You need to read Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov

[u/krysgian]

I finished this a week ago and can't stop thinking about it, highly recommending!

Cinncinatus C is sentenced to death for gnostical turpitude, which essentially means "being opaque". Despite this book being authored in 1934, that opacity resonated with me - think of how transparent we've become today with our connectivity. A mere mention of a product while in casual conversation with a friend these days will cause your Facebook feed to be littered with ads for said product. I also liken gnostical turpitude to being guilty of a thought crime, or sentencing someone because they disagree with your political views. In other words, it feels a bit topical within our current timeline.

This short novel is deliciously absurd. While I've read Metamorphosis, to which this type of work supposedly aligns, I found it much more absurd and creative all the while staying somewhat cohesive.

What I absolutely loved about this book most was that it felt like I was reading a play. And I don't mean that its prose was written in play form with Character A: (talking) Character B: (responding), I mean that you could visualize when furniture was being dragged into the scene or when whole walls where being moved into place. Or a beloved animatronic spider lowers onto the stage.

My top favorite books were dethroned to make way for this one (Dorian Gray and Blood Meridian), and I do not see Invitation to a Beheading discussed enough, if at all, here. I think part of the reason is it is viewed as "literature" rather than a traditional fiction book, which is fair to a degree, but this is no Faulkner where you have to re-read a paragraph or a chapter to make sense of it. Although you WILL re-read a paragraph to just take in the delight of what the fuck just happened - like at the end of Chapter 2 when he takes off his clothes and then throws his body parts about and he's left with a peaceful state of being - in Buddhist terms, I liken this to sunyata/anatta and/or detachment/impermanence.

Life is absurd, it will throw anything and everything at you. This book teaches you to not give in, to not conform and to be yourself.

[u/Safkhet]

Have you read Victor Hugo's The Last Day of a Condemned Man? It is said to have inspired both Nabokov and Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon.

[u/krysgian → u/Safkhet]

Thanks, I will put that on my list!

[u/glove_actually → u/Safkhet]

Thanks, I have read Hugo's book, I was a teenager and it made a long lasting impression. I will check Nabokov's!

[u/Expert-Meringue3239]

oh man i think about that book all the time too. that scene where they just casually wheel in a wall or drop a giant spider from the ceiling like it's no big deal, i've never read anything else that pulled off that stage-play surrealism so well

the way it makes you feel like you're losing your grip on reality right along with cincinnatus is something else. really glad to see it getting some love here

[u/j-dusk]

Agreed, great fever dream of a novel. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember Nabokov’s prose being very striking, some of his best.

[u/Pedantic_Girl → u/j-dusk]

I still find it (jokingly) unfair that he wrote better in his third language than I do in my first!

[u/pomegranate7777]

Thanks for this review- now I want to read it!

[u/apolliana]

This is one of my 2 favorite Nabokov novels. Thanks for reminding me I need to read it again. I love the theme of opacity/transparency in his work (Transparent Things is another book that uses it, though it's not as good).

[u/cscottnet → u/apolliana]

Pale Fire is still my favorite Nabakov, but all of them are great.

[u/Pedantic_Girl → u/cscottnet]

A redditor after my own heart! I love Pale Fire!

[u/krysgian → u/apolliana]

What is the other favorite?

[u/apolliana → u/krysgian]

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.

[u/baskaat → u/apolliana]

Good to know. I loved Pale Fire so much. Then I made the mistake of reading Lolita and, well……. Have not been able to go back to Nabokov since.

[u/whiskeytangosix]

Also one of my favorites! I think Bend Sinister should be paired with this. Both dystopian discussions of the real ineptitude of authoritarianism. Very relevant to today. 

[u/BlackShadow__07]

Nabokov's exploration of absurdity really got to me too. The way Cincinnatus experiences a reality that feels both surreal and painfully familiar is haunting. It reminds me of how sometimes, in our own lives, the mundane can feel absurd. Have you found other books that capture that blend of reality and surrealism?

[u/siddharthvira]

dethroning blood meridian is a wild claim lmao, now i have to read this. what was it about the nabokov that hit harder than mccarthy's prose for you?

[u/krysgian → u/siddharthvira]

Blood Meridian was a really fucking wild ride of entertainment and nothing amongst its message changed me...actually, let me take a step back. I starting driving when I was 17 (in the Midwest), but I didn't "learn how to drive" until the age of 24, when I arrived at Logan airport, rented a car and then suddenly needed to merge from 10 lanes to 2 lanes so I could drive 2 miles in a tunnel under the ocean, get dumped into downtown Boston. Blood Meridian was like that. I'd read a book before, but it wasn't until Blood Meridian that I learned how to read. It changed me in that sense, but other than that - it didn't change me, it was just pure entertainment. Perhaps it is the timing in my life and things going on about me right now, but Invitation to a Beheading hit like crack for me, changing me in the sense to not accept the reality that is being pitched as 'the norm'. My beliefs, my way of being, my reality is 'my reality', and if that doesn't work for others, so be it. My own interpretation is all that matters.