Book Review | Chess

Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna in 1881. He studied in Austria, France and Germany. He attracted attention with his anti-war personality. He lived in Salzburg between 1919-1934. He was forced to leave Salzburg due to Nazi oppression. He published his first poems in 1901. He is famous for his many essays, stories and long stories, as well as his biographies that he wrote with great skill. His intense interest in psychology and Freud’s teachings is expressed in Zweig’s deep character studies. His comments and biographies, especially on historical characters, are extremely rich in terms of psychological analysis. Unable to endure the political situation that Europe fell into, Zweig committed suicide with his wife in Brazil in 1942.

Subject of the Book

The story takes place on a sea ferry traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. A group of passengers invite the fictional chess champion Mirko Czentovic to a party. The champion wins the first game, as expected. In the middle of the losing rematch, another passenger named Dr. B. joins the game and saves a draw. Thereupon, a match is organized between Czentovic and Dr. B. Before the match begins, Dr. B. tells the storyteller in the book how he learned chess. While he was locked up in solitary confinement in a hotel room by the Gestapo for months, he managed to steal the chess book from the pocket of his coat hanging on the wall of the room where he was held before an interrogation. He starts playing the recorded games in the book in his own head without a chessboard. Chess saved the life of Dr. B, who was about to go crazy from boredom in the cell. However, after learning all the games in the book, which he calls dead points, by heart, he falls back into the state he was in before stealing the book, worn out from boredom in the cell. Thereupon, he invents new games in his head and starts playing games against himself in a schizophrenic manner until he has a nervous breakdown. He is finally released from prison. The first match against the chess champion on the ship ends with Czentovic’s defeat. Thanks to the competence gained from playing thousands of games with himself in his mind, Dr. B is able to calculate the games Czentovic will play in advance and makes very fast moves. During the second match, Czentovic starts to play slowly when he notices that his opponent is getting restless, and the game is cut short when Dr. B has another attack.