From the Bookshelf of Nabokov in Three Years…

Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Nabokov

Start date: March 1, 2012

Finish date: March 31, 2012

Discussion: Invitation to a Beheading

Discussion leader: Jason Lundberg

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Invitation to a Beheading

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By Jason · 1 post · 14 views

last updated Mar 15, 2012 07:12AM

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Feb 12, 2008 Inderjit Sanghera rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Nabokov’s novels are always suffused with a kind of unreality; as if they merely exist in the mind of a mendacious mad-man, aware of their own artificiality, the characters feels trapped, Nabokov once referred to them as “gallows slaves”, in the pages of the novel, in the world which Nabokov fashioned.

The protagonist in ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ is one Cincinnatus, imprisoned-officially speaking for “gnostical turpitude”, but in reality his incarceration is a result of being different, of bein Nabokov’s novels are always suffused with a kind of unreality; as if they merely exist in the mind of a mendacious mad-man, aware of their own artificiality, the characters feels trapped, Nabokov once referred to them as “gallows slaves”, in the pages of the novel, in the world which Nabokov fashioned.

The protagonist in ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ is one Cincinnatus, imprisoned-officially speaking for “gnostical turpitude”, but in reality his incarceration is a result of being different, of being real and solid in a world of translucence, it is as if Cincinnatus is the only character who is aware that his existence doesn’t extend beyond the sable ink on a white page. Indeed, a sense of darkness pervades the novel, the novel abounds with atramentous descriptions;

“The night was cold: the grey, greasy reflection of the moon, dividing itself into squares, fell on the inner wall of the recess; the whole fortress seemed to be filled to the brim with thick darkness on the inside, and glazed by moonlight on the outside, with black broken shadows that slithered down rocky slopes and silently tumbled into the moats; yet the night was impassive and stony-but within it’s deep, dark womb, undermining its might, something was hacking its way through that was quite foreign to the night’s substance and order”

The whole story seems like a cruel stage play, and, like the artificial spider which weaves its webs in Cincinnatus’s cell, so the characters try to entrap and ensnare in their fundamental unreality-however, like the harlequin moth which escapes from the entanglements of the spider, so Cincinnatus seeks to escape from the turgid, two-dimensional world which envelops him, which mocks him, stages tasteful thunder-storms and introduces a motley of parasitic characters, from the fraud Pierre, an executioner masquerading as a prisoner to his vulgar and vapid wife, Marthe, ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ is in many ways a continuation of key Nabokovian themes; the primacy of the individual against collectivism, mortality and consciousness and beauty, no matter how fleeting, or the capture of small seemingly insignificant details, such as the smudge of a child’s hand-print on a prison window or glimpse of a dreary town from the bars of a prison cell;

“Farther away, the sun flooded town described an ample hemicycle; some of the varicoloured houses proceeded in even rows, accompanies by round trees, while others, awry, crept down slopes, stepping on their own shadows; and an amethystine shimmer at the end, where the famous fountain played: and still, father, towards the hazy fold of hills that formed the horizon, there was a dark stipple of oak groves, with, here and there, a pond gleaming like a hand-mirror, while other bright ovals of water gathered glowing through the tender mist, over there to the west, where the serpentine Strop had is source.”

No matter how ghastly and fake the world which Cincinnatus inhabits, he experiences brief glimpses of beauty-indeed, according to the Nabokov beauty-plus pity-were the defining elements of his art. ...more

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Apr 13, 2014 Publius rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nabokov, novels, russian, re-read

In an interview, Nabokov claimed that Invitation to a Beheading was the novel of his that he held in "greatest esteem". This made me very eager to read this, but unfortunately, I found it very... average. The prose is very plain and often jumbled and I think Nabokov overextends the plot. Count me in as one of those of the "Viennese Delegation" Nabokov mentions in his foreword, because I definitely felt something mildly erotic between Cincinnatus C. and the twelve year old Emmie. I definitely pre ...more

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