This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.
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.… (more)
i know this probably makes me ignorant but i didn't like this. this started alright-ish for me but it pretty quickly got strange, which is very much not my thing. then it just got kind of unbearable honestly. i like what i think was happening with the idea of being up for execution (as a result of being convicted of a capital crime) but not having any idea of when it would come being something that could drive someone crazy. but it got bizarre so fast, and after maybe 50 pages i really really couldn't have cared less about any of it. i ended up skimming this, at best. i'm not even sure i can honestly claim to have truly read this; i disliked it so much. so that said, the beginning was readable and the very end was as well. so it could have been worse but this really wasn't for me.
an example of the writing that i didn't like: "It was plain that he was upset by the loss of that precious object. It was plain. The loss of the object upset him. The object was precious. He was upset by the loss of the object." ( )
it is forgivable that a book is merely empty; that its most powerful passage recounts the synopsis of a far superior nonexistent novel is unpardonable.
This is a beautifully written metaphor for existential fear of death, but I became impatient with the main character, whom I found whiny. If I were rating for style I'd rate higher, but I'm rating for enjoyment. ( )
Comme un fou se croit Dieu, nous nous croyons mortels. - Delaland: Discours sur les ombres
Dedication
To Véra
First words
In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper.
Quotations
Information from the Italian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Così ci stiamo avvicinando alla fine. Il lato destro, la parte non ancora gustata del romanzo, che durante la deliziosa lettura tastavamo con delicatezza, verificandone in modo meccanico la consistenza (e le nostre dita erano sempre allietate dal placido, rassicurante spessore), improvvisamente, senza ragione alcuna, è diventato smilzo, qualche minuto di rapida lettura e già eccoci a valle...
Last words
A spinning wind was picking up and whirling: dust, rags, chips of painted wood, bits of gilded plaster, pasteboard bricks, posters; an arid gloom fleeted; and amidst the dust, and the falling things, and the flapping scenery, Cincinnatus made his way in that direction where, to judge by the voices, stood beings akin to him.
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.
)
)
)
Google Books — Loading...
(3.9)
Wikipedia in English (1)
12
an example of the writing that i didn't like: "It was plain that he was upset by the loss of that precious object. It was plain. The loss of the object upset him. The object was precious. He was upset by the loss of the object." (