Nabokov's Invitation to Plato's Beheading

NOJ / НОЖ: Nabokov Online Journal, Vol. I / 2007
The case in point is Invitation to a Beheading, a short novel which, in spite of
Nabokov’s avowed disdain for “literature of ideas” and Plato, is laced with Platonic
references and what Vladimir E. Alexandrov once called “Nabokov’s ‘Neoplatonic’
beliefs” (88). It recounts the last days of Cincinnatus C., an extraordinary man sentenced
to death for some unmentionable crime that scandalized an entire town. Confined in a
shadowy prison, Cincinnatus spends his last days in contemplation of a better world and
the afterlife that nonetheless constantly escape his imaginative efforts. Whether the theme
of the novel was influenced by the subject of Plato’s works becomes too tempting to
ignore. The atmosphere of the novel, for example, immediately evokes Plato’s famous
Allegory of the Cave, a vision of everyday reality as a shadowy realm whose inhabitants
are barely aware of the artificiality of their existence. Only few of them dream of the
other, perfectly original world, let alone actually reach it. Those who do escape, if only in
their imagination, become persecuted upon their return by their fellow cavemen who do
not share their awareness of what is real. 2 Nabokov’s Cincinnatus finds himself in the
same predicament. Cincinnatus’ experiences apparently echo those of Socrates, the
philosopher whose trial, imprisonment and subsequent execution are depicted in Plato’s
in Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, a philosophical interplay of a doomed man’s hopes and
fears. Many other Platonic references in the novel are equally suggestive. Pierre,
Cincinnatus’ executioner, repeatedly demands sympathy from Cincinnatus, which recalls
Socrates’ sympathy for his own executioner (Phaedo, 117a-b). Cincinnatus’ unexpected
meeting with Cecilia, his mysterious mother who arrives to reveal the mysteries of his
birth, corresponds with Socrates’ dream of “a beautiful, graceful woman” who tells him
2 Plato’s Republic, Book VIII (514b-517e).