàn)實的模仿，但這反而是對他的詆毀。他的天賦在于描寫扭曲的自我形象。我們不妨思考，納博科夫是否將作品中普魯斯特式強烈的性嫉妒讓位給了果戈里式的怪誕現(xiàn)實主義，但對于這個問題，納博科夫無畏于任何答案。[7]“所以那個光怪陸離的世界是什么樣的？我們從看似無害的字里行間得以窺見。從某種角度來說它是真實的，但于我們而言太過瘋狂和荒謬，我們所習慣的是舞臺所呈現(xiàn)的世界?！边@是納博科夫對果戈里的評價，或者納博科夫對自己的評價，而非亨伯特對亨伯特的評價。納博科夫神秘的藝術風格拒絕認同他筆下的主人公，卻又借迷戀少女成魔的亨伯特之口來發(fā)言。亨伯特在日記中寫道：“迷戀少女是一門精密的科學。”可以看出，這名科學家就是納博科夫，而不是可憐的亨伯特。下面這段著名宣言也證實了這點：

[7] “So what is that queer world, glimpses of which we keep catching through the gaps of the harmless looking sentences. It is in a way the real one but it looks wildly absurd to us, accustomed as we are to the stage setting that screens it.” That is Nabokov on Gogol, or Nabokov on Nabokov. It is not Humbert on Humbert. Nabokov’s uncanny art refuses identification with his protagonist, yet lends the author’s voice to the comically desperate pursuer of nymphets. “The science of nympholepsy is a precise science,” says Humbert and we reflect that Nabokov is the scientist, rather than poor Humbert, a reflection that is proved by an even more famous declaration:

I am not concerned with so-called“sex” at all. Anybody can imagine those elements of animality. A greater endeavor lures me on: to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets.

我對所謂的“性”本就毫不關心，每個人都有獸性本能的幻想。吸引我前進的更大動力是：對早熟少女的危險魔力進行一次徹底專注的探索。

[8]Humbert perhaps knows that“the perilous magic” of eroticism crosses animality with death; Nabokov certainly knows, though he rejects so crassly the greatest of modern knowers, Freud. Rejecting Freud however is not a possible option in our time, and the whole of Part Two of Lolita is an involuntary repetition of Beyond the Pleasure Principle25論述人的行為除快樂原則及由此派生的現(xiàn)實原則之外，還有更符合人本能的強迫性原則。. The death drive, fueled by that negative libido26libido力比多，即性力，泛指一切身體器官的快感。精神分析學認為，力比多是人的心理現(xiàn)象發(fā)生的本能驅動力。Freud once toyed with calling “destrudo,”takes over poor Humbert completely, through the agency of his dark double and despoiler, Clare Quilty. Refusing to compound with Freud, who is the greatest and most pervasive of modern imaginations, Nabokov is doomed merely to repeat the Freudian mythology of the dual drives27the dual drives生死驅力。弗洛伊德相信人類由相沖突的兩種中心欲望所驅動：包含所有創(chuàng)造性及產(chǎn)生生命的原欲能量愛欲，與代表死亡本能的死欲。, Eros28Eros愛欲；厄洛斯（愛神）。-Humbert and Thanatos29Thanatos死的愿望；自我毀滅的本能；桑納托斯（希臘神話中的死亡之神）。-Quilty. All of Part Two of Lolita becomes, not a parody, but a Freudian allegory30弗洛伊德式寓言，即所謂的性嫉妒。弗洛伊德把嫉妒分為三類：競爭性和正常的嫉妒；投射性嫉妒；幻想性嫉妒。他認為男人不僅為自己所愛的女人受痛苦的折磨，并且仇恨自己的同性競爭對手。, considerably less splendid than the joyous Part One.

[8]亨伯特或許知道，性欲的“危險魔力”是獸性與死亡的結合。納博科夫當然也知道，盡管他是如此愚昧地否定偉大的現(xiàn)代知者弗洛伊德。今天的我們不太可能去反對弗洛伊德，而且《洛麗塔》的整個第二部分都是對弗洛伊德的《超越快樂原則》的無意識重復。這種死亡驅力被弗洛伊德戲稱為“破壞欲”的消極力比多所點燃，通過亨伯特人性中黑暗部分的另一個角色克萊爾·奎爾蒂，完全控制了可悲的亨伯特。納博科夫拒絕妥協(xié)于現(xiàn)代幻想領域最偉大、最廣為人知的學者弗洛伊德，但他卻注定只能重復弗洛伊德的雙驅力神學理論，塑造出被性欲驅使的亨伯特和被死亡驅力所驅使的奎爾蒂。《洛麗塔》的整個第二部分不是戲仿，而是弗洛伊德式的寓言，比充滿歡樂的第一部分乏味許多。[9]Humbert’s murder of Quilty is at once the most curious and the least persuasive episode in Lolita. Each figure is the “familiar and innocuous hallucination” of the other, and Humbert’s bungling execution of his double lifts the book momentarily into the category of nightmare. It is no accident that Humbert returns to the slain Quilty (C.Q.) in the novel’s closing sentences:

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 secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.

[10]That doesn’t sound to me like Humbert31全書以亨伯特自白的語氣所寫。, and rather clearly Nabokov has usurped these closing tonalities, explaining why he did not have Quilty murder Humbert, which I suspect would have made a better end. I don’t hear remoteness in this final tone, but rather an attempt to recover something of the aura of Part One, so sadly lost in the frenzies of Humbert’s later sorrows. ■

[9]《洛麗塔》中，亨伯特謀殺奎爾蒂是最令人奇怪、最無厘頭的一段情節(jié)。這兩個人物是彼此“熟悉而又無害的幻想對象”，亨伯特對他另一個自我的拙劣謀殺使這本書暫時陷入了夢魘。在小說結尾，亨伯特毫不意外地提起了被他殺死的奎爾蒂：

不要同情奎爾蒂。上帝必須在他和亨伯特之間作出選擇，上帝讓亨伯特至少多活上兩三個月，好讓他使你活在后代的心里。我想到了歐洲野牛和天使，想到顏料持久的秘密，想到預言性的十四行詩，想到藝術的庇護所。這就是你和我可以共享的唯一不朽的事物，我的洛麗塔。

[10]這一段聽起來不像是亨伯特的自白。無疑，這是作者篡奪了結尾的語調，解釋自己為什么沒有讓奎爾蒂殺死亨伯特，我覺得那樣的話結局反而會更好。在結尾處，我并沒有聽出語氣的客觀性，只顯出作者想力挽狂瀾，試圖去恢復小說第一部分的光暈，很遺憾，這種光暈在亨伯特后來狂暴的悲傷中丟失了。 □

弗拉基米爾·納博科夫——《洛麗塔》

文/哈羅德·布盧姆 譯/周桐 劉紅麗 審訂/徐懷靜

（譯者單位：北京郵電大學人文學院）