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Dec 31, 2009

Eh?Eh! rated it:

The writing is pretty. Not the right word but I'm too lazy to use the thesaurus. Effective? It was simple but I found my imagination engaged. There was a passage (one of the many) where Cincinnatus was describing his cell, and as his mind wandered my wandered also, not from lack of interest or boredom. I read it over maybe five times before I could bring myself to move on.

This book made me scratch the right side of my head, the underdeveloped nearly concave side, in confusion. More...

32 comments like (28 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2007

Allie rated it:

I saw this book as a story about relationships. Cincinnatus is a prisoner for an absurd crime of personality, and his executioner cares for him and dotes on him, completely ignorant of any reason why the spitful Cincinnatus should dislike him. It teaches us about ourselves, and about the blurring of lines in our love relationships.

Sometimes, those who love us most, are the ones that imprison us or act as our executioners. Yet they love us, nonetheless. We think that those who love u More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2008

Abby rated it:

This was recommended to me by someone I should have known has completely different reading taste than I do. The writing style/prose is good, the sentences are very well crafted and pleasurable to read. The story? Miserable. It's one annoying, miserable whine over and over and over again. The premise of the book is so flimsy. There is no reality in it (it all exists in the protagonist's head), so you can't trust anything he says, rendering the plot pointless. Had the character gone through More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2007

Miriam rated it:

This was the first Nabokov novel I read, and I highly recommend it as an introduction. Although not as iconic as Lolita or as out-and-out brilliant as Pale Fire, this book both draws you in and keeps you at a distance, allowing you into its world but not inside the main character's head-- at least, not as much as his later works. Significantly, this is one of Nabokov's few novels (are there any other than this one?) that is not narrated in the first person. If prolonged, thoughtful imagery and t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2011

Julia rated it:

Cincinnatus C. é condenado à morte. O motivo é que, em uma terra em que as pessoas são obrigadas a serem translúcidas, ele é opaco. Cincinnatus é preso, então, sem saber quando será sua execução (esse fato e as conversas com o carcereiro são o principal motivo dessa novela ter sido chamada de Kafkaesca, em um tempo em que Nabokov não conhecia Kafka). Segundo uma entrevista com o autor, essa obra é aquela pela qual ele tinha mais estima.
Tradução para o inglês de Dmitri Nabokov, com supervis More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it:

If you enjoy descriptions, and aren't all that into plot, and don't mind sharing the frustrations of a character caught in some kind of strange limbo waiting to be executed for the crime of moral turpitude, you might enjoy this book.

Okay, a short summary: Cincinnatus C. has been sentenced to death, by beheading, and he is now waiting to die. And he is waiting to find out WHEN he will die, but he can't get a straight answer from his jailers. Why is he a condemned man? Apparently, beca More...

9 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 08, 2011

Jason rated it:

I think trying to pin down an indisputable interpretation of any book - let alone this one - is the silliest thing anyone can do. (The only way this can be done is if the author comes right out and declares to the world, in very precise terms, a given book's meaning.) Not that I care too much either, but I like to think that it's about the inevitable puppet show that society can play upon you, shoving it's hand through the flesh at your back and making you dance. And only then can individuality More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 22, 2008

Mike rated it:

This was my first Nabokov and I'm told that it's quite different than his other writings; well I'll be the judge of that! This book read like a short story as opposed to a novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a strange sometimes first-person (mostly not) narrative about the time spent in prison before an unannounced execution. What's remarkably strange about this one, though, is that I couldn't grasp the time setting at all. Its dialogue is written as older form (think Olde English but...not) an More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 13, 2008

Lavinia rated it:

imagination versus reality, utopia versus dystopia. often compared to kafka's "the trial" and orwell's "1984".

i liked:
the constant feeling of watching an absurd theatre play
chapter 18
chapter 19 [absolutely delicious:]
pierre, the executioner. you love to hate him
the spider
cincinnatus - the name. it sounds very brave and historical
cincinnatus - the character. his continuous retreat from people, his writing (wonderfully writ More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2007

Corie rated it:

A few people to whom I've recommended this novel haven't liked it as much as I have. I have a feeling that it's one of those novels which is hard to get into unless you're discussing it with a class or book club or a group of friends. The interplay of real and make believe brings some amount of controversy to various readings of the text - what different worlds or characters represent, what the ending actually is, etc - as is the case with most books whose setting and interpretation are rather u More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Nathan rated it:

Imagine an irrational world, if you can imagine one more irrational than the one we live in, where a man can be incarcerated and sentenced to death for a crime that has no definition and is inexplainable. Who would want to be executed for gnostic turpitude? Now imagine that Nabokov knew what the world would look like in the 21st Century, and that it would involve in-laws who really love their furniture and a death sentence. It's not far off from the irrational world we really live in. Semi-alleg More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2011

Stephen rated it:

This novel belongs to Nabokov's Russian-language period. It has been compared both to Orwell, a writer Nabokov apparently detested, and to Kafka, whom Nabokov claims he had not read at the time he authored "Invitation." The novel concerns a character named "Cincinnatus," who has been sentenced to beheading "for the most terrible of crimes, gnostical turpitude" (p72), which seems to mean that he is impenetrable and just does not fit in to the rather silly society o More...

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Sep 23, 2010

Michael rated it:

I found this good but not great. I feel so much of the aesthetics might have been lost in the translation from Russian.

In the foreword, Nabokov argues that he was not influenced by Kafka at all while he wrote the novel because he had never read Kafka at that point. (Apparently numerous critics accused him of copying.) I found so many similarities between the two authors in this work that I struggle to believe Nabokov. Sure he may have never read Kafka, but no one -- not even the isolat More...

0 comments like

Dec 28, 2009

Matt rated it:

The back cover blurb on this book contains a brief summary of the entire book, including what I would consider spoilers. Why the hell would they do that? So irritating...

Well written, but i'm hard pressed to remember any specific lines that blanket the soul and coat the tongue with honey like my other experiences with Mr. N.

The scenes involving the various characters such as M'sieur Pierre, Rodrig Ivanovich, and Marthe's family trying to interact with Cincinnatus in his c More...

12 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Liam rated it:

Some classic Nabakov bush-beating:

The kisses I spied. Yours and his kisses, which most resembled some sort of feeding, intent, untidy, and noisy. Or when you, with eyes closed tight, devoured a spurting peach and then, having finished, but still swallowing, with your mouth full, you cannibal, your glazed eyes wandered, your fingers were spread, your inflamed lips were all glossy, your chin trembled, all covered with drops of the cloudy juice, which trickled down on to your bared boso

More...

2 comments like

Oct 01, 2011

Barbara rated it:

The novel opens with the death sentence of one Cincinnatus C. You have love a writer who baits his reader on the second page of the novel:

"So we are nearing the end. The right-hand, still untasted part of the novel, which, during our delectable reading, we would lightly feel, mechanically testing whether there were still plenty left (and our fingers were always gladdened by the placid, faithful thickness) has suddenly, for no reason at all, become quite meager: a few minutes More...

0 comments like

Apr 23, 2011

MJ rated it:

It’s The House of the Dead meets Monty Python’s blacker moments. Nabokov wrote this in a fortnight, and although wired to his usual stylistic and linguistic arrogance, the story meanders in the way an undisciplined half-dream half-real semi-surrealist novel might. It's not quite Dostoevsky, not quite Gogol either.

I also began to mix up Cincinnatus with Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, which wasn’t wholly random, as the novels aren’t too far off in terms of their dark More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

Andrew rated it:

life as a life sentence? a fever dream of intense anxiety and existential isolation? a marvelous surfeit of aesthetically pleasing surrealism? all? none? i'm not sure yet. all of nabokov's stlylistic trademarks are at work, but they are magnified and refracted to such a degree in this work that i feel like i can not offer critical comment at this time. uncritcally, i can say invitation to a beheading is balls to the walls hella awesome.

0 comments like

Aug 05, 2009

Katie rated it:

John Updike said, "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically." I couldn't agree more.

Every phrase is a work of art, every word drips with melancholy, with longing and passion. This book is truly phenomenal. That being said, I have to acknowledge, there are many people who won't like it, might even hate it. In Nabokov's world: nothing's real, everything's a dream, and reality is only what you make it. Our hero, Cincinnatus C. is condemned More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2010

Adam rated it:

In the foreword, Nabokov ponders why each new book of his “sends reviewers scurrying in search of…celebrated names for the purpose of passionate comparison.” In fact, so many glean such similarities between this and Kafka’s The Trial that Nabokov feels it necessary to assert that he had never read Kafka at the time of his writing Invitation. Following in the footsteps of (or falling for the same pitfalls as) Nabokov’s critics, I could not help but think of other works which readily lend themse More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Dylan rated it:

Nabakov's Invitation To A Beheading is summed up on the back cover of this edition, just as it is summed up in the first few pages. There isn't really going to be a twist, nor that many surprises. And this isn't a trick: what is written on the back cover of this book, is what happens inside it. Yet, against all convention, it astounds.

Sure, those of you who know me will understand that this “existential” novel fits beautifully with my own position in life, my own views. Fair enough. But aside f More...

0 comments like

Feb 24, 2011

Madison rated it:

The challenge to the bourgeois class in revolutionary Russia had a tremendous impact on the assumed “natural” perspective of its political and artistic position. Generations of building a particular aesthetic had almost eclipsed the possibility of a non-bourgeois, or “collective” idea of art. I qualify “collective” in order to point out the absurdity of assuming there is a possibility for a non-communal conception of art, something Nabokov's Cincinnatus C. points out himself in “Invitation to a More...

0 comments like

May 28, 2010

David rated it:

Nabokov was an immensely talented writer, and could wield prose like few other authors. (If you're anticipating a "but" here, you're right.) But, he fell flat with Invitation to a Beheading.

The story focuses on a man, Cincinnatus, sitting on death row, in what appears to be the most incompetently organized prison on earth. His execution date is forever being delayed (which irks Cincinnatus, as all he truly desires to know is the date of his impending death); he receives a v More...

3 comments like

Feb 06, 2012

Dami rated it:

It is quite an absurd situation the protagonist Cincinattus finds himself in this book; it does remind me of Kafka, even though Nabokov states in the foreword that at the time of writing, he didn't have read him at the time.[return]The communication barrier between Cincinnattus, the protagonist and his captors gives much of the suspense of the book, but it also makes it a harder read as we are left with the same questions as C. and we don't really get any concrete answers.[return]For me this boo More...

0 comments like

Aug 26, 2011

Lyricsninja rated it:

On the recommendation of a friend, I picked up Invitation to a Beheading to read. I'll freely admit that I trudged through the first 60 pages with a bit of anger, as the book is a rough read. My friend convinced me to continue on, as he stated that it was a book that is more than worth working through to complete. Well… he was right. Nabakov blew me away with the way this one was done. The beginning was so heavy that you could almost feel the mental strain that the imprisonment was causing on th More...

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Jan 23, 2010

Justy rated it:

It's all in his head. Cincy created a prison in his mind because he was not the same as his peers and didn't behave as a male should in his country in that era. I also got the hint that he was self-loathing and sort of pitiful. Maybe the staff members of the "prison" were archetypes of the sort of people who persecuted him and he in turn despised. I also found it interesting that when Cincy escaped, he wound up in the directors home where the directors wife was behaving as wives of More...

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Dec 12, 2007

W.B. rated it:

One of my all-time favorite novels. I like the edition with the crayon drawing by his son used as the front cover. I guess this is magic realism..although when I first read this that marketing device, that term, hadn't even been invented yet...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 19, 2009

Eric rated it:

It was an interesting read, although the language was difficult to parse at points.

The Kafkaesque early 20th century discourse on insanity was interesting, but not earth shattering, and I believe that the story was injured by translation.

Cincinatus C.is gaoled alone in an empty prison with insane bureaucratic rules for the crime of simply being himself, and being more solid and real than other people. A bastard born to an unknown but allegedly real father, married to a More...

0 comments like

Dec 27, 2011

Paul rated it:

Amazing novel. Excellent example of how the absurd can be used as an analogy with many different applications. The basic premise is that, in an unspecified dream-like world peopled by absurd and trivial simulations of people, one real person is born and is now in prison awaiting his execution for the crime of "gnostical turpitude". Essentially, he has been condemned for being a real person in a world where unreality is the norm. His chief anxiety comes not from the fact that he is More...

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Jul 05, 2011

Olga rated it:

Wow, I was astonish and pleasantly surprised with the novel.
As a fan of Kafka’s I couldn’t refrain from comparing it to his writing. And since this is the same genre I loved it.

I’m not really familiar with autism disease but it feels as though the protagonist is unable to accept the reality and transforms it to something close to absurdity. Thus his mentality might be understood as some degree of dementia. Though my first reaction was “another personality lost in cruel bureaucr More...

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