Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
3rd T-LitCon: Discursive Terminals: Representations of the Apocalypse in Literature, İstanbul, Türkiye, 20 - 21 Aralık 2025, ss.38-39, (Özet Bildiri)
Similar to post-apocalyptic literature only in the sense that Forges its
foundation mainly on destruction and melancholy, Vladimir Nabokov depicts the
same tragic atmosphere in the presence of what he calls ‘common people’ in
Invitation to a Beheading (2011a/1935). In other
words, the dystopian world in the story is not limited to gruesome outcomes of
human deeds; the apocalyptic world of the protagonist, Cincinnatus, is, in
fact, the result of the negligence of what Nabokov calls ‘Aesthetic Bliss,’ the
nature of which embodies four fundamental themes: common sense’s perception of
reality and otherworldly conceptions of imagination, knowledge, and
timelessness. Whereas many researches try to correlate these themes to Nabokov’s
perception of metaphysics, the presentation argues that these themes in Invitation
to a Beheading appear in the form of what this study calls ‘otherworldly existential
crisis.’ It is to be explained in this presentation that the depiction of this
type of crisis emerges in the form of rejection of specific worldly virtues,
which bear more political connotations despite Nabokov’s claim that he tried to
keep his art distinct from political significations. It is worth noting that the
illumination of the above stated themes in this work is not explicitly
manifested, however, it is important to point to the fact that understanding
Nabokov’s latter works, especially Lolita and Pale Fire, requires
redirecting the attention of readers to the primary texts of the writer in
which the raw seeds of otherworldly themes emerge. The analysis of the themes
in Invitation to a Beheading gains more significance when one also
identifies the fact that the development of not only these themes, but also the
main characters in other works of Nabokov have their roots in this work. As a
result, the analysis of the present study brings into attention the very nature
of the dichotomy of otherworldliness and worldliness, which finds its most
sophisticated artistic expressions in the works following Invitation to a
Beheading.