Review
"Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically." -- John Updike
The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Anti-utopian novel by Vladimir Nabokov, published serially in Russian as Priglasheniye na kazn from 1935 to 1936 and in book form in 1938. Set in a mythical totalitarian country, the novel presents the thoughts of Cincinnatus, a former teacher who has been convicted of "gnostic turpitude" for being different from his mediocre fellow countrymen. Sentenced to be executed at an unknown date, Cincinnatus sits in his prison cell and records in his diary his private thoughts and intuitions about an ideal world that he considers to be his "true" home. He sees the world around him as delusional and himself as the only "real" person in the universe. As the ax falls and he is executed, he, or his spirit, rises toward other beings like himself.
