Invitation to a Beheading
by Vladimir Nabokov

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Book Reviews of Invitation to a Beheading

Book Review: Gnostical turpitude!
Summary: 5 Stars

"Spiritual affinities have no place in my concept of literary criticism, but if I did have to choose a kindred soul, it would certainly be that great artist [Kafka - the Moose] rather than G. H. Orwell or other popular purveyors of illustrated ideas and publicistic fiction. Incidentally, I could never understand why every book of mine invariably sends reviewers scurrying in search of more or less celebrated names for the purpose of passionate comparison. During the last three decades they have hurled at me (to list but a few of these harmless missiles) Gogol, Tolstoyevski, Joyce, Voltaire, Sade, Stendhal, Balzac, Byron, Bierbohm, Proust, Kleist, Makar Marinski, Mary McCarthy, Meredith (!), Cervantes, Charlie Chaplin, Baroness Murasaki, Pushkin, Ruskin, and even Sebastian Knight. One author, however, has never been mentioned in this connection - the only author whom I must gratefully recognize as an influence upon me at the time of writing this book; namely, the melancholy, extravagant, wise, witty, magical, and altogether delightful Pierre Delalande, whom I invented."

Any type of plot summary will not give this book justice, for you must know that this book is not about the plot. In the case of Invitation to a Beheading, writing a blurb is much like writing a blurb with a summary of an Emily Dickinson poem. Well, once upon a time ago, in the paralell universe of the fantasy realm of Nabokov's imagination, Cincinnatus C. is captured, and found guilty of gnostic turpitude, a crime escaping definition. Cincinnatus has visions. He writes about them. His family visits him in the fortress, where he is locked. And he does not understand a thing of all this mess he found himself in. Yet he does not lose his wit, and tries to manage his fate as best he can. And it turns out that he can manage pretty much, considering. The book is Russian to the bone. Nowhere else are born authors with such a specific sense of humor and absurd. Mother Russia gave us many writers with unique, inimitable style. Nabokov is one of them, although a at the same time having been a prodigal son who never returned to his native land. Like Trevanian, he carried the kernel of culture within himself, he was the culture. Like any other escapist fantasy, Invitation to a beheading can be interpreted in many ways, and that has been done for the last 60 years, and then some, but submissing myself to the author's will, I will leave the story without any further comment. Suffice it to say that this novel is a difficult book, but if you happen to be so inclined, you will jump up, ruffling your hair, to paraphrase the author. I hope you will!

Summary of Invitation to a Beheading

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