Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Not a writer that was known to me and I've forgotten how it got onto my TBR list.
The
narrator is aboard a passenger ship heading to Buenos Aires when he
realises a Chess Champion and child prodigy, Mirko Czentovic, is as
well. He organises amateur games with the aim of drawing the champion
out of his detachment, and with the aid of a fee paid by a chess loving
traveling businessman, he succeeds in doing so. As the passenger lose
game after game , another man, Dr B, lends them some advice. This
changes their game. This man's back story explains his incarceration by
the Gestapo in WW2 and why he now no longer plays himself and why now he
is persuaded to take on the champion.
You do not have to understand
chess in great detail to enjoy this novel as it is the nature of the
game and the psychological aspects of gameplay that are critical as Dr
B's madness boils up until he has to withdraw from the game.
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