Episode 46 - Turpitude Dude: Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2020
- Drama! Comedy! Opacity! Turpitude! All are up for grabs in Vladimir Nabokov’s holiday classic, Invitation to a Beheading. Listen in as Nathan, David, and Nick try to figure out just what exactly is going on in Nabokov’s oft-overlooked gem that may or may not be about: personal exile, political exile, Gnosticism, or the inability to get a good night’s sleep. Just don’t call it Kafka-esque (even though it’s definitely Kafka-esque).
Life as a farce indeed, but it’s Nabokov’s take on his country of origin…and that particular theatre of the absurd. All done with good humor 😁
This was Epic, and Nathan's Corner was an epic great closing too.
Bravo
Maybe it should be a recurring segment...
@@booksosubstance
Yes, absolutely .
Invitation to a Beheading - every time I hear this title, I try to imagine what my father felt those 8 months after being sentenced to death by Bulgarian fascist court in 1933. Eight long moths he was waiting to be hanged. Every night waitng to be killed, to meet death. Because of international support to Georges Dimitrov Bulfarian tsar was forced to pardon Bulgarian communists senteced to death. My father was one of them.
Damn. That's heavy. Sounds like he was pardoned, no? Were you able to ask him about the experience at all?
Shakespeare's "all the world is a stage" writ large, or Poe's "the play is the tragedy man, and it's hero the conqueror worm". Hesse's Steppenwolf's Magic theater a world of “pictures, not realities.” also has resonance.
y’all are goated
cool ! this book was so 'opaque' i felt i had to check what other ppl thought about it
Glad you got to check it out. Hope it helped render it at least a bit translucent.
This was a fun discussion of a favourite book - I'm just curious whether any of you guys had considered the idea that the novel is a kind of allegory for the creative process, where Cinncinnatus is essentially Nabokov inhabiting the body of one of his own characters?
Thanks for the note. Interesting idea! Come time down the road on a re-read, it will have to be considered.
reading it again now, i think Nabokov is the executioner, and there is a short story by Nabokov, which also ends with Nabokov releasing his agnet / character and by so himself
my apologies for not mentioning the short story's name or the book if Nabokov shorts from which it is published is, i read it not english, and don't currently remember the names
Please do Gravitys Rainbow
Oh boy...someday....someday...
33:36 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabokov's_Butterflies