Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 22, 1899, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, into a family of intellectuals. The turbulent times surrounding the Russian Revolution forced the Nabokovs into exile in 1919, and they lived in various European cities before eventually settling in the United States in 1940. Nabokov’s multilingual upbringing and cosmopolitan experiences infused his works with a rich linguistic range and a profound sense of displacement. Nabokov’s early literary career in Europe was marked by novels written in Russian, such as The Defense (1929) and Despair (1936). However, his transition to English as his primary literary language occurred after his emigration to the United States, where he produced some of his most celebrated works, including Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962). This linguistic metamorphosis underscored Nabokov’s adaptability and linguistic virtuosity.

Nabokov’s literary influences were drawn from a number of the most prominent figures in Russian literary history, particularly Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat.” These Russian authors laid the groundwork for Nabokov’s exploration of the absurd and the existential in Il Principe, a novel written in Russian and published in 1930, which served as a precursor to Invitation to a Beheading. Il Principe (Italian for The Prince) revolves around the protagonist, Ganin, and his romantic obsession with a woman named Clara. The novel, imbued with themes of nostalgia, loss, and the ephemeral nature of existence, displays Nabokov’s fascination with the human psyche and the enigmatic nature of reality. The surreal narrative and psychological depth of Il Principe set the stage for Nabokov’s later experiments with narrative structure and existential themes in Invitation to a Beheading.

Published in 1936, Invitation to a Beheading (original Russian title: Приглашение на казнь) encapsulates Nabokov’s literary inventiveness and his ability to push the boundaries of conventional storytelling. The novel unfolds in a nameless, oppressive totalitarian state, where the protagonist, Cincinnatus C., faces an impending execution for a crime that remains unspecified. The narrative defies linear storytelling, creating a dreamscape that blurs the lines between reality and imagination. Cincinnatus’s existential struggle encapsulates the futility of life alongside the inevitability of death, and the surreal and absurd nature of the narrative mirrors the existential angst prevalent in European literature of the time, with echoes of Franz Kafka’s The Trial and Albert Camus’s The Stranger. However, Nabokov infuses his own unique style into the narrative, employing intricate wordplay, metafictional elements, and a keen sense of irony.

Nabokov’s narrative experimentation in Invitation to a Beheading, characterized by its nonlinear structure and dreamlike sequences, paved the way for the narrative innovations of later writers. Postmodern authors, such as Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, embraced unconventional narrative structures. The protagonist’s awareness of being a character in a novel foreshadowed the rise of metafiction. Writers like John Barth and Salman Rushdie embraced the self-aware narrator and blurred the boundaries between fiction and reality, acknowledging the constructed nature of storytelling.