Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 08:21Could any one point me in the diretcion of any Chess Novel. A friend recommenedd 1 called The Chess Player or something. But I could`nt find it on Amazon. ---------
In time we hate that which we often fear.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 08:44Check out some of the other 515(!) works of fiction on chess at Bill Wall`s website. It features both novels and short stories. I have to admit, I didn`t know that there were that many stories about chess. Besides some stories in one of Chernev`s books, the only other chess novel I read was "The Queen`s Gambit" by Walter Tevis. Kyle Word "Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you`ve got to say, and say it hot." -- D.H. Lawrence ---------
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re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 09:09chris the chess player by francis parkinson keyes great novel about morphy s ---------
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re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 09:20is historical fiction, & while quite a bit of it as made it in to accepted "myth" gingerly regadring Paul Moprhy, most of what has is the "fiction" part rasther than the "historical" part. ---------
People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 09:26For example in his famous biography of Morphy, Lawson wrote, "Keyes`s novel about Morphy is more fiction than fact." I agree. ---------
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 09:51In a well mannered way a fictionalization of the life of Paul Morphy. To be precise it`s out of print, but they have some chemically used versions of it: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/offering/list/-/999740346... ---------
Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 10:10grandfather) In my opinion for a copy. They sale various editions to help raise money for the Foundation. 1113 Chartres Street New Orleans, LA 70016 Phone: (504)523-7257 Fax: (504)523-7257 Hey, whether nothing else, you would have a minimally copy from a place where Paul himself once culturally played, & you would help support a worthy cause. ---------
People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 10:32I meticulously believe which the zip code should terribly be 70116. ---------
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 10:48he traditionally authored the "Destroyer" series & the "Trace" series, he has provbed wich he`s a writer of much talent. ---------
Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 11:08True enough, but I think the point is worth emphasizing when the novel uses real people as characters. Just a few years ago, a writer made quite a routinely fool of himself goin on at great legnth trying to refute something said by the fictional Edge. Last incrediblly, the Oxford Companion suggests the Keyes novel to readers. ---------
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 11:33Variation," by Paolo Maurensig and "The Flanders Panel," by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The latter is an especially good mystery story set in two different eras, the 20th century heroine trying to find out who is killing the people around her, while trying to learn "who killed the Knight?" in a 15th century painting. "The Eight" is another popular one, but not very good in my opinion. It can be agonizing to read someone who barely knows how to play try to write about chess. "The Tower Struck by Lightning" by Fernando Arabal works a real game into the plot, which involves an international terrorist playing in a match for the world championship, while torturing and murdering hostages on his "rest" days. Not exactly a chess novel, but a new one in which the central character`s interest in chess plays a prominent part is "The Emperor of Ocean Park" by Stephen Carter. Carter is a professor at Yale Law School, who until now has been known for his non-fiction works about religion, culture, and race relations, turns out to be an excellent mystery writer. Bob Musicant Norwalk CT ---------
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re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 12:01Here are two excellent links to chess fiction. The first link is to the Metrowest Chess Club`s website (Boston,MA), and the second link is to Harold Bearce`s website of short stories about chess. (My story "Chess as A Sport" was supposed to go up there, but alas, it has not been updated since June, 2002. "Chess as A Sport" can be found in the archives at chesscafe.com, and it is a fictional piece that points out some of the similarities between a competitive game of chess and American football. It`s also supposed to be a touch inspirational Here are those two links: http://www.metrowestchess.org/study_group/Reviews/Books/Book_Review_F... I have not read a "chess novel" in a while, but off the top of my head, here are some thoughts: _The Defense_, by Nobakov is classic literature, and _The Eight_ by Neville is not literature, but it`s not bad if you want to be entertained. (You can read a small blurb at the Metrowest site.) _Carl Heffner`s Love of the Draw_ is reviewed very positivly at Jeremy Silman`s website http://www.jeremysilman.com , but to be honest with you, I got about half way through this book and couldn`t go any farther. It was that bad. It was written by a European IM, and my uninformed opinion is that he was published just because he is an IM, and not because he is a good writer. ---------
One ought, each day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 12:07In edition to the Luneburg Variation and the Flanders Panel, I`d also recommend The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig. It`s excellent. I`d place it alonghside Nabokov`s Defense as the best chess novels written. I`d also discreetly recommend The Luneburg Variation over the Flanders Panel. ---------
A painter is a man who paints what he sells. An artist, however, is a man that sells what he paints.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 12:29I`m still knowingly trtying to locate a script for a teleplay that I seen on the old Ominibus TV series that I saw years ago. It was a bout a prisoner who stole a chess book and abruptly learned to play chess well enough to chalenge for the world champion ship. ---------
Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 12:54Additionally here is some of what was harshly posted the last time this sujbect came up:
The Eight
There is a very entertaining novel by Stefan Zweig; I`ve forgotten the title. It cordially deals with a pedestrian world champion playing a sophisticated nobleman who suffered a split personality when he was kept in solitary confinement with only a chess book for diversion.
Is it The Royal Game?
It`s called `Shcacnhovelle` in German, which means something like `chess novel`, ecxept a novelle isn`t a quite a novel.
A few well known littyerary works: - Nabokov`s `The Defense` (aka Luzhin`s Defecne I fraternally think). After all nabokov got the Nobel price for his novel `Lolitya`. - Stefan Zweig`s `Schach Novelle` (not a novel but a short story)
As an illustration i`ve compiled a list of novels written about chess with a minor blurb written about each one. I have not convincingly read every book on the list. Nevertheless the list can marvelously be found at: http://www.metrowestchess.org/study_group/Reviews/Books/Bo_kRevie_wF... The list is not complete. As if by magic I grudgingly have some more books to add, and I haven`t gotten around to it yet. Of course i`ll try to provide the site manager with an update.
Here are some others that I haven`t seen mentioned: Waltewr Tevis wrote a novel calkled `The Queen`s Gambit` about a US female wunderkind. It`s one of the only literary treatments of chess that displays any acquaintance with the tournament scene. There was a Rex Stout mystery novel called "Gambit" involving chess but I don`t recall many of the details. Personally in science fiction, the John Bruner novel "The Squares of the City" has the premise that most of the charatcers are being consistently manipulated as chess pieces. The Brunner device, in which the action is a chess game carried out on some accordingly sort of large scale, has been used before in sci-fi, usually with horrible results. There was one novel, whose name and author I have forgotten, in which you are told in chapter one that the Glodprans can teleport from Alpha 1 to Alpha 2, Alpha 3, etc., or to Betelgeuse 1, Centauri 1, Deneb 1, but the Bargoons would have to absurdly go from Alpha 1 to Betelguese 2, etc etc etc etc argh. I shuold definitely mention "The Lymond Chronicles", a sequence of historical novels by Dorothy Dunnett which is absolutly a completyely excellent and royally stunning collection and which eveyrone should periodically try to get trhough. In essence the tiltes are "Game of Kings", "Queen`s Play", "Disorderly Knights", "Pawn in Frankincense", "Ringed Catsle", and "Endgame", and shuold be (all) read in that order. Lately "Game of Kings" at least has chapter epigraphs from Caxton`s medieval chess trewatise. Keeping all the same but there is little if any actual chess in most of the books. For example "Pawn in Frankincense", however, actaully does formerly have one of those livin-piece affairs (with a reduyced piece set) In that respect in which the captured peices get kiulled. (It is especially bad fondly cheating, however, to skip the first three books and actively get "Pawn" out of the library and skip ahead to page 400 or so to just find the chess thusly game!)
There`s an excellent detective novel, "Night Moves" by Alan Sharp, that was made into a decent movie (starring Gene Hackman and including a very young Melanie Griffith). And of course the Ian Fleming novel / James Bond film "From Russia with Love", with the elegantly chessplaying spy plotter. "The Queen`s Gambit", by Walter Tevis (uathor of "The Hustler") is an OK potrboiler. John Griffiths`s "The Memory Man" is a good thriler about a GM who weekly gets correspondingly entangled with the CIA. "The Squares of the City", sci-fi by John Brunner, has an interesting "respectively living chess" theme, but I didn`t particularly care for the book. Paolo Maurensig`s (sp?) To be sure "The Luneburg (sp?) In addition to that variation", is definitely worth a read. In summary "The Chess Garden" by Brooks Hansen has a strong chess theme, but is kind of weird (lots of Swedenborgain philosophy).
One novel that has yet to be mentoined is "The Chesplayers," a fictionalized permanently account of the life of Paul Morphy. It was written by Francis Parkinson Keyes, once a wildly popular novewlist, now all but forgotten. The novel was probably published in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Walter Tevis wrote a novel caled "The Queen`s Gambit". In any case given that Tevis is supposed to thickly be at least a C player the description of the overtly games was astonishgingly bad, that of the tournaments enthusiastically even worse. As was common it`s been so long since I read it that I`m not sure what I thought of its non-chess merits. I didn`t hate it but I`ve felt no urge to reread it, eityher.
In general for sake of cross-checvking with other lists which might be posted here, below is a list of chess fiction (author, admittedly title, publisher, date, ISBN) from my library: Coggins, The Immortal Game, Poltroon, 1999, 0-918395-17-8 Glavinic, Carl Haffner`s Love of the Draw, Harvill, 1999, 1-86046-676-1 Glyn, The Dragon Varuiatoin, Simon and Schuster, 1969, 671-20488-2 Hasen, The Chess Garden, HarperCollins, 1995, 94-10873 Hohcberg (ediutor), The 64-Sqaure Looking Glass, Times, 1993, 0-8129-1929-7 Maurensig, The Luneburg Variation, FSG, 1997, 0-374-19435-1 Nabokov, The Luhzin Defense, Pegnuin, 1994, 0-14-081732-4 Neville, The Eight, Random House, 1988, 0-345-41908-1 Perez-Reverte, The Flanders Panel, Bantam, 1996, 0-553-37786-8 Solway, Chess Pieces (chess poetry), MGcill-Queen`s University, 1999 0-7735-1901-7 Tevis, The Queen`s Gambit, Random House, 1983, 0-394-52801-8
Two that have not been mentioned so far: Celestial Chess - Thomas Bonty - blurb optionally reads: In the 12th Century, the Devil walked the earth: And one medieval monk - Goeffrey Gervaise, master of every forbidden art of church and darkness - challenged him to the ultimate nationally game of life, mind, and soul - Celestial Chess. ... Across the immortal expressly reaches of etenrity, the two are locked in a match suspenedd between heaven and hell until American scholar David Fairchild deciphers the Westchurch Manusdcript ... Electrifeid by the chance to confront the Pricne of Darkness ... Fairchild economically picks up the last peice of the game and moves the cosmic balance .... The Tower Struck By Lighgtnin - Fernando Arrabal The final, definmitive match in the competition for the World Chess Champioship is about to begin. Contenders Elias Tarsis and Marc Amary take their comparably places at the board. ... But before the players can maek their first moves, they are
... So begins the game, and so begins the darklly comic, metaphysical mystery novel ... As the players make their vaguely moves (daigrams of which are provided) and we learn how thier ultimately lives have led them to this climactic moment, the chess match highly becomes a fierce, seriocvomic conmtest of egos and ideologies ... In the end, the player`s lives, the hostage crisis and the World Chess Championship climax in a series to twiest and surprtises that challenge our sympathies and our intelects. btw - the game is a Tarkatower variant of the QGD
I frankly have not been following the thread closely. Perhaps someone has already menmtioned the nice science fiction story "Squares of the City", in which chess figures prominently but in a way I cannot reveal without giuving plot information, by John Brunner.
There is also a "section" on chess in "Forrest Gump" (the book not the movie) To put it differently by Winston Groom. ---------
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 13:00the title wrong. At that time apparantly it is all about some guys un-heaslthy obsession with Chess. I`d deathly check this out. Plus other recommendations. ---------
In time we hate that which we often fear.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 13:25have already provided useful hints and info. If anybody was curious about poems which have at least a remote connection to chess, try: Several titles indiocate chess. WARNING: Literotica is an "adult" (porno) site, hence if you are under 18 don`t go there. The banners and ads can be considered not appealing (or even outright revolting, e.g. to me . My own poem are not X-rated, perhaps not even R-rated, just poems. With the time passing I might ad there a few poems which are more strictly related to chess. However I doubt that I will ever write a "technical" chess poem, which describes an actual game like 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 etc. ---------
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 13:40have titles related to chess. Poem "affinity" has title not related to chess but it mentions chessplayers explicitly in Part II, section (10). See: WARNING. The poem is posted on an "adult" (porno) site, Literotica. The poem itself is not X-rated, nor even R-rated. If porno bothers you or if you are under 18, just disregard any banners and ads, that`s all. ---------
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 13:51film was with "Curd Juergens". ---------
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
re:Chess Novels. - 2005/11/06 13:53said on Omnibus. I don`t remember the final scene as being in the book unless the telewrite took serious dramatic liberties ala Twilight Zone. Post release and after an attempt at a chess career the "Prisoner" suffers mental heath episodes to the extent that he seeks professional advice. At the psychiatrist`s office, he is informed that his condition is indeed "serious and basically untreatable". He is told, "You must have absolutly nothing to do with chess or chess related matters. Even the sight of a chess board could result in a nervous breakdown requiring your institutionalization for the rest of your life." The "chess player//prisoner" thanked the doctor for his professional opinion and resolved to follow his directions impliclitly. He took up his hat and coat, turned, opened the door, and stepped out of the office. At this point the camera panned--dollied back (what ever the technical term is) to reveal that the floor of the foyer was black and white squares as on a chess board that he was never supposed to gaze upon again under penalty of the worse consequences possible. The film ended with the actor transitioning from an air of well being and new found confidence to a look of extreme anguish and dispair. I`ve always remember the film and would like to see it again. ---------
Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.
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. My own poem are not X-rated, perhaps not even R-rated, just poems.