{"product_id":"2026770001858-secondhand-invitation-to-a-beheading","title":"Invitation To A Beheading","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good                          \u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing         ,          price clipped\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: No markings\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA masterwork of literary surrealism and political allegory, Invitation to a Beheading chronicles the final days of Cincinnatus C., a man condemned to death in a grotesque, totalitarian society for the crime of being opaque — of possessing an inner life his transparent fellow citizens cannot penetrate. Nabokov constructs a dreamlike prison world of absurdist bureaucracy, theatrical cruelty, and darkly comic pageantry, where jailers perform kindness and executioners offer friendship in a suffocating charade of civility. Written in Russian in 1935 and later translated into English by Nabokov and his son Dmitri, the novel argues with fierce poetic intensity that the authentic self is the ultimate act of rebellion against a world that demands conformity and performance. The prose is luminous and defiant, oscillating between nightmare and farce as Cincinnatus clings to his imagination and his art as the only true freedoms available to him. A precursor in spirit to Kafka and a companion piece to Nabokov's own Bend Sinister, this is a profound and haunting meditation on consciousness, tyranny, and the indestructibility of the individual soul.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48839388102875,"sku":"2026770001858-SECONDHAND","price":30.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/ede1bbb3-4e74-4080-b540-7c69330e8747.png?v=1780561349","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026770001858-secondhand-invitation-to-a-beheading","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}