The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
Thursday, 03, Sep 2009 11:25
Reissued by Penguin Books, paperback, 243 pages, £9.99.
In a nutshell…
Life is a game of chess
What’s it all about?
Ever since she was a little girl, emotionally neglected under an authoritarian regime in an orphanage, chess has been a form of spiritual rapture for Beth, a form of escapism from the realities of her life and her addiction to tranquilisers (and later her alcoholism). The book follows her progress from prodigy to adulthood, her career and emotional development.
Who’s it by?
Walter Tevis (1928-1984), the American writer perhaps most famous for his novels The Hustler and The Man Who Fell to Earth, both of which have been adapted for film. The Queen’s Gambit was originally released in 1983.
This Penguin edition includes an introduction by Lionel Shriver, the acclaimed journalist and novelist, who won the Orange prize in 2005 for We Need to Talk About Kevin.
As an example…
“She did not open her eyes even to see the time remaining on her clock or to look across the table at Borgov or to see the enormous crowd who had come to the auditorium to watch her play. She let all that go from her mind and allowed herself only the chessboard of her imagination with its intricate deadlock. It did not really matter who was playing the black pieces or whether the material board sat in Moscow or New York or in the basement of an orphanage; this eidetic image was her proper domain.” – page 240
Here is the full article.
Nice book. Would make a nice movie.
The hero of The Queen’s Gambit is Beth Harmon, a Kentucky girl whose parents were killed in a car crash when she was eight. Beth is shipped to an orphanage in another town, where she quickly becomes addicted to the tranquilizers the children are forced to take daily. She befriends Jolene, a tough-talking older orphan who initially tries to molest Beth. She learns chess from Mr. Shaibel, the taciturn janitor who plays by himself in the orphanage basement. This alone is probably enough for a novel, but it’s just the first 40 pages of The Queen’s Gambit. Beth’s experiences at the orphanage merely pave the way for the story of her lightning-fast ascendancy to the top of the chess world.
Beth begins her professional career in earnest after she’s adopted by Mrs. Wheatley, an emotionally distant alcoholic from Lexington. Beth rises to the top of the Kentucky chess scene — that’s right, Kentucky chess scene–and soon finds herself on a quest to be a grandmaster, which is hampered by the fact that she herself has become addicted to alcohol.
This book might not have worked if it weren’t for the sensitive, moving and emotionally honest way Tevis treats Beth Harmon. She’s a strikingly original character in a book with a slight tendency toward archetypes (the street-smart black orphan; the mysterious janitor; the troubled, middle-aged Southern belle). Beth is pensive, painfully shy, and unaccountably smart. The alienation of the intelligent was also a prominent theme in Tevis’ The Man Who Fell to Earth, and like that novel’s T. J. Newton, Beth is nearly brought down by drugs, alcohol and inadvisable sex. Tevis himself struggled with alcoholism and social alienation in the years before he wrote The Queen’s Gambit; it was obviously a theme close to his heart. Not too many novels take on substance abuse and win; it’s a notoriously hard thing to write about. Tevis succeeds admirably in this regard because he never loses sight of the humanity of the addict. Not many writers since have replicated this kind of sensitivity.
Then there’s the chess. Much of the suspense in The Queen’s Gambit comes from the tournaments Beth enters; the reader gets caught up in Beth’s goal to be the best in the world. It’s difficult to describe chess games to people who don’t play, and it’s even harder to keep their interest. Again, Tevis succeeds on the strength of his prose alone. Sentences like “He played pawn to king four, and she replied with the Sicilian” may mean nothing to you–they sure as hell mean nothing to me–but Tevis is a master of translating as he goes along, making sure no reader is left behind. It’s a lot like what he did for billiards in The Hustler; the strength of the narrative carries the reader through what could otherwise be impenetrable descriptions of chess arcana.
William E. Ellis quotes Tevis describing himself as a “good American writer of the second rank.” It’s a harsh, though somewhat apt, description. Tevis was never as accomplished as Steinbeck or Nabokov, though his career suggests he never really wanted to be. He’s not a grandmaster of American literature. He’s simply a great storyteller, and The Queen’s Gambit is simply a fascinating, immensely entertaining book. We’re lucky to have it back in print.
Susan it seems the european assizes are beginning to realize their time is runnin out, so i believe they will resort to distractions, so plez be careful all the real chessplayassss! hahaha.
Molestation, abuse, neglect, and scandal are the pieces set on this sad chess board of life.
The real tragedy of this story is it is not far-off from the true stories of chess heroes and prodigies. Their lives began tragically and sometimes end up the same as they began. Poor, alone, afraid, and forgotten.
Sad.