Vladimir Nabokov

As the judge whispers the death sentence to Cincinnatus, a torturous period of waiting begins

Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

Michael Scammell

Luzhin's prodigious talent at chess earns him the title of grandmaster, but his passion soon leads to obsession, and his world falls apart during a championship match when his defense fades under his opponent's surprising strategy.

A Novel

The Defense

Amna A.

A story of an ill fated chess genius. This quote by Oscar Levant pretty much sums it up: 

"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

weli 

Adrian minckley

Giorgio

baikalsturgeon

Melih 

Donovan Metz

Brian Duffy

Alex 

James Miller

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude," an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws, who lug their furniture with them into his cell. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed, he simply wills his executioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the whole world they inhabit.

Invitation to a Beheading

Reviews