false 2 0 false false Wed May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed May 07 18:32:17 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 05:12:27 -0700 2008
There was a lot of promise at the beginning of the story - the 18th-century in Europe was a fascinating period, the idea of an automaton was a strong one, murder mysteries and hoaxes are great fun - but at some point the characters managed to lose some of their realism. The problem with writing historical fiction is that in order to be realistic, the characters based on true characters need to be realistic. Hard enough to know exactly how a baron of the 18th-century may act or talk, but it's harder even to not slip into basic and unoriginal personas. The protagonist is an Italian dwarf, a chess master; at first he seemed to be the most promising character. But then at some point he seemed to turn into a vehicle for the author to use in a series of sexual encounters, many of which became gratuitous after the first encounter which established the fact that he was Catholic and proud of it and he felt himself turning into a sinner.

I wanted to like the whole thing, and while the author created a charming friendship between the dwarf and one of the engineers of the Turk, a Jew, I had hoped the rest of the story and plot would have been less predictable. I loved the European setting and the cameo appearances of real royalty, etc. throughout the story; but ultimately I found myself wondering why Lohr decided to make it a piece of fiction. I probably would have found my interest satisfied more had he written a nonfiction book about the Turk and von Kemepelen. According to the author's notes at the end of the book there are at least two pieces of nonfiction about this same thing written in 2000 and 2002 which I would like to someday get around to reading. For the time being, however, Lohr's book left me high and dry and sort of grumpy. Maybe it's just my general sour mood of the moment, or maybe I just had such high expectations of The Chess Machine that I actually wound up disappointed. It actually was just okay. Nothing more, nothing less.

There seems to be a large population that genuinely enjoyed this book, so obviously it found its place in many hearts. Obviously not mine. I, sadly, was underwhelmed.]]>