Stefan Zweig's novel of chess and madness

Stefan Zweig’s “Schachnovelle” (translated into English as “Chess Story,” “Chess Novel,” or “The Royal Game”) is his last and perhaps most famous work.  He wrote it between 1941 and 1942 while in Brazilian exile from the Nazis.  Born in Vienna in 1881, he is often considered one of the most important of the fin de siècle Viennese literary voices. With the arrival of the Nazis into Austria in March 1938, however, Zweig and his wife had to flee and ended up settling in Brazil.  Shortly after writing “Schachnovelle,” Zweig, who was suffering from depression, and his wife both took their lives.  Reflecting both his personal life and the times in which he lived, “Schachnovelle” is more than a story about chess, rather it is a meditation on rationality itself—how logic can both preserve the mind and destroy it.

There are three main characters in the novella: an unnamed narrator, the fictional reigning world chess champion of the time, Mirko Czentovic, and a third character identified as Dr. B.  They are aboard a ship sailing from New York to Buenos Aires.  Discovering from a fellow passenger that Czentovic is aboard, the narrator begins his story.  He explains how Czentovic was taken in by priest after becoming an orphan.  Showing no particular aptitude for anything, Czentovic seemed destined to remain an ordinary worker.  But by chance, Czentovic is exposed to chess and within a short time has beaten everyone in his village.  Fans of “The Queens Gambit” will be familiar with this scenario.  Czentovic wins the world chess championship by the time he is twenty.  His style is cold and calculating, but extremely logical and precise.  He now spends his time playing chess around the world, demanding a considerable fee in order to play.  A Scottish businessman, hearing Czentovic is on board, insists on playing him and agrees to pay the honorarium. 

The narrator is able to arrange a match between Czentovic and a group of amateurs including the businessman.  The amateurs are preparing to make a fatal blunder when an unknown passenger calls out to them: “For God’s sake, don’t play that.”  This turns out to be Dr. B.  Following his advice, they manage to force a draw in the game with Czentovic who becomes interested in the mysterious adviser.  A second game is arranged for the following day. 

The narrator seeks out Dr. B. in order to learn the story of this remarkable player.  Dr. B. had worked as a highly confidential accountant of several monasteries in Austria.  When the Nazis came to power, in Austria in 1938, they arrested Dr. B. to find out where the monastery wealth was hidden.  He was confined to a room in the Hotel Metropole, a building which the Gestapo used as its headquarters in Vienna.  (The building was bombed during World War II and no longer exists.)  His room is not unpleasant although there are no books and only a view of a brick wall.  His only activity is being interrogated by the Gestapo and these are brutal and unrelenting.  Gradually Dr. B. begins to go mad.  At a critical moment in the story, though, he is able to steal a book from the coat of a German officer while awaiting interrogation. He is initially disappointed to discover the book is an analysis of 150 famous chess games.  Not having been interested in chess previously, Dr. B. at first does not even understand the algebraic notation used to show the moves.  But slowly he learns and starts playing out the games in his head.  At one point, he fashions a crude board and pieces, always fearful that his pastime might be discovered.   The book and playing through the games appear to save Dr. B.  Even his interrogators begin to notice that he is able to respond to the trick questions they present him.  But over time, Dr. B. has played the games so many times and now understands each position so thoroughly that he loses interest.  Desperate for any sort of outlet, he now begins to play against himself as two players: “Me – white” and “Me – black.”  His games become sharper and sharper and eventually a kind of severe schizophrenia sets in.  Appearing now to be completely mad, he is sent by the Gestapo to a hospital for evaluation.  A doctor who knows his family arranges for him to be released on grounds of insanity.  The Gestapo agrees on condition that Dr. B. leave Europe.  The doctor warns Dr. B. not to resume playing chess as it could cause a reemergence of his schizophrenia. 

During their match, Czentovic, sensing his opponent’s impatience, intentionally draws out his responses to each move.   Despite increasing agitation, Dr. B. is able to defeat Czentovic, but the signs of Dr. B.’s previous mentality instability had become ever more pronounced as the game progressed.  Czentovic offers a second game, which Dr. B. immediately accepts despite the narrator’s warning.  During this second game, Dr. B. appears to lose his sanity altogether and at point claims to have checked his opponent’s king when in fact he had not.  Pulling himself together and now listening to the narrator’s advice, he concedes the game and vows never to play again.  Thus, the story ends.

“Schachnovelle” is a study of logic and madness.  Czentovic and Dr. B. are in a sense polar opposites, yet they spring from the same source.  In Czentovic’s case, chess saves him from a life of mediocrity.  He is the true idiot savant, the man who can only do one thing but does it so well that he is the best in the world at it.  Chess does not affect his personality, for he has none other than using chess to earn money.  Dr. B. comes to chess in desperation.  Subjected to psychological torture by the Nazis, chess becomes an escape from the brutality of his interrogations and the existential boredom imposed by his life inside of the hotel room.  In a larger sense, the Nazis are also a character in “Schachnovelle.”  As chess applies logic to win a game, the Nazis apply a certain logic to force outcomes they are seeking.  If they apply brutality and allow no other human outlets, they reason, they will compel Dr. B. to reveal the hiding place of the wealth they are seeking.   In the final analysis, rationality itself comes into focus as a tool permitting both excellence in chess but also powering the totalitarian regime of the Nazis.   Zweig seems to be warning us against rationality devoid of contact with human experience. 

Seen from the perspective of Zweig’s own life, the ship may be taken as a symbol of his personal exile.  The story takes place in a timeless “in between” and perhaps represents the loss of direction Zweig sensed was occurring within European culture as the Nazis ascended to power.  His pessimism is best expressed by the fate of Dr. B.: chess both saved his life but also led him to the brink of madness.  In the end, his only option is to concede and withdraw.  Chess in “Schachnovelle” is not an endorsement of intellectual mastery, nor a warning to chess players, but a metaphor for a civilization that confronted barbarism—and discovered too late that reason alone could not save it.