The story opens with the main character, Cincinattus, receiving his death sentence and then returning to his prison cell. One very important thing that no one tells Cincinattus is when he is scheduled to die. Through a good portion of the novel he is trying to acquire this piece of information while being subjected to absurd, theatrical behavior of those around him such as the prison guard, prison director and a fellow prisoner. Furthermore, they continuously scold him and shoot him dirty looks for being apathetic towards their services.
This novel has a very dream-like element reflecting the absurdity of those around Cincinattus, ultimately a metaphor for society. Everyone knows what is happening, even what day Cincinattus is due to be beheaded, but they don’t let him in on it.
A very powerful scene that shows someone with some kind of understanding of Cinncinatus’s character is when his mother comes to visit him. Although he categorizes her with everyone else, in a world made of “tarbrush time”, she attempts to make sense of him unlike the other characters. Seeing her son in his prison cell she makes an apt connection to a toy from her childhood,
“Well, you would have a crazy mirror like that and whole collection of different nonnons, absolutely absurd objects, shapeless, mottles, pockmarked, knobby things, like some kind of fossils – but the mirror which completely distorted ordinary objects, no you see got real food, that is, when you placed one of these incomprehensible, monstrous objects so that it was reflected in the incomprehensible, monstrous mirrors, a marvelous thing happened… everything was restored, everything was fine, and the shapeless speckledness became in the mirror a wonderful, sensible image” (pg 105).
It is clear that Cinncinatus is one of these “absurd objects” but when put in front of a crazy mirror, he becomes a “sensible image”. His mother recognizes that there is beauty in her son. But she doesn’t see it, nor does she let him know when his execution will take place, so in Cinncinatus’s head she is no better than anyone else.
For such heavy material, this book is read at a quick pace. Things move quickly and everything is dreamlike. At one point, when they are whisking Cinncinatus away to his execution they clear out his cell as if it were a stage. Everything turns out to be a prop, even the little spider that kept Cinncinatus company. At one point, I had to put the book down because I reached a point where the psychological twists and turns were too upsetting. Oddly enough, I have done this with a book before, Lolita, also by Nabakov. No matter how disturbing it can be, it is a worthwhile read. Nabakov successfully takes his readers to another world, unknown to us and makes it completely realistic.
This novel has a very dream-like element reflecting the absurdity of those around Cincinattus, ultimately a metaphor for society. Everyone knows what is happening, even what day Cincinattus is due to be beheaded, but they don’t let him in on it.
A very powerful scene that shows someone with some kind of understanding of Cinncinatus’s character is when his mother comes to visit him. Although he categorizes her with everyone else, in a world made of “tarbrush time”, she attempts to make sense of him unlike the other characters. Seeing her son in his prison cell she makes an apt connection to a toy from her childhood,
“Well, you would have a crazy mirror like that and whole collection of different nonnons, absolutely absurd objects, shapeless, mottles, pockmarked, knobby things, like some kind of fossils – but the mirror which completely distorted ordinary objects, no you see got real food, that is, when you placed one of these incomprehensible, monstrous objects so that it was reflected in the incomprehensible, monstrous mirrors, a marvelous thing happened… everything was restored, everything was fine, and the shapeless speckledness became in the mirror a wonderful, sensible image” (pg 105).
It is clear that Cinncinatus is one of these “absurd objects” but when put in front of a crazy mirror, he becomes a “sensible image”. His mother recognizes that there is beauty in her son. But she doesn’t see it, nor does she let him know when his execution will take place, so in Cinncinatus’s head she is no better than anyone else.
For such heavy material, this book is read at a quick pace. Things move quickly and everything is dreamlike. At one point, when they are whisking Cinncinatus away to his execution they clear out his cell as if it were a stage. Everything turns out to be a prop, even the little spider that kept Cinncinatus company. At one point, I had to put the book down because I reached a point where the psychological twists and turns were too upsetting. Oddly enough, I have done this with a book before, Lolita, also by Nabakov. No matter how disturbing it can be, it is a worthwhile read. Nabakov successfully takes his readers to another world, unknown to us and makes it completely realistic.
No comments:
Post a Comment