Stefan Zweig

Chess story

But even thoughts, insubstantial as they seem, need a footing, or they begin to spin, to run in frenzied circles; they can’t bear nothingness either. 

He would cast a single, seemingly cursory glance at the board before each move, looking past us as indifferently as if we ourselves were lifeless wooden pieces.

aywen

For suddenly I had something to do—something meaningless, something without purpose, you may say, but still something that nullified the nullity surrounding me; I possessed in these one hundred fifty tournament games a marvelous weapon against the oppressive monotony of my environs and my existence.

'... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, and does it without going mad!' A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of obsession and the price of genius.

Chess

ella

People and events don't disappoint us, our models of reality do. It is my model of reality that determines my happiness or disappointments.

Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig’s final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological. Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig’s story. This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work’s unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.

Chess Story

Sven Schmidt

Sarah Christine Gill

charis

my ex if he ever met magnus carlsen on a boat 

rory

It was my first from this author, haven’t played chess before, but from this book it seems like a great game

Jeffery Tay

jannah

My first Zweig book and needless to say this was brilliant. Chess and Nazis. A character’s descend into madness. Concise and unforgettable. 

A Novel

Charlize

4.5 

what could go wrong if you put two monomaniacs together and excite their very own monomania?

a lot i’d say!

i couldn’t tell if one is more extreme than the other as the latter wasn’t too fleshed out—and perhaps intentionally so.

gripping from start to end; not a single dull moment within the 80+ pages. in fact, the tension was exponentially thicker near the end, you could cut it with a knife! while you don’t have to be well-versed in chess to understand the story, it helps a bit if you’re familiar with its philosophy.

everything clicked. i don’t know how else to say it. the psychological warfare nazis used against their captives? it makes perfect sense for mr. b’s obsession with the royal game. 

if you don’t mind, i’ll go ahead and blunder my queen now.

at no point was i sure why this was taking me where it was and that’s a wonderful feeling to be handed by a novel this short and unembellished 😊 love when things justify and maximize their length. love when obsession is necessitated by a need for salvation. love when so much happens within so little. 

Maria

“But even thoughts, as non substantial as they seem, need something to hang on to, otherwise they begin to spin and circle around themselves senselessly–even they cannot bear nothingness.”

for only 100 pages, this is such a packed story, i find it so hard to summarise. it's about two people, one of them a rather simple, but renowned world chess champion, and the other, an unnoticeable man, who, although hasn't touched a chess board in more than 25 years, seems to be capable to pose a challenge for our champion. but as the story goes on, it unfolds to reveal that, really, it's about the power of the mind and the despair it can unleash. zweig uses chess here as a tool to look at nazism - apparently the only one of his works that delves into the topic - through a psychological lens. it's a lot to pack into so few pages, and yet the last 20 or so pages become a chilling mind game, so masterfully done. a solid 4.5, and i will have to sit with it for a while.

last book of the 2023. a gift from my grandma. wasn’t planning on reading anymore this year but i ended up slurping this book up in one sitting. a very enjoyable read

Natalie

Gripping, and full of timeless insights on the psychology of fanaticism. Couldn't put this one down.

"I have always been interested in any kind of monomaniac obsessed by a single idea, for the more a man restricts himself the closer he is, conversely, to infinity; characters like this, apparently remote from reality, are like termites using their own material to build a remarkable and unique small-scall version of the world."

Deepika Ramesh

My 6th book for #24in48readathon. Loved every word of this book. A gem. Such a rare gem. I will definitely re-read it.

iamazoo

3.5 stars, rounded up because the story is so good.

charisa

4.5 rounded up. 

"All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world." 

this was really so good. short, yet powerful with countless threads for further thought. zweig's portrayal of nihilistic madness in parallel with the rationality of chess made for an intriguing contrast. there are two kinds of insanity presented here: a consuming, singular obsession, and the over-analysis of the self. at a certain level, both are grounds for great creativity and fecundity, but also deadly when extended far past human capacity. so where is that line?

Wynter

A novella about a man's descend into obsession due to extreme isolation and stress. In a way it reminded me of Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.

"In 1938, Nazism forced Zweig into exile. Chess Story, sometimes known as The Royal Game, was the last thing he wrote before he and his wife committed suicide. This novella is a final effort to take the human measure of the inhuman. On a great ocean liner, the world champion of chess confronts a lawyer with a surprising talent for the game in a tense contest of wit and will. How the lawyer acquired his skill and at what terrible cost are the substance of a story, in which, at the same time, quietly but unmistakably, the death knell of the Enlightenment is sounded."--BOOK JACKET.

Gayathri Jinesh

Fiction.
Chess is merely a character, it isn't a story about chess.

There is Czentovic, there is Mr. B and then there is Chess. Chess did something to Czentovic. Chess made him the man he is. Chess also did something to Mr. B. Probably saved his life by almost killing him.
A story about two people with entirely different personalities, both of whom had their life massively altered by chess; playing a game against each other on a cruise.

Intriguing characters and excellent storytelling.

Hellboy TCR

സൂക്ഷ്മമായ കഥാപാത്രനിർമ്മിതിയുടെ മകുടോദാഹരണമാണ് ഒരു പക്ഷെ Stefan Zweig-ന്റെ ഏറ്റവും പ്രശസ്തമായ നോവെല്ല, “Chess Story” (The Royal Game). സെന്റോവിക് എന്ന ചെസ്സ് ചാമ്പ്യനെ, കഥ പറയുന്നയാൾ ഒരു കപ്പലിൽ വച്ച് കാണുകയാണ്. തന്റെ, ചെസ്സിലൊഴികെ മറ്റെല്ലാ കാര്യങ്ങളിലുമുള്ള അജ്ഞത മറയ്ക്കാൻ - അയാൾക്ക്‌ ലോകത്തൊരു ഭാഷയിലും ഒരു വരി പോലും എഴുതാനറിയില്ല എന്ന് കഥ പറയുന്നയാളുടെ സുഹൃത്ത് - അന്തർമുഖനായി നടിയ്ക്കുന്ന ഒരുത്തനാണയാൾ. ചെസ്സിൽ തന്നെ തന്റെ അസാധാരണമായ നിരീക്ഷണ പാടവമാണ് അയാളുടെ വിജയ രഹസ്യം. ചെസ്സിനെക്കുറിച്ചു സംസാരിയ്ക്കാൻ പറഞ്ഞാൽ അയാൾ ബുദ്ധിമുട്ടുകയും ചെയ്യും. അയാളെപ്പറ്റി പഠിയ്ക്കാൻ കഥ പറയുന്നയാൾ തീരുമാനിയ്ക്കുകയാണ് (All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world). എന്നാൽ അതെളുപ്പമല്ല. കുറേ ആലോചിച്ചു അവർ കണ്ടെത്തുന്ന വഴി, ചാമ്പ്യൻ കാൺകെ ചെസ്സ് കളിയ്ക്കുക എന്നതാണ്. ആളുകളുടെ ശ്രദ്ധ അവരുടെ കളിയിലേയ്ക്ക് തിരിയുന്നു, സ്വാഭാവികമായും സെന്റോവിക്കും അവിടെയെത്തിച്ചേരുന്നു. ആഖ്യാതാവിന്റെ സുഹൃത്ത് ഒരു കോടീശ്വരനാണ്, അയാൾ പണമെത്രയും ചിലവാക്കാൻ തയ്യാറാണ്. സെന്റോവിക്കിനു താല്പര്യമുള്ള കാര്യവും പണമാണ്. അങ്ങനെ ചാമ്പ്യൻ അവരുമായും മറ്റുള്ളവരുമായും കളിയ്ക്കുന്നു. അയാൾ തന്നെയാണ് ജയിയ്ക്കുന്നത്. എന്നാൽ അവർ വീണ്ടും കളിയ്ക്കുമ്പോൾ അസാധാരണമായ ഒരു കാര്യം സംഭവിയ്ക്കുന്നു. കളി കണ്ടുകൊണ്ട് നിന്ന ഒരാൾ ചാമ്പ്യന്റെ നീക്കങ്ങൾ ബോർഡ് നോക്കി പ്രവചിയ്ക്കുന്നു. അയാളുടെ നിർദ്ദേശപ്രകാരം കളിയ്ക്കുന്ന കഥാകാരനും സുഹൃത്തും ചാമ്പ്യനെ തോൽപ്പിയ്ക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നു. ഇതോടെ സെന്റോവിക്കും ആഗതനും(ബി എന്ന് ചുരുക്കിയാണ് അയാളുടെ പേര് പറയുന്നത്) കളിയ്ക്കാനൊരുങ്ങുകയാണ്. ആഖ്യാതാവിന്റെ ചോദ്യങ്ങൾക്കു മറുപടിയായി ബി തന്റെ കഥ പറയുന്നു.

പല സമ്പന്നകുടുംബങ്ങളുടെയും സാമ്പത്തിക ഇടപാടുകൾ കൈകാര്യം ചെയ്തിരുന്ന ഒരു സ്ഥാപനം നടത്തുകയായിരുന്നു ബി, ഹിറ്റ്ലറുടെ കാലത്ത്. ഹിറ്റ്ലറുടെ രഹസ്യപൊലീസ് അയാളെയും തിരഞ്ഞെത്തുന്നു. തുടർന്ന് ഒരു ഹോട്ടൽമുറിയിൽ, കഠിനമായ ഏകാന്തവാസമാണ് അയാൾക്ക്‌ വിധിയ്ക്കപ്പെടുന്നത് (They did nothing – other than subjecting us to complete nothingness. For, as is well known, nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing. . . . you were hopelessly alone with yourself, with your body, and with these four or five mute objects, table, bed, window, washbasin; you lived like a diver in a diving bell in the black sea of silence). ഒരു സമയത്തും ബി തന്റെ ഇടപാടുകാരെ ഒറ്റു കൊടുക്കുന്നില്ല. എന്തായിരുന്നു അയാളുടെ ജാഗരൂകമായ, ഏകാഗ്രമായ മനശക്തിയുടെ രഹസ്യം? ഒരു ദിവസം ഒരു ഗാർഡിന്റെ കോട്ടിന്റെ കീശയിൽ നിന്ന് അയാളൊരു പുസ്തകം കൈക്കലാക്കുന്നു. അത് ചെസ്സ് കളികളെപ്പറ്റിയുള്ള ഒന്നാണെന്ന് കണ്ട്, ആദ്യം അയാൾ നിരാശനാകുന്നെങ്കിലും, പിന്നെ മനസ്സിനെ ഏകാഗ്രമാക്കാനും, തന്റെ മാനസിക നിലയെ തകർക്കാൻ കെല്പുള്ള ഏകാന്തതയെ പ്രതിരോധിയ്ക്കാനും അയാൾ ചെസ് കളി പഠിയ്ക്കാൻ തീരുമാനിയ്ക്കുന്നു. പക്ഷെ പഠിയ്ക്കുന്നത് എങ്ങനെ? അതിനും അയാൾ വഴി കണ്ടെത്തുന്നു. തന്റെ കിടയ്ക്ക വിരിയിലെ ചിത്രപ്പണിയിലെ കള്ളികൾ ചെസ്സ് ബോർഡ് പോലെ സങ്കൽപ്പിച്ചു, അതിൽ ചെറിയ റൊട്ടിക്കഷണങ്ങൾ കരുക്കൾക്കു പകരം വച്ചാണ് അയാൾ കളി പഠിയ്ക്കുന്നത്. എല്ലാം മനഃപാഠമാക്കി, ഭാവനയിൽ കണ്ടാണ് കളി - രണ്ടു കളിക്കാരായും അയാൾ തന്നെ കളിയ്ക്കുന്നു. അങ്ങനെ വളരെ മുന്നോട്ടുള്ള നീക്കങ്ങൾ പോലും അയാൾക്ക്‌ മനസ്സിൽ കാണാനാകുന്നു. അങ്ങനെയാണ് അയാൾ സെന്റോവിക്കിന്റെ നീക്കങ്ങൾ പ്രവചിയ്ക്കുന്നത് (In fact what is presupposed by this kind of duality of thought is a total division of consciousness, an ability to turn the workings of the brain on or off at will, as though it were a machine; playing chess against oneself is thus as paradoxical as jumping over one’s own shadow). ഇങ്ങനെ അത്യസാധാരണമായ ഒരു പൂർവ്വകഥയാണ് അയാൾക്കുള്ളത്. സെന്റോവിക്കാകട്ടെ, ബാലനായിരിയ്ക്കുമ്പോൾ ഒരു പാതിരിയുടെ സഹായിയായിരുന്നു. പ്രതിഭയുടെ യാതൊരു ലക്ഷണങ്ങളും കാണിയ്ക്കാത്ത ഒരു കുട്ടി. യാദൃച്‌ഛികമായി അയാളുടെ കഴിവ് കണ്ടുപിടിയ്ക്കുന്ന പാതിരി അവനെ ടൂർണ്ണമെന്റുകളിൽ പങ്കെടുപ്പിയ്ക്കുന്നു - അവൻ എല്ലായിടത്തും അജയ്യനായിരുന്നു. ഒരിയ്ക്കൽ ഒരാൾ ഒരു പുതിയ ഓപ്പണിങ് പ്രയോഗിയ്ക്കുമ്പോൾ അവൻ തോൽക്കുന്നു, പക്ഷെ അതും ഹൃദിസ്ഥമാക്കിയ സെന്റോവിക്, അടുത്ത കളിയിൽ അയാളെയും തോൽപ്പിയ്ക്കുന്നു - ഇതാണ് അവന്റെ പഠനരീതി. അവിടെനിന്ന് പെട്ടെന്നാണ് അവൻ ചാമ്പ്യനെന്ന നിലയിൽ വളർന്നത്. ഇങ്ങനെയുള്ള രണ്ടു പ്രതിഭകളുടെ ഏറ്റുമുട്ടലിൽ എന്ത് സംഭവിയ്ക്കുന്നു എന്നതാണ് അസാധാരണമായ ഈ നോവല്ലയിൽ പ്രതിപാദിയ്ക്കപ്പെടുന്നത്. ഈ മത്സരത്തിന്റെ അന്ത്യം ഉജ്ജ്വലമായ വായനാനുഭവമാണ്.

1941-ലാണ് സ്വെയ്ഗ് ഇതെഴുതുന്നത്. തൊട്ടടുത്ത വർഷം അയാൾ ആത്മഹത്യയിൽ അഭയം പ്രാപിയ്ക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു. അഥവാ, തന്റെ പ്രതിഭയുടെ ഉന്നതിയിൽ നിൽക്കുമ്പോൾ - എന്തൊക്കെ തരത്തിലുള്ള ദുരന്തങ്ങളാണ് നാസികൾ വരുത്തിവച്ചിരുന്നത് എന്ന് കാണുക. അത്യസാധാരണ പ്രതിഭയായിരുന്നു സ്വെയ്ഗ്. അയാളെ വായിയ്ക്കുന്നത് അയാളുടെ പ്രതിഭയോട് ചെയ്യാവുന്ന ഏറ്റവും വലിയ നന്ദിപ്രകടനമാണ് എന്നാണെന്റെ പക്ഷം.

Momen Yehya 

-"Suddenly there was something new between the two of them: a dangerous tension, a passionate hatred. They were no longer opponents testing their ability in a spirit of play, but enemies resolved to annihilate each other. Czentovic delayed for a long time before making the first move. It was clear to me that this was intentional"

-"Yet how difficult, how impossible it is to imagine the life of an intellectually active person who reduces the world to a shuttle between black and white, who seeks fulfillment in a mere to-and-fro, forward-and-back of thirty-two pieces, someone for whom a new opening that allows the knight to be advanced instead of the pawn is in itself a great accomplished and a meager little piece of immortality in a corner of a chess book— someone, someone with a brain in his head, who, without going mad, continues over and over for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years to devote all the force of his thought to the ridiculous end of cornering a wooden king on a wooden board"

Chess Story has been described as a metaphor for Europe under the Nazis,Stefan and his wife committed suicide after sixty years of age, he can no longer bear the thought of more years in this dreadful time and this endless war. It is a brilliant work.

Nada Ghanim

"There was nothing here to distract me from my thoughts, my delusions, my morbid recapitulations."

"But no one can describe, assess, demonstrate to himself or anyone else how long a given period lasts in a timeless, spaceless void, and you can’t explain to anyone how it gnaws away at you and destroys you."

"But what a moment it was when I came back to my hell, alone at last, yet not alone any longer!"

"I hadn’t had a book in my hands for four months, and the mere idea of a book where I could see words printed one after another, lines, pages, leaves, a book in which I could pursue new, different, fresh thoughts to divert me, could take them into my brain, had something both intoxicating and stupefying about it. Hypnotized, my eyes stared at the small bulge made by that book inside the pocket, they gazed fierily at that one inconspicuous spot as if to burn a hole in the coat."

"For all at once I had an occupation – a pointless, aimless one if you like, but an occupation that annihilated the void around me."

"What was the point in replaying games again and again when I knew them all by heart, move after move?"

Fraser Simons

On a journey across the sea, numerous passengers petition a champion chess player for a game. But from the initial competition comes a surprise contender who has not played chess for decades, yet is seemingly an equal partner in play. 

While the premise is simple, the execution is absolutely masterful and riveting. Both players are given context in the form of pivotal life events which inform their play so much so that when they play, the reader sees the communication taking place so much so that the game becomes a medium for every fundamental component of the players to clash. 

Perhaps it’s the most character driven story I’ve read, with a simple plot. Yet in another way, when you consider how integral the story of each character makes, and how much that aspect of the plotting shapes the outcomes, it seems more like a perfectly balanced equation. 

If I were to nitpick, I could say that stylistically it does have very weird paragraph structuring that took me a bit to get into. There are walls of text, though mind you, this is a small digest size novella, that reoccur throughout. And I can’t really figure out how they’re formulated. Lots of times it’s a specific thought or interaction or scene. But even the dialogue will go on like that, and it’s formulated such that there’s no interruption to the flow. It’s a monologue is what it is. But when where natural pauses and break points aren’t represented in paragraph formatting. Very strange. 

Everything else though, and especially the specificity and diction during the monologue, are all so rich you just sink right into it. Fantastic voice once it all clicks. 

It made me think a lot about the nature of lived experience and role-play, trauma, how each persons’ mind is truly unique and beautiful in its own way, and our relationship to the media and stories and books we consume.

Pranav Mutatkar

A wild interesting book. A nice intro to Zweig. The pacing sags towards the middle end. But I can see what all the hype is about

I saw this described by another Literal reader as the shortest masterpiece they had ever read and I have to agree. Extraordinary. 

Olivera Mitić

Frederik Van den Bril

Great, touching and exciting little novel about chess (you don't say) and most of all about loneliness and imprisonment. Reminded me a bit of Arthur Koeslter's Darkness at Noon.

Trevor Berrett

Chess Story begins and ends on an ocean liner going from New York to Buenos Aires. The narrator discovers that Mirko Czentovic, the world champion chess master, is on board. Czentovic has an intriguing story. Raised by a priest, he was basically forsaken as a child because he had no visible intelligence. He never learned how to spell or how to interact with people. But he watched the priest play chess and, for some reason, chess stuck. When the priest found this hidden skill he compared Czentovic to “Balaam’s ass!” Lacking most other skills, Czentovic quickly rose to become the best in the world, and with that rank came no little amount of pride. The narrator wants to meet Czentovic to attempt to understand him a little better.

Interestingly, Czentovic is not the book’s true subject, as I was led to believe at first. While the narrator and some other men are together playing against Czentovic, out of obscurity comes Dr. B, who helps the men achieve a draw with the chess master. The men immediately say that he must challenge the world master in a game just between the two of them. As it plays out, Dr. B is a man with an even more interesting story story than Czentovic, but he hasn’t played a proper game of chess in over twenty years. And in telling Dr. B's story, Zweig indicts Nazi Germany.

For my complete review, please visit my blog, The Mookse and the Gripes.

Chess story

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