Chess in Fiction - A Partial History of Lost Causes
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012Hi everyone,
We found this interesting review of a new chess novel - A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer DuBois. It is about the journey of two characters - a world chess champion living in St. Petersburg, Russia, and an English lecturer in Cambridge, Mass., who discovers a connection between her late father and the Russian prodigy-turned-politician. In this excerpt, Aleksandr Bezetov is newly-arrived in Leningrad in 1979, and meeting with a pair of dissidents—Nikolai and Ivan—who will help shape his future.
Don't miss the chess dialogue.
“Alcohol isn’t good for my game,” said Aleksandr. He was starting to be sorry he’d come. “It makes me fuzzy. It dulls my memory. Chess is all memory. Memory and imagination.”
“Memory and imagination are both technically illegal,” said Ivan. “Do you want us to order you a beer, then?”
***
“Because, to tell you the truth, you don’t seem like the sharpest individual,” said Ivan.
“No,” said Nikolai. “He doesn’t.”
“I know you’re a brilliant chess mind,” said Ivan. “This is what the newspapers tell me. And I believe what the newspapers tell me, always.”
“Always,” said Nikolai.
“But you can be good at one thing and not so good at other things,” said Ivan.
“Or you can be good at one thing and not so good at any other thing,” said Nikolai.
Read more here.
Labels: a partial history of lost causes, chess in fiction, chess novel, jennifer dubois
Fantastic new chess novel on the horizon - Los Voraces 2019
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011Hi everyone,
What makes a beautiful chess morning? Surely, some chess news from the literary world. This nice article in the Boston Globe set us for a chess mood this Monday. Harold Dondis and Patrick Wolff have written a nice review. Here it is:
Agatha Christie awake and return! You have a rival in the chess world, one Andrew Soltis, a premier columnist for Chess Life for many years, a NY Post chess columnist and author of many chess texts, and an accomplished tournament player. He has written a book, “Los Voraces 2019’’ (McFarland) or shall we say a chess satire wrapped in an engaging mystery that competes with the very best of whodunits.
“Los Voraces’’ concerns a tournament heavily endowed in the will of a deceased wealthy businessman that provides abundant and irresistible appearance fees and prizes for the greatest Grandmasters, who then play in the 2800 rated range. Los Voraces is a tiny town somewhere in New Mexico virtually cut off from civilization. The tycoon’s will provides funding that will attract the world’s greatest Grandmasters. The tournament must be private. It is held annually to host a collection of dedicated, in some cases narcissistic and omnipotent, achievers, including the world champion Grushevsky. They come from various nations and engulf this small town. The narrator receives excellent pay as arbiter of the tournament, and apparently as caretaker of the sometimes childish, venomous, and unmannered group of geniuses.
The arbiter manages pretty well until, prior to the commencement of the tourney, the Grandmaster Attila Gabor from Hungary falls to the floor with a fatal heart attack. The unpopular Gabor was not going to be missed by his contemporaries, and his death swelled the prize fund. No problem there, except the narrator seemed to find that odd pills had been substituted for Gabor’s heart medicine. The atmosphere turns acrid, as a groupie finds a coral snake in her purse and goes on to heaven. Then a Dutch Grandmaster expires as he seals a move for adjournment. The arbiter, nevertheless, keeps control of his flock, who are given to such eccentricities as agreeing to a draw the night before and then shaking hands at the tournament without making a move - a no-move draw.
The narrator not only reports on the progress of the tournament but also includes the chess games, including a draw in which eight queens appear on the board. It is best for the reader to postpone review of the games until finished with the narration, or else the mystery will take longer to read than “War and Peace.’’ Soltis’s descriptions of the players, their habits, their machinations, and the chess world are salted with wry prose, anecdotes, proverbs, and excellent quotes that make this a remarkable satire. He cites former world champion Tigran Petrosian as stating that every chess position has a weakness, even if it is imperceptible. Who can quarrel with that?
As for who killed these innocent people - no, we will not tell.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com
Labels: andrew soltis, chess fiction, chess literature, chess news, chess novel
Chess and fiction - Fischer-Spassky 1972-match in two thrillers!
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011
Hello everyone,
A new novel by Iceland’s most popular crime author, Arnaldur Indridason, hit the Icelandic market last week. Entitled Einvígid (“The Duel”), it features the historic match between chess grandmasters Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, representing USA and Russia, in Reykjavík in 1972, at the height of the Cold War.
Considering the time in which the story is set, the book is not part of the Detective Erlendur Series. Rather, Erlendur’s mentor, Detective Marion Briem, who is given the task of investigating the assault of a teenage boy in the cinema, is in the spotlight.
By coincidence, another popular crime author, Óttar M. Nordfjörd, who is described as the “crown prince” of Icelandic suspense literature while Indridason is “the king”, will also release a book inspired by the chess duel before the upcoming Christmas book sale season (a phenomenon known asjólabókaflód in Icelandic).
“It’s ridiculous, I sort of didn’t believe it at first,” Nordfjörd commented. His book is called Lygarinn: Sönn saga (“The Liar: True Story”), although he had also considered Einvígid.
As for the competition with Indridason, Nordfjörd added: “To have a book on the same topic as this selling machine is a little nuts. It will definitely be the most interesting Christmas book sale season I’ve participated in.”
“It’s a question whether Arnaldur and I should play a game of chess. I challenge him!” Nordfjörd concluded.
While Indridason’s books have appeared on the English-language market, none of Nordfjörd’s books have been released in English.
According to a press release from Vaka-Helgafell, Einvígid’s publisher in Iceland, The Guardian recently compiled a list of the best contemporary European crime authors and Indridason was included. His books have sold in millions of copies around the world. This is his 15th novel.
In other literature news, Icelandic author Gyrdir Elíasson is this year’s recipient of the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Click here to read more about that story.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
Also see her personal blog at
Labels: chess and fiction, chess novel
A novel of chess, suspense and thoughtful insights
Chess News and Chess Trivia Blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010
 Hi Everyone,
We recently found this very interesting novel - Chess Story by Austrian master Stefan Zweig. Also, titled 'The Royal Game,' the manuscript was mailed to American publishers by the author only a few days before he committed suicide in Brazilian exile in 1942.
The story goes that travellers on a ship on its way from New York to Buenos Aires find the world chess champion among them. The champion comes across as an arrogant person who does not wish to make friends. Of course he agrees to play chess with fellow travellers.
Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise the group pitted against the champion and a twist happens in the story. How this stranger 'advisor' came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story.
The book has been translated in English also and covers plenty of thoughtful insights and suspense. Check it out this week.
This novella was the inspiration of the 1960 Gerd Oswald film Brainwashed, originally titled Die Schachnovelle, as well as for the 1980 Czechoslovakian film 'The Royal Game'.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's Also see her personal blog at
Labels: chess novel
Chess novel: The Eight
Hello Everyone,
The Eight by Katherine Neville is an intriguing novel even after more than 20 years of its publication. The Eight was published in 1988 and got a cult following.
The Eight is the story of the quest for a fabulous, gold-and-silver, bejewelled chess set that once belonged to Charlemagne. It has been buried for a thousand years. At the dawn of the French Revolution, when soldiers are looting the abbeys and monasteries, the set is dug up from an abbey in the Pyrenees and scattered around the world. This begins a 200-year-long chase across the globe– from the 1790s of the Revolution to the 1970s of the OPEC embargo — with 64 characters, (32 historic and 32 modern) all seeking the pieces in a giant chess game that forms the plot.
The Eight was an instant bestseller in 12 languages (Now in more than forty languages), has received numerous awards, and in a national poll of the noted Spanish journal, El Pais, it was voted one of the top ten books of all time!
The novel has two main stories. The chess set called 'The Monglane Service' hides the secret of ultimate power. The first story is set in 1790s, when a French nun Mireille, along with her cousin Valentine, is implicated in the political happenings of the time, including the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, while being on a mission to scatter the many pieces of the chess set to prevent them from being found and assembled. It is not soon before tragedy strikes and a number of prominent historical figures, including Robespierre, Napoleon and Katherine the Great make an appearance.
The second story is set in the 1970s, when a computer expert Catherine Velis is sent to Algeria on what appears to be a job assignment. Soon enough, Catherine is approached by a number of mysterious characters and is unwillingly caught up in another deadly adventure.
What is endearing is that at the very core of the novel there is chess!
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's Also see her personal blog at Labels: chess novel
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