Vladimir Nabokov
Invitation to a beheading
This books is about the last few days of a man, Cincinnatus, who is condemned to death. He doesn't know when his execution will take place, neither the reason why he was condemned. The incipit of the book is the following:
"In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper. All those, exchanging smiles. The hoary judge put his mouth close th his ear, panted for a moment, made the announcement and slowly moved away, as though un-glueing himself."
The novel evolves with the narration of "the last few days", with flashbacks and nightmares of the main character providing some background on the situation. For example we know that Cincinnatus' wife was cheating on him, but we don't know precisely what he has done to get to jail (neither does he).
Another interesting fact in the plot is the fact that at some point another prisoner (inmate) is brought into the cell, and he tries to be nice to Cincinnatus. Later on we discover that this person is the executioner of the sentence to death who, according to the law, should get to know better his victim.
All of the characters are quite surrealistic, something in between the ones in "The master and Marguerite" and the ones in Kafka's novels.
"It was then that Cincinnatus stopped and, looking around him as if he had just entered this stony solitude, summoned up all his will, evoked the full extent of his life. and endeavoured to comprehend his situation with the utmost exactitude. Accused of the most terrible of crimes, gnostical turpitude, so rare and so unutterable that it was necessary to use circumlocutions like 'impenetrability', 'opacity', 'occlusion'; sentenced for that crime to death by beheading; imprisoned in the fortress in expectation of the unknown but near an inexorable date (which he distinctly anticipated as the wrenching, yanking and crunch of a monstrous tooth , his whole body being the inflamed gum, and his headthat tooth); standing now in the prison corridor with a sinking heart--still alive, still unpimpaired, still Cincinnatic--Cincinnatus C. felt a fierce longing for freedom, the most ordinary, physical, physically feasible kind of freedom, and instantly he imagined, with such sensuous clarity as though ti all was a fluctuating corona emanating from him [...]." (pg. 61)
"He went on, batting his eyelashes: 'I need not to explain how precious to the success of our common undertaking is that the atmosphere of warm camaraderie which, with the help of patience and kindness, is gradually created between the sentenced and the executor of the sentence. It is difficult or even impossible to recall without a shudder the barbarity of long-gone days, when these two, not knowing each other at all, strangers to each other, but bound together by the implacable law, met face to face only at the last instant before the sacrament itself.'" (pg. 148)
"'Just an instant more. I find it ludicrous and disgraceful that my hands should tremble so--but I can neither stop nor hide it, and, yes, they tremble and that's all.[...] I feel only one thing--fear, fear, shameful, futile fear...' Actually Cincinnatus did not say all this; he was silently changing his shoes. The vein on his forehead was swollen, the bold locks fell on it, his shirt had a wide-opened embroidered collar, which impairted a certain extraordinary youthful quality to his neck and to his flushed face with its blond quivering moustache.
'Let's go!' shrieked M'sieur Pierre.
Cincinnatus, trying not to brush against anyone or anything, placing his feet as if he were walking on bare, sloping ice, finally made his way out of the cell, which in fact was no longer there." (pg. 181)
The book maybe is a little too sophisticated for my English, using a rich and varied vocabulary. Apart from this, the book is a good "inviation to a behading", in the sense that it gives to the reader the feeling of being part of something which is going on, without having a clear point of view, moving between reality and nonsense, nightmare and imagination. The book is excellentin stimulating a reflection on the way we usually perceive capital punishment, in particular the "clean and neat picture" of it that our society is giving of the procedure.
