Nabokov, Vladimir - Livro Proibido

Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)

Romancista, poeta, tradutor e entomologista russo-americano. Escreveu primeiro em russo e depois em inglês. Foi o autor de Lolita.

Livro proibido - Lolita

A história, um conto inicialmente de 30 páginas, permaneceu arquivada durante algum tempo. Porém, o célebre escritor russo Vladimir Nabokov intuía algo maior para o destino daquelas personagens. Humbert Humbert (H.H.), professor universitário de meia idade, envolve-se com uma mulher para se aproximar de sua filha, uma jovem de 12 anos, que responde pelo pseudónimo Lolita. A história contada na primeira pessoa pelo protagonista H.H. assume tom confessional a fim de justificar a paixão proibida pela menina.

Excerpt 1 (Chapter 1)

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, an 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.

Excerto 1 A (Capítulo 1)

Lolita, luz da minha vida, fogo da minha virilidade. Meu pecado, minha alma. Lo-li-ta: a ponta da língua faz uma viagem de três passos pelo céu da boca abaixo e, no terceiro, bate nos dentes. Lo. Li. Ta.
Pela manhã, um metro e trinta e dois a espichar dos soquetes; era Lo, apenas Lo. De calças práticas, era Lola. Na escola, era Dolly. Era Dolores na linha pontilhada onde assinava o nome. Mas nos meus braços era sempre Lolita.
Teve uma precursora? Teve, sim, teve. Na verdade, talvez até não houvesse Lolita nenhuma, se certo Verão, eu não tivesse amado uma rapariga-menina inicial. Num principado junto ao mar. Oh, quando? Quase tantos anos antes de Lolita nascer quantos eu contava nesse Verão. É sempre de esperar num assassino uma prosa de estilo caprichoso.
Senhoras e senhores do júri, a prova número um O que os serafins, os simples, mal informados e nobremente alados serafins, cobiçaram. Reparai neste emaranhado de espinhos.

Excerpt 2

(The narrator, Humbert Humbert, opens his story by exploring his first love, Annabel, as the seed of his sexual desire for young girls. This is the most erotic passage in the book; and his drowsy nighttime lover subtly prefigures his later idea to ravish a drugged Lolita as she sleeps.)
I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and keep asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the rift in my life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the first evidence of an inherent singularity? When I try to analyze my own cravings, motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past. I am convinced, however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel.(Cap. 4, pag. 16)

Excerpt 3

I have reserved for the conclusion of my 'Annabel' phase the account of our unsuccessful first tryst. One night, she managed to deceive the vicious vigilance of her family. In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall. Through the darkness and the tender trees we could see the arabesques of lighted windows which, touched up by the colored inks of sensitive memory, appear to me now like playing cards - presumably because a bridge game was keeping the enemy busy. She trembled and twitched as I kissed the corner of her parted lips and the hot lobe of her ear. A cluster of stars palely glowed above us, between the silhouettes of long thin leaves; that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock.

Excerpt 4

I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own. Her legs, her lovely live legs, were not too close together, and when my hand located what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half pleasure, half-pain, came over those childish features. She sat a little higher than I, and whenever in her solitary ecstasy she was led to kiss me her head would bend with a sleepy, soft, drooping movement that was almost woeful, and her bare knees caught and compressed my wrist, and slackened again; and her quivering mouth, distorted by the acridity of some mysterious potion, with a sibilant intake of breath came near to my face. She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion.(Pag. 17)

Excerpt 5

I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder - I believe she stole it from her mother's Spanish maid - a sweetish, lowly, musky perfume. It mingled with her own biscuity odor, and my senses were suddenly filled to the brim; a sudden commotion in a nearby bush prevented them from overflowing - and as we drew away from each other, and with aching veins attended to what was probably a prowling cat, there came from the house her mother's voice calling her, with a rising frantic note - and Dr. Cooper ponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since - until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.(Pág. 18)

*Para saber mais:
Sobre a censura do livro:
https://pedromarquesdg.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/lolita-e-sade-os-affaires/
https://bndigital.bn.gov.br/artigos/18-de-agosto-de-1958-o-controverso-romance-lolita-de-vladimir-nabokov-e-publicado-nos-estados-unidos/