Hard to measure the effectiveness of a book. People bought it and read it. Occasionally, someone will deploy it in an argument. It occasionally comes up in forums here.
Because it deals with IQ, it seems as though it might be what the poster was thinking about when they mentioned The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel doesn’t seem to fit what was put forth.
The OP is right: everyone has a limit, everything is genetic. No matter how much you try, success is not guaranteed. Since free will does not exist in nature, it is impossible to change the past, the present, or the future because everything is already written. But it's not just genetics; it's also about equal opportunities. Some kids have good parents who hire great chess coaches for them. I wasn't that lucky. I reached 2150 by being self-taught, but it was at 28 years old—meaning, very old. For these reasons, all capitalist discourses on meritocracy are easy to refute. Meritocracy is impossible because no one is truly free—everything is determined by the determinism of the universe.
Imagine that the entire universe originated from the Big Bang. Your atoms, your molecules, are expanding like a bomb that exploded 13 billion years ago. We are the consequence of that initial explosion of the universe, so if we cannot change the fate of the bomb, we cannot change ours either.
Yes difficult to improve consistently over time, once you hit the dreaded "barrier". But I say it is possible to make significant jumps over the short term, with some kind of lifestyle change such as giving up smoking and getting lots of fresh air, engage in other physical activities instead of sitting in front of your TV or computer. Sports psychology for chess is an idea that I have considered.
I could use myself as an example, but my OTB tournament days and my internet days are separate. I have a return after 20 years to a major open tournament later this year. My OTB ELO is barely over 1800, but I predict 200-300 improvement based on casual results. Plus I feel stronger. I'll bookmark this discussion then
You are right. Magnus Carlsen was born with a 2800+ rating.
He had rapid improvement - which I explained in my post if you read it.
I'm asking for an example where it's SLOW and steady improvement over a long period of time
I started at 600 in 2018, and am now 1900+