Invitation to a Beheading MP3 CD – MP3 Audio, August 18, 2015

I only came to know of this early Nabokov novel by reading the wonderful "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi (highly recommended), a study of the relevance of literature in the personal quest for freedom from the crushing weight of oppression. Certainly the protagonist of "Invitation to a Beheading," Cincinnatus C., is a relevant case in point, given that he has been sentenced to death for an obscure crime (gnostical turpitude)and is constantly under the manipulatory pressures of absurd agents of the state. In this he is not at all unlike Nafisi and all the other victims of Khomeini's revolutionary guards who interpret the crimes as they go along. Others may find some parallels in modern America. Many have compared this Nabokov (written in 1935) to Franz Kafka, but the wellspring is really more deeply rooted in the existential guilt that plagues the modern psyche. In earlier times, all shared in the social code of justice and understood the right and wrong, whether or not they agreed with it; but in the 20th century, there emerged a certain arbitrainess of authority that made potential criminals of all somewhere inside their minds. I think of the French author Celine in this context, as well as an unpublished novel of my own written almost 40 years ago. So it is easy to see how Nafisi could apply the parallels to her situation in Tehran, forced to veil, forced to accept, unable to flee, to the situation of Cincinnatus C. I think that anyone who has lived an even mildly contemplative life can feel the constriction that such or any arbitrary authority causes. But what I really want to say about "Invitation to a Beheading" is a bit more personal in nature. Have you ever awoken from a complex dream and thought, "I wish I could write this down, it's really a good story"? No one I have ever read, including Joyce, has done as well at capturing a dream state as Nabokov does in the early pages of "Invitation." And, as if to prove it is not a fluke or a lucky break, he comes back to it again and again, right up until the powerful closing scene. "Invitation to a Beheading" is a powerful dream that too many of us have had, deep in our own gnostical turpitude. It is almost miraculous that one could capture it so well, especially one such as Nabokov whom we know for his open-eyed precision in the later works. But miraculous or not, our heightened ability to relate to it does not say good things about where we have come in the early days of the 21st century.

100 stars! This is by far one of the most absurd, imaginative, and metaphorically insightful works of art I have ever encountered - it is what I would imagine a Dali painting to be if it were a novel. It is also brilliantly written.Invitation to a Beheading is a phenomenological exploration (in the tradition of Husserl, but more resembling Gaston Bachelard's phenomenology), serving to snap us out of our familiarity and out of our forgetting of the nature of our reality by continually inserting the ridiculous into the narrative: a family who brings their furniture with them to jail for a brief visit of an inmate; a spider who inhabits a cell with the protagonist and who is fed and coddled; an execution ceremony which resembles a circus/variety-show act; chairs and furniture that move at will, "and never spend the night in the same spot twice"; and seemingly nonsensical meanderings such as the observation that "an insane man mistakes his visiting kin for galaxies, logarithms, low-haunched hyenas".I wouldn't say I *enjoyed* this work - though the book was relatively short, it took me weeks to trudge through it; still, it quickly became one of my "favorites", and a work I would recommend to any of my literary friends above others in a heartbeat. I attempt to rate books not on my personal preference, but on whether they hold unique relevance, meaning, and display brilliant writing or insights into human nature. There is no question that, although, as some have complained, this work lacks a "plot" or "character development", it is nevertheless a surreal masterpiece that reveals the absurdity in our own (moral, social) conventions.HIGHLY recommended, though you probably will not enjoy it if you are looking for a book with a "plot" and if you are easily frustrated by one in which not much seems to "happen". Invitation to a Beheading is more like a storied philosophy or work of abstract art than it is a novel.

Chapter 4 of the rule of St. Benedict tells the monks, "Remember to keep death before your eyes daily." What would it be like to be such a person? What would it be like to be around such a person? Cincinnatus is sentenced to death. The name harkens back to a noble figure. In this case he is sentenced to death because he makes everyone around him uncomfortable (there are worse reasons.) But he does not know the date of his death...and here is the dramatic tension of the story. I remember when my Dad died. The next morning I went into my bank and a teller I knew well smiled and asked how I was doing. She had NO clue. I have worked with many families dealing with imminent death and I know they don't want me to ask how they are doing unless they know they can answer honestly. Cincinnatus is surrounded by people going through the motions of day-to-day life and cannot appreciate why this man waiting for death doesn't appreciate THEIR struggles. Of course, they are waiting for death too; they just don't appreciate it. This is my 6th book by Nabokov and I have loved them all. And I certainly see similarities between this book and works by Kafka, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Sartre ("The Wall.") but I don't assume an influence

This classic example of World Literature is amazing. How one can see his life so clearly, yet be on death row astounds me. Fantastic read.

This is Nabokov's saddest book. There are plenty of sad and tragic people in his work at large - Luzhin, Smurov, Martin, Hermann, Fyodor, Sebastian, Pnin, Kinbote, Hugh - and of course poor Lo. But Cincinnatus, the hero of *Invitation to a Beheading*, has an endless pathos all his own. People in the other books fight back, or bluster along as best they can. But poor, innocent Cincinnatus, held in a cell on death row for a crime trumped up by the hideous regime under which he lives, is not, and never has been, a fighter or a blusterer. Good, quiet, meek, and terrified, Cincinnatus is duped, duped, and duped again by his horrible captors, who take delight in subjecting him to psychological torture in the days leading up to his date with the axe. It is, on Nabokov's part, a brilliant piece of invention - the wild, tacky, kitschy vulgarity of all his manifold punishers is superbly imagined, and beautifully set over against the simple goodness of a helpless creature all on his own. Read it for that. And then try to decide what to make of the ending. This is, as I say, Nabokov's saddest book. But it is also the book where his own thoughts of the afterlife have the biggest role to play. He is very coy, not to say evasive, on what he thought of 'the beyond'. In my view, bits of the issue flit in and out of the other books, never assuming anything like major importance (though some Nabokovians attach enormous significance to it). But in this book, about a man convicted of 'gnostical turpitude' (p 51, and look up 'gnostic' and gnosis' - they may be important) the issue is clearly present. But how? To what end? With what effect? With what success? I'm pretty sure I don't really know. Others are very sure they do.

I'd read this when I was a teenager 40 years ago and remembered that I'd liked it. I liked it this time again. It is hard to describe, but it is a good read.

Set in the prison-fortress of an unnamed state, <i>Invitation To A Beheading</i> is a surreal tale chronicling the last days of Cincinnatus C., a man condemned and sentenced to death for . . . well, what exactly? Apart from the phrase "Gnostical Turpitude" and subtle accusations of being "opaque", his crime is never properly revealed, although throughout the story we learn (courtesy of Cincinnatus's scribblings) that he is in some way different or special.At one point he recalls levitating out of a window. In a different memory he overhears a group of people whispering "He is one of them, he is a..." - The chatter isn't finished and we never learn what Cincinnatus C. is or what he has done.In some way he hasn't conformed, and at the story's start he is found guilty then transported to a yellow-walled cell, where for 20 days he is tormented in peculiar ways by his perversely mundane keepers. As time passes, Cincinnatus increasingly believes his jailers are not who they appear to be.This short novel will probably flummox. Its dislocated symbolism and pathos will appeal most to the reader who (for whatever reason) feels marginalized or out-of-sync. Cincinnatus C. becomes agitated and numbed in equal measure, while the interferers around him offer twisted logic and false concern.Written in a fluid prose style (marked by smoke-&-mirrors imagery), ITAB is an absurdist classic: a strange snapshot of an outsider's dissolving life in the clutches of a gaslighting regime.

The genius of Nabokov is obvious here: this is SUCH a well written book. Just brilliant!