The Royal Game (or ... Chess Poisoning)

I was recently in a book shop in London, when I came across Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig. Considering the purchase of this novel, it dawned on me that the author looked familiar and, upon further investigation I realised that he had also written The Royal Game.

Some time ago, in his weekly column, Silman recommended that if you are only going to read one chess fiction it should be The Royal Game (or words to that effect***). I subsequently purchased the novella and it was sitting on a shelf at home waiting to be read.

Returning home from London, I put it in my bag and waited for the opportunity for a read. That opportunity came along today. What a brilliant read it is!

Has anyone else read the The Royal Game or Beware of Pity? What did you think of them?

*** What Silman actually said was:

"THE ROYAL GAME (a Novella, the original German title was: Schachnovelle) by Stefan Zweig (1942) - A man who is imprisoned and put into isolation is driven to the edge of mental/emotional collapse. The only thing that allows him to avoid total madness is a small chess book he steals that is filled with master games.

I loved this story when I read it in my teens, and I still love it today. In 1960, this tale was turned into an excellent (German) movie titled, BRAINWASHED directed by Gerd Oswald (starring Curt Jurgens & Claire Bloom). You’re not a real chess player if you haven’t read THE ROYAL GAME. Rest assured that after reading it, you’ll instantly gain 300 rating points (or, at the very least, you'll insist you're 300 points stronger than your published rating), and beautiful women will find you irresistible."

sounds like a good read, I will check my library.  Tx

I read The Royal Game; I also have a copy of an audio dramatisation that BBC3 Radio did a few years back.  The story made an enormous impression on me; I find myself thinking of elements from it frequently.  The protagonist, a prisoner desparate for anything to occupy his mind, is initially repusled to discover that the book he's purloined is a collection of chess games, then teaches himself to read the notation, then teaches himself to play in his head, and eventually finds himself driven nearly to madness by it, while unintentionally becoming a brilliant chess player in the process.  That's a potentially facinating plot right there, and Zweig absolutely makes it so, IMO.

Hi Heather. It seems that his other works are equally as good:

"Like many Zweig admirers I first encountered this Austro-Hungarian author (1881-1942) through his novel “Beware of Pity”. His work was out of print in Britain, but I was lent a tatty American paperback by John Gielgud, whose partner was Hungarian and mad about Zweig. An unremittingly tense parable about emotional blackmail, this is a book, like Ford Madox Ford’s “The Good Soldier”, which turns every reader into a fanatic. (As I write, the friend of a friend is rationing himself to a page a day because he can’t bear to reach the end.) The fan club has some high-profile members, including the authors Flora Fraser and Antony Beevor, the actor Colin Firth and the singer Neil Tennant. Firth says he experienced “the thrill of feeling you have this forgotten masterpiece in your hand that no one else has discovered. I was riveted by it—the way the strange pathology of the story takes the lid off what might just look like romantic love.”

http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/stefan-zweig-secret-superstar

The rest of the article is well worth a read.

PS How did you come to discover Zweig?

The Royal Game is okay. Paolo Maurensig's The Luneburg Variation is similar in many ways. The persecution/revenge/madness theme is present in both novels.

I just finished reading The Luneburg Variation.  Absolutely facinating.  The idea of playing chess for people's lives against one's will is fairly unique, I think.  BBC Radio 3 did an adaptation of that one, as well.  They also did a play about the Polgar girls ("The Chess Girls") that wasn't bad, as I recall. 

Is it wrong that when I read the Wikipedia plot summary, I imagined that Dr. B stood for Dr. Bieber? The ridiculous image of Justin Bieber playing chess is quite comical; I think I prefer his songs, which are underrated in my opinion.

Aside from that little remark, I wonder if this is actually possible. Although B would never get bored again...

Afraid I didn't like either of them overly much.