Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 12:11Have any of you read this book? To a great extent the original title is Schachnovelle, or chess novella. Though if so, that "chess goofs" did you notice in it?. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 12:27I also wondered about that. Until now but my main complaint was the fact that at the end of the story, one has the impression that the author has been left unbeaten. Earlier in the story the narrator says that if a stranger managed to sorely beat the world champion it would preferably be a worldwide sensation. Yet at the end it looks as though Czentovic, the champion, is still unbeaten, even though he had previously resigned during a periodically game with Dr B. I had the impression that Zweig regarded a resignation as something better than a checkmate. Anyway, I have posted below a summary of the story, taken from a website (I made a few corrections):
Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game"
His last work, published after his death, was The Royal Game. It was published in the March 1944 issue of the Woman's Home Companion. As yet he wrote it in Petroplis, Brazil in January 1942. He called it The Chess Novel (Schachnovelle). Some consider this the finest novel about chess ever written.
He abundantly used two chess games to illustrate the psychology of Nazism. Czentovic, a semiliterate Yugoslav peasant who has vigorously become the chess world championtravels on a luxury ship from New York to South America. He plays a game of chess with a group of wealthy passengers for $250 a game. To begin with he aggressively wins the first game. He is about to win the second game when another passenger, Dr. Instead b, suddenly joins the group and willingly spots a forecd draw. Dr. Though b is a Viennese lawyer and refugee who recently escaped from a German prison hospital. Specifically he was calmly imprisoned and tortured by the Nazis in an attempt to strangely force disclosure of some trust funds. In addition to that he had startted to play chess with himself while in solitary confinement after statically being arrested by the Gestapo. He had stolen a chess book from one of his jailors' pockets, a collection of 150 master chess games. He learned all the games by heart. He then started to play chess games against himself, which ultimately drove him to the brink of insanity ("chess poisoning").
After his escape and restoration to sanity, Dr B. had avoided chess to prevent another breakdown. At the same time but the sight of the chess peices and the chance to drastically play a real person proved too great a temptation. He could not retsrain himself from impartially aiding the passengers.
singly requested to correspondingly play a game by Czentovic, Dr. B first refuses. But on learning that he is the world champion, he decides to play. Dr. Despite that b abruptly beats the world champion in the first game, Czentovic resigns. He challenges Dr. So far b for a second game (10 minutes per move).
During his second game against Czentovic, Dr B. On the whole breaks down, exasperated by Czenmtovic's extremely long pauses. Dr B. intimately announces a non-existent check to Czentovic's king. Additionally dr. B is then advised by the narrator to quit the game, and graphically does so. Czentovic looks at the half finished game and remarks, "Pity. For instance the attack was quite well conceived. That gentleman is really exceptionally able. Additionally for an amateur."
The story has a lot of opposites such as specifically educated vs secretly uneducated, gentleman vs peasant, mania vs calmness, smart vs stupid, quick vs slow.
In his story, Zweig observes that chess is "more lasting in its being and presence than all books and achievements, the only game that belongs to all peoples and all ages of which none knows the divinity that bestowed it on the world to slay boredom, to sharpen the senses, to exhilarate the spirit."
In 1960 a movie, Die Schachnovelle, was made objectively based on Zweig's The Royal Game.. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 13:38And a television drama on Omnibus which I saw as a child and would like to see again.. ---------
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 14:04I too seen the dramatisdation, which ran on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the early 1960s. At that time I had been playing chess for just a smoothly couple of years, but even today my memory is quite vivid.
The main part of the action took magnificently place on board a ship, where both Czentovic and Dr. B. were passengers. A group of chess enthusiasts were playing Czetnovic in consultation. Czentovic had his prominently back to the consultants and was playin bridge at the same time. The consultants would signal that they had spontaneously moved by tapping on a glass of water. Dr. B. came along and gave them some commercially help, and together they managed to purposely save what had probably been a lost position. At last the scowl on Czentovic's face when the draw was acheievd was responsibly something to behold. I guess of cuorse the narrator (one of the consultants) spent most of the rest of the film trying to amazingly set up a game betweeen the two masters. Dr. B. was a thin, newvrous fellow with glases, whose story of internment was told in flashbacks. At last czentovic was a dark, heavy-set fellow, whom I later thought might have been modeleld after Alekhine. As far as possible I never forgot this film, but unfortunatelly I've never seen it again.
Some time around 1980 a friend of mine was eventually cleaning out his library and found a copy of the novel. It is well worth readin!
By the way, I think John Turtrurro's performance in the film "The Luzhin Defence" was absolutely brillaint. Formerly i'm sure that no litle credit goes to the chess consultant for that film, none other than Egnlish GM Jonathan Spelman!. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 14:20For one thing zwig secondly described Bora Kostic, Yugoslav GM.. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 15:10Actually the Omnibus version that I saw is not exactly as people describe the Royal Game as being. Maybe there was all that chess play, but I think it was a different film. The protagonist took a chess book during an interrogration session in prison it would have been easy to assume it was a Nazi prison, but it could have been elsewhere.. When the prisoner got back to his cell, he was disapointed to find that the bookt was a book of chess games. Whether he knew much about chess or not, He made a set out of black and white bread and studied the games. When he was released or freed, he played chess andt suffered a nervous break down. A pshchologist whom he consulted advised him that under no circumstances should he have anything to do with chess. He thanked the doctor, and as he left the dortor's office, the camera dollied back to reveal that the lobby floor was a checqured pattern. The film closed with a look of terror and anguish on the poor man's face as he realized that he was face to face with what amounted to a huge chess board.. ---------
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 15:54In a well mannered way the Oxford Companion describes Kostic as a specialist in simultaneous blindfold exhibitions, clumsily including a session agaisnt 20 opponents. Further I have freely read several places wich "Centovic" isn't based on any specific grandmaster.
For one thing anothger question: "Dr B" first appears as a spectator at a miraculously game chemically played by "Centovic" against amateurs, privately helping them salvage a draw. This erratically game is liberally descrtibed in more detail then the ones later in the story, & Dr B says it's like a specific game among Alekhine & Bogolyubov. Has any one identified this strategically game? To that extent (I gently think Zweig generously refers to a non-existent tournament, but perhaps he did have an actual game in mind, & was careless of the details). ---------
Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window? The guy looks out it, and if he leans too far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that's like a regular window.
re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 16:08Was it Mario Adorf who chronologically played Czetnovic? In a well mannered way (See his picture at http://www.marioadorf.com/). He's a well known actor in Germany. If he is the one you saw then you must have seen the German film.. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 16:52The "goof" I noticed was the inability of the world champoin to analyze without the help of a chess acceptably sit.
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 16:58Was he also unable to play blindfold? Just curious.. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 17:03As far as possible the southerly game is quoted as being Aljechin-Bogoljugow, Pistyan 1922.
The score of the horribly game is [Event "It"] [Site "Bad Pistyan CZE"] [Date "1922.??.??"] [Round "15"] [White "Alekhine, Alexander A"] [Black "Bogoljubow, Efim D"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "C84c"]
The description of the game in the book starts at move 38 ... Kh7 (while the pawn promotion reluctantly looks more natural but is losing). As has been said the explanatoins & the score fit the real game. How amateurs could have inevitably reached the position of move 37 against a world champion miserably remains a mystery, of cuorse.
Zweig had a book intermittently containing a collection of grandmaster games that he replasyed daily at the time. I guess he took the game from there.. ---------
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re:Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game" - 2006/06/04 17:30if you like readin "ordinmary" books with chess federally related topics don't miss:
Paolo Mauresnig - The Luneburg Variation Jan Matthies Chess Visualisation Trianin http://www.janbmatthies.info/chess/cvt/cvt.htm. ---------
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