zuì zǎo tīng dào de luò lì tǎ，
shì yī běn xiǎo shuō de míng zì hé yī wèi 13
suì shàonǚ de míng zì。
rú guǒ jǐn cóng duì xiǎo shuō de lǐ jiě，
kě yǐ jiāng qí dān chún dì lǐ jiě wéi zǎo shú de xìng gǎn shàonǚ yǐ jí tā hé liàn tóng pǐ de lián xì，
ér qiě yòu jiē chù xī fāng wén huà de rén huì fā xiàn，
xī fāng rén shuō de “ luò lì tǎ ” nǚ hái shì nà xiē chuānzhuó chāo duǎn qún，
huà zhe chéng shú zhuāng róng dàn yòu liú zhe shàonǚ liú hǎi de nǚ shēng，
jiǎn dān lái shuō jiù shì“
shàonǚ qiáng chuān nǚ láng zhuāng”
de qíng kuàng。
dàn shì dāng“
luò lì tǎ”
liú chuán dào liǎo rì běn，
rì běn rén jiù jiāng qí dàngchéng tiān zhēn kě '
ài shàonǚ de dài míng cí，
tǒng yī jiāng 14
suì yǐ xià de nǚ hái chēng wéi“
luò lì tǎ dài”，
ér qiě tài dù biàn chéng“
nǚ láng qiáng chuān shàonǚ zhuāng”，
jí chéng shú nǚ rén duì qīng sè nǚ hái de xiàng wǎng。
ér jīhū suǒ yòu dōng fāng xíng de“
luò lì tǎ”，
dū yǐ diàn yǐng《
xià qī wù yǔ》
lǐ de gōng tíng wá wá shí zhuāng zuò wéi biāo zhǔn lái dǎ bàn zì jǐ。
gǎng bǎn“
luò lì tǎ”
yóu cǐ '
ér lái，
ér guàn yú xiàng xiāng gǎng qǔ jīng de yuè bǎn luò lì tǎ yě yī yàng。
dàn bù tóng de shì，
yuè bǎn luò lì tǎ wán jiā nián líng jí zhōng zài 13
－ 25
suì，
ér qiě dà bù fēn rén bù chāo guò 20
suì，
shí qī bā suì de zhè lèi wán jiā，
tā men bìng bù cún zài yào pīn mìng zhuāng nèn de xū yào，
gèng duō shí hòu tā men zhuī qiú de shì yī zhǒng zhǎn xīn de yī zhe tài dù，
hé xún qiú yòu bié yī bān de shēng huó fāng shì。
zài xī fāng“
luò lì tǎ”
shì gè jí yòu xiàng zhēng yì yì de míng zì，
yì zhǐ xìng gǎn shàonǚ、
liàn tóng děng yì，
qǔ zì yī bù míng wéi《
luò lì tǎ》
de xiǎo shuō，
hòu pāi wéi tóng míng diàn yǐng，
guó nèi yì fān yì wéi《
yī zhī lí huā yā hǎi táng》。
tào yòng zuì jìn liú xíng de lǐ '
ān dǎo yǎn de nà jù míng yán，
wǒ men kě yǐ shuō，“
měi gè nǚ hái xīn lǐ dōuyòu yī gè luò lì tǎ”，
cóng xī fāng dào dōng fāng，
cóng rì běn dào xiāng gǎng，
zài dào zhōng guó nèi dì，
suī rán shí jiān màn cháng liǎo xiē，
dàn 14
suì shàonǚ luò lì tǎ nà yàng jīng líng kě '
ài de nǚ hái xíng xiàng jìng néng zài quán shì jiè yǐn qǐ“
xuān rán dà bō”，
gū jì shì bàn shì jì yǐ qián tā de chuàng zuò zhě gēn běn wú fǎ yù liào dào de，
tā men shèn zhì tè bié xuǎn zé rén liú zuì mì jí de shāng yè zhōng xīn zuò wéi zì jǐ de xiù chǎng，
bù lùn nǐ shì fǒu jiē shòu，
tā men zǒng shì nà me jiāo '
ào、
nà me wàng wǒ，
shuí gǎn shuō，
luò lì tǎ bù shì zhēn zhèng gāo guì de xiǎo gōng zhù。
luò lì tǎ -
jī běn zī liào
yóu yī kāi shǐ de LOLI
shì LOLITA
de jiǎn chēng，
zhǐ dài kě '
ài、
xī yǐn rén de yòu nǚ（
duō zhǐ 7
～ 14
suì），
yuán yú xiǎo shuō《
luò lì tǎ》
dào hòu lái wén huà de yán shēn， lolita
＝ xíng róng cí，
dài biǎo luó lì zhuàng、
kě '
ài de yòu nǚ， loli=
yòu nǚ，
duō yòng zài diàn yǐng yǐ jí rì běn GALGAME
wén huà zhōng。
zuì jìn，
yīn wéi rì běn hé yīng měi de diàn yǐng wén huà de yǐng xiǎng，
shǐ luó lì fēng gé de fú zhuāng dà xíng qí dào， LOLITA
yǎn biàn chéng dài biǎo liǎo yī zhǒng fú shì fēng gé，
yóu qí shì zài rì běn， LOLITA
chéng wéi liǎo dài biǎo xìng qiáng de fú zhuāng pǐn pái，
bìng bèi yuè lái yuè duō shàonǚ tuī chóng，
cóng '
ér jiàn jiàn qǔ dài liǎo LOLITA
zhǐ xíng róng cí，
dài biǎo luó lì zhuàng、
kě '
ài de yòu nǚ de dì wèi。
tè zhēng
yī gè nǚ shēng jiū jìng shì bù shì luó lì，
měi rén de dìng yì dōuyòu bù tóng：
yòu yǐ nián líng（
yán gé shēng lǐ nián líng）
lái fēn de，
yòu yǐ qì zhì（
xīn lǐ nián líng、
wài biǎo nián líng）
lái fēn de，
gèng yán gé de shì liǎng xiàng biāo zhǔn dōuyào dá dào de，
zuì hòu hái yòu zì jǐ rèn wéi shì jiù dāng zuò shì de。
bù guò pǔ biàn lái shuō yòu yī gè zhòng diǎn jiù shì yào“
shàng wèi fā yù”
huò zhě“
fā yù bù quán”。
xīn lǐ
Lolita
bù dān shì yī zhǒng fú shì cháo liú，
gèng shì nián qīng rén biǎo dá qíng gǎn xū yào de fāng shì，
huò shì mí bǔ zì xìn bù zú de zì wǒ bǎo hù wǔ zhuāng。
yī rú fā zhǎn xīn lǐ xué jiā '
ài lì xùn zhǐ chū，
nián qīng rén zhèng chǔyú“
zì wǒ rèn shí yǔ mí luàn”
de jiē duàn，
tā men wǎng wǎng yōng yòu tóng zhēn yǔ mèng xiǎng，
yòu bǎi tuō xiàn shí guī xiàn de kě qiú，
xū yào xún zhǎo zì wǒ，
yīn cǐ yǐ bù jī hé yě xìng tiǎo zhàn chuán tǒng，
qī wàng dé dào bié rén guān zhù、
liǎo jiě、
rèn tóng hé zhēn zhèng jiē nà。
luó lì yòu sān hǎo：
shēn jiāo、
yāo róu、
yì tuī dǎo
lèi xíng
xiǎo gōng zhù xíng、
jiā zhōng xiǎo mèi xíng、
nǚ wáng xíng、
xiǎo '
è mó xíng、
dǎn qiè jiāo xiū xíng、
xiǎo mí hú xíng、
lèi chéng shú xíng
luò lì tǎ -
sān dà zú qún
yī、 SweetLolita
héng héng héng yǐ fěn hóng、
fěn lán、
bái sè děng fěn sè xì liè wéi zhù，
yī liào xuǎn yòng dà liàng lěi sī，
wù qiú dì zào chū yáng wá wá bān de kě '
ài hé làn màn，
zài guǎng zhōu shì zuì duō rén xuǎn zé de zào xíng，
zǒu zài dà jiē shàng yě bù suàn tài zhāng yáng。
SweetLolita
xiàn jīn zài Lolita
jiè de dì wèi：
zhù liú
SweetLolita
zhèng rú qí míng，
shǔ yú suǒ yòu Lolita
fēn lèi zhōng fú shì shè jì zuì wéi tián měi de yī gè pài bié。 Sweet
xì yáng zhuāng de bù liào dà duō yǐ fěn hóng、
fěn lán huò bái sè děng fěn nèn kě '
ài de dān sè wéi zhù。
chú cǐ zhī wài，
wèile néng zhì zào chū yī zhǒng fǎng ruò yáng wá wá bān kě '
ài tián měi、
làn màn chún zhēn de qì xī， Sweet
xì yáng zhuāng tōng cháng huì zài yī wù shàng shǐ yòng bǐ bié de pài xì gèng duō de lěi sī hé běn bù xí zhòu。
jìn jǐ nián lái，
dà yuē shì yīn wéi bǎn xíng yǔ shè jì jīng cháng bèi shān zhài de yuán gù，
gè jiā Sweet
xì yáng zhuāng pǐn pái fēn fēn bìn qì dān sè bù liào，
zhuǎn '
ér shǐ yòng qǐ gè zhǒng yìn yòu táng guǒ、
dàn gāo、
xiǎo dòng wù huò miáo shù mǒu gè tóng huà chǎng jǐng de yìn huā bù liào（
yīn wéi tú '
àn tè shū qiě nán yǐ fǎng zhì，
zhè zhǒng bù liào wǎng wǎng shì dān cǐ yī jiā bié wú fēn diàn，
suǒ yǐ xiāng dāng néng fáng D
bǎn yú wèi rán）。
yī bān lái shuō， Sweet
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng wǎng wǎng bǐ qí tā xì bié de yáng zhuāng gèng néng huò dé chū cì tà jìn Lolita
shì jiè de nǚ hái men de qīng lái。
Sweet
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng dài biǎo pǐn pái： BABY,THESTARSSHINEBRIGH、 AngelicPretty、 METAMORPHOSE
èr、 ClassicalLolita
héng héng héng yǐ jiǎn yuē sè diào wéi zhù，
zhuózhòng jiǎn cái yǐ biǎo dá qīng yǎ de xīn sī，
yán sè bù chū tiǎo，
rú chá sè hé bái sè。
lěi sī huā biān huì xiāng yìng jiǎn shǎo，
ér hé yè xí shì zuì dà tè sè，
zhěng tǐ fēng gé bǐ jiào píng shí，
shì hé xīn shǒu。
☆ ClassicalLolita☆
xiàn jīn zài Lolita
jiè de dì wèi：
zhù liú
qià rú qí míng， Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng zhèng shì suǒ yòu xì bié de Lolita
yáng zhuāng zhōng fú zhuāng kuǎn shì zuì wéi yōu yǎ de pài bié。
qí yáng zhuāng shè jì jiù hǎo xiàng 19
shì jì yīng guó de guì zú shàonǚ yī bān，
jì gǔ diǎn yōu yǎ，
yòu bù shī chún zhēn kě '
ài。
Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng suǒ xuǎn yòng de bù liào suī rán yě xǐ huān yǐ chún sè wéi zhù，
dàn tā suǒ shǐ yòng de chún sè liào zǐ yī dìng dōuyòu zhe sù yǎ dé tǐ yòu bù cì yǎn de sè diào。
chú kāi bái、
hēi、
fěn、
lán zhè sì gè jī běn sè zhī wài，
gè shì gè yàng měi lì de suì huā bù yě shì Classical
xì yáng zhuāng bù liào de '
ài yòng zhī xuǎn。
yǔ Sweet
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng bù tóng，
chú liǎo gǔ diǎn xì lěi sī zhī wài， Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng jí shǎo huì zài yī wù shàng shǐ yòng dào dà liàng zào xíng píng píng、
zhì dì yī bān de lěi sī。
zài yī fú shàng měi gè xū yào yòng dào huā biān de dì fāng， Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng jī běn shàng dū huì yǐ yǔ yī fú xiāng tóng zhì dì de běn bù xí zhòu lái dài tì lěi sī。
ér Classical
xì yáng zhuāng suǒ xuǎn yòng de bù liào yán sè yì fēi cháng sù yǎ，
chú liǎo bái、
hēi、
fěn、
lán zhè sì gè jī běn sè zhī wài，
gè shì gè yàng měi lì de suì huā bù yě shì Classical
xì yáng zhuāng bù liào de cháng yòng zhě。
zǒng '
ér yán zhī， Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng de tè sè jiù shì“
jiǎn yuē '
ér bù jiǎn dān”。
yóu yú kuǎn shì jiǎn dān dà fāng、
yōu yǎ bù fán， Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng bǐ qí tā xì bié de Lolita
yáng zhuāng gèng shì hé rì cháng chuānzhuó，
yě gèng róng yì bèi jiāzhǎng jí dà zhòng suǒ jiē shòu。
dāng shàonǚ men yàn juàn liǎo zào xíng guò yú kuā zhāng de Sweet
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng hé fēi cháng bù rì cháng de Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng hòu， Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng jiù shùn lǐ chéng zhāng dì chéng wéi liǎo tā men de bì rán xuǎn zé yǔ zuì zhōng xuǎn zé。
yòu yì sī de shì，
zuì néng chuān chū Classical
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng yùn wèi de rén jū rán bìng bù shì qīng chūn huó pō de gāo chū zhōng nǚ shēng，
ér shì nà xiē nián jì zài 20
yǐ shàng de、
yīn wéi gōng zuò hé yuè lì de yuán gù '
ér yōng yòu liǎo chén jìng qì zhì de nián qīng nǚ zǐ。
kàn lái zài xiàn shí zhōng，“
qì zhì”
néng yǔ“
nián qīng”
wán měi bìng cún de shí lì guǒ rán qū zhǐ kě shù ní。
dài biǎo pǐn pái： MaryMagdalene、 Victorianmaiden、 JULIETTE&JUSTINE Lolita
bù shì Cosplay：
qián zhě dài biǎo shēng huó tài dù，
hòu zhě gèng jiā qiáng diào juésè mó fǎng gothiclolita
sān、 GothicLolita
héng héng héng zhù sè shì hēi hé bái，
tè zhēng shì xiǎng biǎo dá shén mì kǒng bù hé sǐ wáng de gǎn jué。
tōng cháng pèi yǐ shí zì jià yín qì děng zhuāng shì，
yǐ jí huà jiào wéi nóng liè de shēn sè zhuāng róng，
rú hēi sè zhǐ jiá、
yǎn yǐng、
chún sè，
qiáng diào shén mì sè cǎi。
☆ GothicLolita☆
xiàn jīn zài Lolita
jiè de dì wèi：
zhù liú
shǒu xiān xū yào zhù yì de shì， GothicLolita
yǔ chún zhèng de Gothic
shì wán quán bù tóng de，
dà jiā qiān wàn bù yào bǎ tā men hùn wéi yī tán héng héng yīn wéi yǐ zhèng cháng rén de yǎn guāng lái kàn，
chún cuì de Gothic
gēn běn jiù shì“
yāo mó guǐ guài bān de rén wù”。
ér GothicLolita
suī rán zài fú shì shè jì shàng yě mí màn zhe xiāng dāng nóng hòu de Gothic
wèi，
dàn tā zhì shǎo hái néng gěi rén yǐ xiǎo '
è mó bān lìng lèi de kě '
ài tiān zhēn zhī gǎn。
qí cì，
nà xiē rèn wéi fán shì yòng hēi bái sè miàn liào zhì zuò de Lolita
yáng zhuāng jiù yī dìng shǔ yú Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng de xiǎng fǎ yě shì cuò wù de。
shì shí shàng，
jí shǐ cǎi yòng wán quán xiāng tóng de miàn liào jìn xíng yī wù zhì zuò，
nà xiē chū zì bù tóng pài xì zhī shǒu de Lolita
yáng zhuāng yě yǐ jiù huì zài guān gǎn shàng cún zài zhe jí yì fēn biàn de míng xiǎn chā yì héng héng
jiù suàn tú lǐ de mó tè dū chuānzhuó hēi sè de yáng zhuāng，
dàn rén men hái shì néng cóng kuǎn shì hé zào xíng shàng qīng yì rèn chū shuí cái shì tián nèn kě '
ài de Sweet
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng、
shuí yòu shì rú tóng sǐ shén bān lěng dàn gū gāo de Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng de。
jīhū 97
％ yǐ shàng de Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng dū zhǐ cǎi yòng liǎo hēi sè hé bái sè de dān sè bù liào，
xiàng fěn hóng、
nèn huáng zhī lèi de kě '
ài yán sè kě shì yǔ zhè gè xì bié wán quán jué yuán de。
cǐ wài， Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng yě shì suǒ yòu lèi bié de Lolita
yáng zhuāng zhōng zuì cháng shǐ yòng pí zhì cái liào de pài bié。
nán guài zài guó nèi de mǒu xiē dì fāng，
shì fǒu chuānzhuó shǐ yòng shàng děng xiǎo yáng pí zhì zuò de shù yāo huì chéng wéi liǎo wài xíng rén pàn duàn cǐ rén shì fǒu Gothic
xì Lolita
shàonǚ de wéi yī biāo zhǔn liǎo。
chú liǎo dān diào de bù liào yòng sè zhī wài， Gothic
xì Lolita
shàonǚ men zuì '
ài shǐ yòng de pèi shì，
yě shì zuì néng biǎo xiàn chū Gothic
nà gǔ hùn hé liǎo“
kǒng bù”、“
chún zhēn”、“
shén mì”、“
jué wàng”、“
yōu yù”、“
sǐ wáng”
yǔ“
jìn jì”
zhè qī dà zhù tí de dú yòu qì xī de gè lèi xiǎo wù（
rú hēi sè zhǐ jiá yóu、
shí zì jià hé kū lóu yín shì děng）。
ElegantGothicLolita
cǐ wài， Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng zhōng hái cún zài zhe liǎng gè bǐ jiào tè bié de fēn zhī héng héng EGLLolita
jí EGALolita。 EGLLolita
de quán chēng shì“ ElegantGothicLolita”（
jí“
yǎ zhì gē tè Lolita”）。
tā de kuǎn shì shè jì yī bān piān xiàng chuán tǒng gǔ diǎn，
suī yǔ GothicLolita
fēi cháng jiē jìn，
què yòu duō dài liǎo diǎn xī xuè guǐ de gǎn jué。
ér EGALolita
de quán chēng zé shì“ ElegantGothicAristocrat”（
jí“
yǎ zhì gē tè guì zú”），
qí fú zhuāng kuǎn shì yī bān wéi nán zhuāng、
cháng qún、
kù zǐ hé lǐng jiān dìng yòu niǔ kòu de chèn yī jí wài tào。
yǔ qí tā xì bié de Lolita
yáng zhuāng bǐ qǐ lái，
jí yōu yǎ huá lì yǔ hēi '
àn guǐ yì yú yī shēn de GothicLolita
kě wèi shì zuì shòu '
ōu měi rén rè '
ài hé zháomí de Lolita
fēng gé。
yě xǔ zhè shì yīn wéi Gothic
xì Lolita
yáng zhuāng de shè jì zhōng chōng mǎn liǎo shén mì jí yòu huò de jìn yù sè cǎi，
suǒ yǐ gèng néng yǐn qǐ shēn shòu jī dū jiào yǐng xiǎng zhī rén de gòng míng bà。
dài biǎo pǐn pái： Moi-meme-Moitie、 MilleFleur
luò lì tǎ -
xiāng guān píng lùn
shì shí shàng“
nǚ xìng huà”
běn lái jiù shì gè méi yòu shénme jù tǐ gài niàn de cí，
ér“
luò lì tǎ”
de nǚ xìng huà wú fēi shì yōng yòu shàonǚ shì de xìng gǎn hé yóu rú xiǎo hú lí jīng bān de jiǎo xiá。
qí shí méi yòu“
luò lì tǎ”
qíng jié de nǚ rén jiù xiàng shì guò yú chéng shú de shuǐ guǒ，
shī qù liǎo qīng sè dài lái de huí wèi。
yú shì，
nà xiē zhuì mǎn bái sè de hēi sè de huā biān qún zǐ，
xiōng qián de bǎng dài bǎ wǒ men dài huí dào shì qù de měng dǒng suì yuè，
nà bù jǐn jǐn shì dān chún yì yì shàng de zhuāng nèn，
ér shì duì yú zì jǐ de zuì hǎo jiǎng lì，
yǔn xǔ zì jǐ shēng huó zài fēi xiàn shí de shì jiè zhōng，
gǔ lì zì jǐ fàn nà xiē xiǎo xiǎo de cuò wù，
shèn zhì yòu nà me yī diǎn cán rěn hé xié '
è。
zhè zhǒng shí shàng kě néng shì cóng yī bù rì jù kāi shǐ dà sì màn yán bìng zài míng xīng de shuài lǐng xià chéng wéi shí shàng de，
zài rì jù《
xià qī wù yǔ》
zhōng，
shēn tián gōng zǐ de“
luò lì tǎ”
bàn xiāng jiāng zhè yī fēng shàng tuī xiàng dǐng diǎn。
lìng rì běn jiē tóu de chuānzhuó yě xíng chéng liǎo sān gǔ bù tóng de fēng shàng，“
tián měi kě '
ài luò lì tǎ”
duō wéi tián měi kě rén de fēng gé，
yǐ fěn sè wéi zhù，
yùn yòng dà liàng lěi sī xí zhòu qún，
biǎo xiàn chū yáng wá wá bān de kě rén xíng xiàng；“
gē tè shì luò lì tǎ”
zài '
ōu měi yóu qí liú xíng，
yǐ hēi sè wéi zhù，
mí màn zhe sǐ wáng qì xī de kǒng bù yǔ yōu yǎ，
kě yǐ pèi shàng hēi sè de zhǐ jiá yóu hé chún gāo，
dì zào tuí fèi de qì zhì；“
jīng diǎn luò lì tǎ”
zé shì zuì jiǎn dān de rù mén kuǎn，
qún shēn duō wéi hé yè biān，
tòu guò suì huā hé fěn sè biǎo xiàn chū qīng chún de gǎn jué。
zhè zhǒng liú xíng fēng cóng rì běn tōng guò xiāng gǎng xùn sù màn yán dào zhōng guó nèi dì，
ràng nà xiē shēn zhe“
gōng zhù zhuāng”
de nǚ rén men yǐ shí shàng de jiè kǒu kāi shǐ sì yì zhuāng nèn，
ér zhè zhǒng zhuāng nèn de jìng jiè yě bù zài tíng liú yú yuán yòu de“
shī chū wú míng”
liǎo。
shí shàng jiè zì rán yě bù huì cuò guò rèn hé yī gè kě yǐ dà zuò wén zhāng de yóu tóu，
zài zhè gè luò lì tǎ bān“
xiǎo yāo jīng”
héng xíng de nián dài，
shí shàng jīng yīng men fēn fēn xiàng měng dǒng hé pàn nì zhì jìng，
tā men hé pǔ tōng dà zhòng yī qǐ jìn rù yīcháng jù jué zhǎngdà de yóu xì zhōng。
nián qīng qiě xìng gǎn de zhuāng bàn，
bìng bù nán zuò dào，
yīn cǐ jìn nián lái，
lěi sī huā biān hé hú dié jié céng fēngmǐ yī shí，
qiě fēng tóu bù jiǎn。
lián Dior
zài jīn nián de xiù chǎng shàng yě yòng huá lì hé bù tóng jì jié fú zhuāng de hùn dā，
zhì zào chū zǎo shú de mó dēng xiǎo nǚ láng fēng gé，
shuò dà de tài yáng yǎn jìng，
nǚ rén wèi shí zú de pí cǎo dā pèi jiè mò huáng de bǎi xí qún hé diào dài shàng yī，
xìng gǎn qīng chún yī gèdōu bù néng shǎo。
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, later translated by the author into Russian and published in 1958 in New York. The book is internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle-aged Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed and sexually involved with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze.
After its publication, Nabokov's Lolita attained a classic status, becoming one of the best-known and most controversial examples of 20th century literature. The name "Lolita" has entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious girl. The novel was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne.
Lolita is included on TIME's 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It is fourth on the Modern Library's 1998 list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century.
Plot summary
Lolita is divided into two parts and 36 short chapters. It is narrated by Humbert Humbert, a literary scholar born in 1910 to a Swiss father and an English mother in Paris, who is obsessed with what he refers to as "nymphets". Humbert suggests that this obsession results from the death of a childhood sweetheart, Annabel Leigh. In 1947, Humbert moves to Ramsdale, a small New England town, to write. He rents a room in the house of Charlotte Haze, a widow. While Charlotte tours him around the house, he meets her 12-year-old daughter, Dolores (also known as Dolly, Lolita, Lola, Lo, and L), with whom he falls in love at first sight. Humbert stays at the house only to remain with her. While he is infatuated with Lolita, a highly intelligent and articulate, albeit tempestuous teenage girl, he disdains of her preoccupation with contemporary American popular culture, such as teen movies and comic books.
While Lolita is away at summer camp, Charlotte, who has fallen in love with Humbert, tells him that he must either marry her or move out. Humbert reluctantly agrees in order to continue living near Lolita. Charlotte is oblivious of Humbert's distaste and pity for her, and his lust for Lolita, until she reads his diary. Upon learning of Humbert's true feelings and intentions, Charlotte is appalled. She makes plans to flee with Lolita, and threatens to expose Humbert's perversions. But as she runs across the street in a state of shock, she is struck and killed by a passing car.
Humbert picks Lolita up from camp, pretending that Charlotte is ill in a hospital. He does not return to Charlotte's home out of fear that the neighbors will be suspicious. Instead, he takes Lolita to a hotel, where he meets a strange man (later revealed to be Clare Quilty), who seems to know who he is. Humbert attempts to use sleeping pills on Lolita so that he may molest her without her knowledge, but they have little effect on her. Instead, she initiates sex. He discovers that he is not her first lover, as she had sex with a boy at summer camp. Humbert reveals to Lolita that Charlotte is actually dead; Lolita has no choice but to accept her stepfather into her life on his terms.
Lolita and Humbert drive around the country, moving from state to state and motel to motel. Humbert initially keeps the girl under control by threatening her with reform school; later he bribes her for sexual favors, though he knows that she does not reciprocate his love and shares none of his interests. The novel's first part ends after he rapes her. After a year touring North America, the two settle down in another New England town, where Lolita is enrolled in school. Humbert is very possessive and strict, forbidding Lolita to take part in after-school activities or to associate with boys; the townspeople, however, see this as the action of a loving and concerned, while old fashioned, parent.
Lolita begs to be allowed to take part in the school play; Humbert reluctantly grants his permission in exchange for more sexual favors. The play is written by Clare Quilty. He is said to have attended a rehearsal and been impressed by Lolita's acting. Just before opening night, Lolita and Humbert have a ferocious argument, which culminates in Lolita saying she wants to leave town and resume their travels.
As Lolita and Humbert drive westward again, Humbert gets the feeling that their car is being tailed and he becomes increasingly paranoid, suspecting that Lolita is conspiring with others in order to escape. She falls ill and must convalesce in a hospital; Humbert stays in a nearby motel, without Lolita for the first time in years. One night, Lolita disappears from the hospital; the staff tell Humbert that Lolita's "uncle" checked her out. Humbert embarks upon a frantic search to find Lolita and her abductor, but eventually he gives up.
One day in 1952, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita, now 17, who tells him that she is married, pregnant, and in desperate need of money. Humbert goes to see Lolita, giving her money in exchange for the name of the man who abducted her. She reveals the truth: Clare Quilty, an acquaintance of Charlotte's and the writer of the school play, checked her out of the hospital and attempted to make her star in one of his pornographic films; when she refused, he threw her out. She worked odd jobs before meeting and marrying her husband, who knows nothing about her past.
Humbert asks Lolita to leave her husband and return to him, but she refuses, and he breaks down in tears. He leaves Lolita, and kills Quilty at his mansion, shooting him to death in an act of revenge. He then is arrested for driving on the wrong side of the road and swerving. The narrative closes with Humbert's final words to Lolita in which he wishes her well, and reveals the novel in its metafiction to be the memoirs of his life, only to be published after he and Lolita have both died.
According to the novel's fictional "Foreword", Humbert dies of coronary thrombosis upon finishing his manuscript. Lolita dies giving birth to a stillborn girl on Christmas Day, 1952.
Style and interpretation
The novel is a tragicomedy narrated by Humbert, who riddles the narrative with word play and his wry observations of American culture. His humor provides an effective counterpoint to the pathos of the tragic plot. The novel's flamboyant style is characterized by word play, double entendres, multilingual puns, anagrams, and coinages such as nymphet, a word that has since had a life of its own and can be found in most dictionaries, and the lesser used "faunlet." One of the novel's characters, "Vivian Darkbloom," is an anagram for author Vladimir Nabokov.
Several times, Humbert begs the reader to understand that he is not proud of his union with Lolita, but is filled with remorse. At one point, he is listening to the sounds of children playing outdoors, and is stricken with guilt at the realization that he robbed Lolita of her childhood.
Some critics have accepted Humbert's version of events at face value. In 1959, novelist Robertson Davies excused the narrator entirely, writing that the theme of Lolita is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child. This is no pretty theme, but it is one with which social workers, magistrates and psychiatrists are familiar."
Most writers, however, have given less credit to Humbert and more to Nabokov's powers as an ironist. For Richard Rorty, in his famous interpretation of Lolita in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Humbert is a "monster of incuriosity." Nabokov himself described Humbert as "a vain and cruel wretch" and "a hateful person" (quoted in Levine, 1967).
Martin Amis, in his essay on Stalinism, Koba the Dread, proposes that Lolita is an elaborate metaphor for the totalitarianism that destroyed the Russia of Nabokov's childhood (though Nabokov states in his Afterword that he "[detests] symbols and allegories"). Amis interprets it as a story of tyranny told from the point of view of the tyrant. "Nabokov, in all his fiction, writes with incomparable penetration about delusion and coercion, about cruelty and lies", he says. "Even Lolita, especially Lolita, is a study in tyranny."
In 2003, Iranian expatriate Azar Nafisi published the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran about a covert women's reading group. For Nafisi, the essence of the novel is Humbert's solipsism and his erasure of Lolita's independent identity. She writes: "Lolita was given to us as Humbert's creature [...] To reinvent her, Humbert must take from Lolita her own real history and replace it with his own [...] Yet she does have a past. Despite Humbert's attempts to orphan Lolita by robbing her of her history, that past is still given to us in glimpses."
One of the novel's early champions, Lionel Trilling, warned in 1958 of the moral difficulty in interpreting a book with so eloquent and so self-deceived a narrator: "we find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents [...] we have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting."[citation needed]
Publication and reception
Due to its subject matter, Nabokov was unable to find an American publisher for Lolita after finishing it in 1953. After four refusals, he finally resorted to Olympia Press in Paris, September 1955. Although the first printing of 5,000 copies sold out, there were no substantial reviews. Eventually, at the end of 1955, Graham Greene, in an interview with the (London) Times, called it one of the best novels of 1955. This statement provoked a response from the (London) Sunday Express, whose editor called it "the filthiest book I have ever read" and "sheer unrestrained pornography." British Customs officers were then instructed by a panicked Home Office to seize all copies entering the United Kingdom. In December 1956, the French followed suit and the Minister of the Interior banned Lolita (the ban lasted for two years). Its eventual British publication by Weidenfeld & Nicolson caused a scandal that contributed to the end of the political career of one of the publishers, Nigel Nicolson.
By complete contrast, American officials were initially nervous, but the first American edition was issued without problems by G.P. Putnam's Sons in 1958, and was a bestseller, the first book since Gone with the Wind to sell 100,000 copies in the first three weeks of publication. The first official translation of the book was the Danish edition, which was published in 1957.
Today, it is considered by many to be one of the finest novels written in the 20th century. In 1998, it was named the fourth greatest English language novel of the 20th century by the Modern Library. Nabokov rated the book highly himself. In an interview for BBC Television in 1962 he said,
Lolita is a special favourite of mine. It was my most difficult book—the book that treated of a theme which was so distant, so remote, from my own emotional life that it gave me a special pleasure to use my combinational talent to make it real.
Two years later, in 1964's interview for Playboy, he said,
I shall never regret Lolita. She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle—its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look. Of course she completely eclipsed my other works—at least those I wrote in English: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, my short stories, my book of recollections; but I cannot grudge her this. There is a queer, tender charm about that mythical nymphet.
At the same year, in the interview for Life, Nabokov was asked, "Which of your writings has pleased you most?" He answered,
I would say that of all my books Lolita has left me with the most pleasurable afterglow—perhaps because it is the purest of all, the most abstract and carefully contrived. I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.
Sources and links
Links in Nabokov's work
In 1939, Nabokov wrote a novella Volshebnik (Волшебник) that was published only posthumously in 1986 in English translation as The Enchanter. It can be seen as an early version of Lolita but with significant differences: it takes place in Central Europe, and the protagonist is unable to consummate his passion with his stepdaughter, leading to his suicide. The theme of ephebophilia was already touched on by Nabokov in his short story A Nursery Tale, written in 1926. Also, in the 1932 Laughter in the Dark, Margot Peters is sixteen and already had an affair when middle-aged Albinus is attracted to her.
In chapter three of the novel The Gift (written in Russian in 1935–1937) the similar gist of Lolita's first chapter is outlined to the protagonist Fyodor Cherdyntsev by his obnoxious landlord Shchyogolev as an idea of a novel he would write "if I only had the time": a man marries a widow only to gain access to her young daughter, who however resists all his passes. Shchyogolev says it happened "in reality" to a friend of his; it is made clear to the reader that it concerns himself and his stepdaughter Zina (fifteen at the time of marriage) who becomes the love of Fyodor's life and his child bride.
In April 1947 Nabokov wrote to Edmund Wilson: "I am writing ... a short novel about a man who liked little girls–and it's going to be called The Kingdom by the Sea...." The work expanded into Lolita during the next eight years. Nabokov used the title A Kingdom by the Sea in his 1974 pseudo-autobiographic novel Look at the Harlequins! for a Lolita-like book written by the narrator who, in addition, travels with his teenage daughter Bel from motel to motel after the death of her mother; later, his fourth wife is Bel's look-alike and shares her birthday.
In the unfinished novel The Original of Laura, published posthumously, a character Hubert H. Hubert appears, an older man preying upon then-child protagonist, Flora. Unlike in Lolita, his advances are unsuccessful.
Allusions/references to other works
* In the Foreword, there is a reference to "the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933 by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably more outspoken book"—that is, the decision in the case United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, in which Woolsey ruled that James Joyce's novel was not obscene and could be sold in the United States.
* Humbert Humbert's first love, Annabel Leigh, is named after the "maiden" in the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe, and their young love is described in phrases borrowed from Poe's poem. Nabokov originally intended Lolita to be called The Kingdom by the Sea, drawing on the rhyme with Annabel Lee that was used in the first verse of Poe's work. A passage at the end of Chapter 1 — "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" — is also a reference to the poem. ("With a love that the winged seraphs in heaven / Coveted her and me.")
* Humbert Humbert's double name recalls Poe's "William Wilson", a tale in which the main character is haunted by his doppelgänger, paralleling to the presence of Humbert's own doppelgänger, Clare Quilty. Humbert is not, however, his real name, but a chosen pseudonym.
* Humbert Humbert's field of expertise is French literature (one of his jobs is writing a series of educational works that compare French writers to English writers), and as such there are several references to French literature, including the authors Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, François Rabelais, Charles Baudelaire, Prosper Mérimée, Remy Belleau, Honoré de Balzac, and Pierre de Ronsard.
* In chapter 17 of Part I, Humbert quotes "to hold thee lightly on a gentle knee and print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss" from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
* In chapter 35 of Part II, Humbert's "death sentence" on Quilty parodies the rhythm and use of anaphora in T. S. Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday.
* The line "I cannot get out, said the starling" from Humbert's poem is taken from a passage in Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, "The Passport, the Hotel De Paris."
Possible real-life prototypes
According to Alexander Dolinin, the prototype of Lolita was 11-year-old Florence Horner, kidnapped in 1948 by a 50-year-old mechanic Frank La Salle, who had caught her stealing a five-cent notebook. La Salle traveled with her over various states for 21 months and is believed to have raped her. He claimed that he was an FBI agent and threatened to “turn her in” for the theft and to send her to "a place for girls like you." The Horner case was not widely reported, but Dolinin adduces various similarities in events and descriptions.
The problem with this suggestion is that Nabokov had already used the same basic idea — that of a child molester and his victim booking into an hotel as man and daughter — in his then-unpublished 1939 work Volshebnik (Волшебник). This is not to say, however, that Nabokov could not have drawn on some details of the case in writing Lolita, and the La Salle case is mentioned explicitly in Chapter 33 of Part II:
Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, had done to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?
Heinz von Lichberg's "Lolita"
German academic Michael Maar's book The Two Lolitas describes his recent discovery of a 1916 German short story titled "Lolita" about a middle-aged man travelling abroad who takes a room as a lodger and instantly becomes obsessed with the preteen girl (also named Lolita) who lives in the same house. Maar has speculated that Nabokov may have had cryptomnesia (a "hidden memory" of the story that Nabokov was unaware of) while he was composing Lolita during the 1950s. Maar says that until 1937 Nabokov lived in the same section of Berlin as the author, Heinz von Eschwege (pen name: Heinz von Lichberg), and was most likely familiar with his work, which was widely available in Germany during Nabokov's time there. The Philadelphia Inquirer, in the article "Lolita at 50: Did Nabokov take literary liberties?" says that, according to Maar, accusations of plagiarism should not apply and quotes him as saying: "Literature has always been a huge crucible in which familiar themes are continually recast... Nothing of what we admire in Lolita is already to be found in the tale; the former is in no way deducible from the latter." See also Jonathan Lethem in Harper's Magazine on this story.
Nabokov's afterword
In 1956, Nabokov penned an afterword to Lolita ("On a Book Entitled Lolita") that was included in every subsequent edition of the book.
One of the first things Nabokov makes a point of saying is, despite John Ray Jr.'s claim in the Foreword, there is no moral to the story.
In the afterword, Nabokov wrote that "the initial shiver of inspiration" for Lolita "was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage". Neither the article nor the drawing has been recovered.
In response to an American critic who characterized Lolita as the record of Nabokov's "love affair with the romantic novel", Nabokov wrote that "the substitution of 'English language' for 'romantic novel' would make this elegant formula more correct".
Nabokov concluded the afterword with a reference to his beloved first language, which he abandoned as a writer once he moved to the United States in 1940: "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 language for a second-rate brand of English".
Russian translation
Nabokov translated Lolita into Russian; the translation was published by Phaedra in New York in 1967.
The translation includes a "Postscriptum" in which Nabokov reconsiders his relationship with his native language. Referring to the afterword to the English edition, Nabokov states that only "the scientific scrupulousness led me to preserve the last paragraph of the American afterword in the Russian text..." He further explains that the "story of this translation is the story of a disappointment. Alas, that 'wonderful Russian language' which, I imagined, still awaits me somewhere, which blooms like a faithful spring behind the locked gate to which I, after so many years, still possess the key, turned out to be non-existent, and there is nothing beyond that gate, except for some burned out stumps and hopeless autumnal emptiness, and the key in my hand looks rather like a lock pick."
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The 1962 adaptation's movie poster art.
The 1997 movie poster art.
* Lolita has been filmed twice: the first adaptation was made in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, and starred James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers and Sue Lyon as Lolita; and a second adaptation in 1997 by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, and Melanie Griffith. Nabokov was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the earlier film's adapted screenplay, although little of this work reached the screen. The more recent version was given mixed reviews by critics. It was delayed for over a year because of its controversial subject matter, and was not released in Australia until 1999.
* Nabokov's own version of the screenplay (dated Summer 1960 and revised December 1973) for Kubrick's film was published by McGraw-Hill in 1974.
* The book was adapted into a musical in 1971 by librettist/lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer John Barry under the title Lolita, My Love. Critics were surprised at how sensitively the story was translated to the stage, but the show nonetheless closed on the road before it opened in New York.
* In 1982, Edward Albee adapted the book into a non-musical play. It was savaged by critics, Frank Rich notably attributing the temporary death of Albee's career to it.
* In 2003, Russian director Victor Sobchak wrote a second non-musical stage adaptation, which played in England at the Lion and Unicorn Fringe Theater in London. It drops the character of Quilty and updates the story to modern England.
* Rodion Shchedrin adapted Lolita into a Russian language opera, which premiered in Moscow in 2006 and was published that same year. It had a much earlier performance in Sweden in 1992. It was nominated for Russia's Golden Mask award.
* The Boston-based composer John Harbison began an opera of Lolita, which he abandoned in the wake of the clergy child-abuse scandal that rocked Boston. Fragments of what he had done were woven into seven-minute piece "Darkbloom: Overture for an Imagined Opera". Vivian Darkbloom, an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov, is a character in Lolita.
References in other media
* The novel Lo's Diary by Pia Pera retells the story from Lolita's point of view, making major plot changes on the premise that Humbert's version is incorrect on many points. Lolita is characterized as being quite sadistic and manipulative.
* The collection Poems for Men who Dream of Lolita by Kim Morrissey takes the form of a series of poems written by Lolita herself reflecting on the events in the story, a sort of diary in poetry form. In strong contrast to Pera's novel, Morrissey portrays Lolita as an innocent, wounded soul. Morrissey had earlier done a stage adaptation of Sigmund Freud's famous Dora case.
* Steve Martin wrote the short story "Lolita at Fifty" (included in his collection Pure Drivel), which is a gently humorous look at how Dolores Haze's life might have turned out.
* In The Police song "Don't Stand So Close to Me" about a schoolgirl's crush on her teacher, the teacher "starts to shake and cough just like the old man in that book by Nabokov." The singer mispronounces Nabokov's name.
* The lyrics of the song "Posters", a song by the rock band Dada about a girl who leads the (male) narrator to her room, includes the line "She asked me if I ever read Lolita."
* In the 1999 film American Beauty, the lead character's name, Lester Burnham, is an anagram of "Humbert learns".
* The 2001 Album Gourmandises by the French singer-songwriter Alizee featured her most successful single Moi... Lolita which reached number one in several countries in Europe and East Asia
* The 2007 Marilyn Manson song and music video for "Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)" draws strong influence from Lolita, largely inspired by the comparable age difference between Manson and girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood.
* In Katy Perry's song 'One of the Boys', she mentions Lolita. "I studied Lolita religiously"
* The 2010 song "Lolita" by Mexican singer Belinda was inspired by the story.
* On their 2010 album, the band Glass Wave dedicates a song to Lolita. The lyrics are sung in her own voice.
* In the Red Dwarf episode Marooned, David Lister is forced to burn books to keep warm after crashing on an Ice Planet. When asking if he can burn Lolita, Arnold Rimmer advises him to "save page sixty eight". Lister reads it, calls it "disgusting" then slips it into his jacket and burns the rest.
* In the novel Pretty Little Liars, Hanna makes a silent reference when she catches a 40 year old man staring at her and Mona. She looks at him and thinks "A regular Humbert Humbert", but doesn't speak aloud because Mona wouldn't understand the literary reference and she had only read it in the first place because "Lolita looked deliciously dirty."
Further reading
* Appel, Alfred Jr. (1991). The Annotated Lolita (revised ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-72729-9. One of the best guides to the complexities of Lolita. First published by McGraw-Hill in 1970. (Nabokov was able to comment on Appel's earliest annotations, creating a situation that Appel described as being like John Shade revising Charles Kinbote's comments on Shade's poem Pale Fire. Oddly enough, this is exactly the situation Nabokov scholar Brian Boyd proposed to resolve the literary complexities of Nabokov's Pale Fire.)
* Levine, Peter (1967). "Lolita and Aristotle's Ethics" in Philosophy and Literature Volume 19, Number 1, April 1995, pp. 32–47.
* Nabokov, Vladimir (1955). Lolita. New York: Vintage International. ISBN 0-679-72316-1. The original novel.
