Lolita

　　「二十世紀最具說服力的愛情故事！」《浮華世界》雜誌如是評論。因為這是一部誠實的告白；不是不食人間煙火的浪漫，而是攸關淫慾、占有、嫉妒等赤裸裸的愛慾低鳴，而這個愛情故事──難以見容的不倫之愛──發生在一個四十歲的中年男子與一個十二歲的稚齡女孩之間。

　　一度傳為醜聞的禁書，在一九六二及一九九七兩度被拍成電影，納博可夫這部經典作品貴於用字的豐富華麗，微妙情緒的精心鋪陳，還有對於那令人顫抖的慾望所做的完美刻劃。書中男主角，一個歐裔知識份子，以第一人稱的回顧方式，敘述羅麗泰──這個稚嫩、明亮而粗野的美國女孩──在他身上所喚起的欣喜愛憐與醜惡獸性，還有導致他自我毀滅的宿命。今日，羅麗泰已成為一個迷思，一則傳奇，泛指年輕而挑逗的女孩。但是納博可夫的羅麗泰仍是無人可替代的唯一。「羅麗泰，我生命之光，我腰胯的火焰，我的罪，我的靈魂。羅－麗－泰：舌尖跳著輕快的三步舞，於上顎輕叩牙齒三次，羅．麗．泰。」

The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.

＂The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.＂--The New Yorker

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

Awe and exhilaration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert’s obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.

Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1899. After studying French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, he launched his literary career in Berlin and Paris. In 1940 he moved to the United States, here he achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. Lolita, arguably his most famous novel, was first published, by the Olympia Press, Paris, on September 15, 1955, and became a controversial success. Nabokov died in Montreux Switzerland in 1977.