Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov is a dazzling and surreal existential fable that blends absurdist satire with poetic lyricism. The novel follows Cincinnatus C., a man imprisoned and sentenced to death for the nebulous crime of “gnostical turpitude”—an existential offense of being opaque in a world that demands transparency. Trapped in a crumbling fortress, Cincinnatus awaits execution while enduring farcical interactions with his jailers, including the bumbling executioner Monsieur Pierre and the prison director who insists on treating the ordeal as a social occasion.
Nabokov’s prose shimmers with dreamlike precision, exposing the grotesque illogic of Cincinnatus’s world—where walls dissolve, time stutters, and his executioners stage rehearsals for his beheading. The novel’s climax, a transcendent rejection of false reality, reads as both a metaphysical escape and a triumph of artistic imagination over oppression.
A precursor to Lolita’s stylistic brilliance, often compared to Kafka’s The Trial but with Nabokov’s signature linguistic play.
“Nabokov’s beheading isn’t just an execution—it’s an invitation to dismantle the prison of the real.” — The Paris Review
