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Chess Story

Stefan Zweig,

Peter Gay (Introduction)

Joel Rotenberg (Translator)

4.29 · Rating details · 63,148 ratings · 4,481 reviews

Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, which was completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only a matter of days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.

Travelers by ship from New ...more

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Paperback, 104 pages

Published December 9th 2005 by NYRB Classics (first published 1942)

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Aug 10, 2015 Glenn Russell rated it it was amazing

I detect strong parallels between reading a novel and the game of chess: there is the author sitting on one side, playing white, the reader on the other side, playing black; instead of the chess board and chess pieces there is the novel; the author’s opening chapter is the chess player’s opening, the middle of the novel is, of course, the middle game, and the closing chapter is the end game. If both author and reader expand their literary horizons and deepen their appreciation of life’s mysteries, then both can declare ‘checkmate’.

Stefan Zweig’s ‘Chess Story’ published by New York Review Books (NYRB) is 84 pages of literary counterpart to a master chess game of Capablanca or Kasparov, a novel where the first-person narrator, an Austrian, just so happens to be on board a passenger steamer with a world chess champion by the name of Czentovic and also, as it turns out, a fellow Austrian referred to as Dr. B, a man who tells the tale of how he came to play chess whilst a prisoner of the Gestapo. If you tend to find novels by such giants as Proust, Joyce or Mann a bit intimidating but still would like to do a careful cover-to-cover read of a masterpiece, this is your book. A special thanks to Joel Rotenberg for translating from the German to a most accessible and clear English. And keeping in the spirit of a game of chess, below are several quotes from the novel (SZ’s moves as white) paired with my comments (countermoves as black):

Ruminating on what it takes to be a chess master, the narrator notes: “All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world.” ---------- Zweig’s novel takes place during the time of Nazi Germany and, of course, Hitler is considered one of the modern world’s most notorious monomaniacs, combining gobbledygook notions of biology, race, history and national identity into his version of an unyielding jackboot philosophy of culture, a philosophy carried out in deadly practice by thousands of loyal Nazis, monomania crushing the lives of millions under its ideological hammer. Parallels between Czentovic and the Führer abound.

“They did nothing – other than subjecting us to complete nothingness. For, as is well known, nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing. . . . you were hopelessly alone with yourself, with your body, and with these four or five mute objects, table, bed, window, washbasin; you lived like a diver in a diving bell in the black sea of silence. . . .“ --------- Confined to a hotel room by the Gestapo, cut off from the outside world, Dr. B begins to go stir-crazy in a world of silence and solitude, a conundrum touching on a major dilemma in the modern West – the loss of the contemplative/meditative dimension in life. Silence and solitude could provide fertile ground for personal spiritual growth if one has the proper training; but, alas, for most people, similar to Dr.B, silence and solitude is equated with a blank, a total nothingness.

“I had not held a book in my hands, and there was something intoxicating and at the same time stupefying in the mere thought of a book, in which you could see words one after another, lines, paragraphs, pages, a book in which you could read, follow, take into your mind the new, different, diverting thoughts of another person.” ---------- Ah, isolation in silence and solitude heightens Dr. B’s appreciation for what many of us might take for granted – the wonder of all the various levels of splendor in the simple pleasure of reading a book. When we look closely, such simple pleasure contains infinite richness.

“At first I played the games through quite mechanically; yet gradually a pleasurable, aesthetic understanding awoke within me. I grasped the fine points, the perils and rigors of attack and defense, the technique of thinking ahead, planning moves and countermoves, and soon I was able to recognize the personality and style of each of the chess masters as unmistakably as one knows a poet from only a few of his lines . . . “ ---------- How about that! Beyond the bare mechanical lies the juice of the aesthetic dimension, that is, an experience of beauty, in this case, the beauty of chess’s underlying structure on multiple levels: each move, creative tactics and overarching strategy, especially the beauty of signature moves, tactics and strategies of individual chess masters.

“My white self had no sooner made a move than my black self feverishly pushed forward .“ ---------- On the level of chess, the white pieces vs. the black pieces; on the level of psychotherapy, we could consider two different aspects of the subconscious: White Self vs. Black Self. Sidebar: Too bad Dr. B’s chess book didn’t contain chess problems constructed for one player!

“When I was taken to be examined by a physician, in my derangement I had suddenly broken free, thrown myself at the window in the corridor and shattered the glass, cutting my hand – you can still see the deep scar here.” ---------- At one point, Dr. B notes how chess is a game of pure mental calculation, “a game of pure reasoning with no element of chance.” Ironically, through pure chance, Dr. B survives throwing himself at a window, since, in his derangement, he could easily have lost his life when the glass shattered. So, in this sense, life is not a game of chess – chance plays such a major part in everybody’s life.

During the chess game of Czentovic vs. Dr.B, the narrator observes: “Suddenly there was something new between the two of them: a dangerous tension, a passionate hatred. They were no longer opponents testing their ability in a spirit of play, but enemies resolved to annihilate each other. Czentovic delayed for a long time before making the first move. It was clear to me that this was intentional.” ---------- Oh, how a game can so easily and quickly degenerate into a power play of egos bent on complete obliteration of the other; how easily life can be brought down to the mindset of the Nazis.

The narrator continues to watch; he detects a profound change come over the ordinarily serene Dr. B: “All the symptoms of abnormal excitation were clearly apparent; I saw the perspiration appear on his brow while the scar on his hand became redder and stood out more sharply than before.” ----------- Perhaps the author is reminding us that in our countering Nazi mentality we are continually prone to become no less brutal and one-minded then a Nazi.

...more

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Jun 14, 2014 Alejandro rated it really liked it

Recommended to Alejandro by: Florencia

Shelves: historical-fiction, sports, politics, anthology, drama

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An interesting short story that it's one of the most famous works by the writer Stefan Zweig that even sadly was published after his suicide.

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When a story is presented in another language, some elements are lost in the translation, and I think that while Chess Story is a pretty good title, its original title was "The Royal Game" that I think it gives to the story an air of refinement, class and elegance.

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Besides my interest to try this author, I was intrigued ...more

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Jan 11, 2019 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing

Shelves: south-american, nyrb, psychology

My pleasure in playing became a desire to play, a mania, a frenzy, which permeated not only my waking hours but gradually my sleep too. Chess was all I could think about, chess moves, chess problems were the only form my thoughts could take; sometimes I awoke with a sweaty brow and understood that I must have unconsciously gone on playing even while I slept, and if I dreamt of people, all they did was move like the bishop or the rook, or hopscotch like the knight.

We never are formally ...more

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Jun 21, 2012 s.penkevich rated it really liked it

Recommended to s.penkevich by: The review titled 'If suicidal, don't read this'

Shelves: europe, americana, austrian, crush-yo-soul

The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world.

Chess, the Royal Game, regally eschews the tyranny of chance and awards its palms of victory only to the intellect, or rather to a certain type of intellectual gift. Stefan Zweig plunges the reader into this cold, calculating world through a simple premise of ‘The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world.’

Chess, the ‘Royal Game’, ‘regally eschews the tyranny of chance and awards its palms of victory only to the intellect, or rather to a certain type of intellectual gift.’ Stefan Zweig plunges the reader into this cold, calculating world through a simple premise of a chess match between the reigning world champion and a mysterious doctor who reveals an incredible knowledge of the game’s strategy despite his claims that he hasn’t touched a chessboard for over twenty years. In a mere 80 pages, Zweig’s Chess Story, reaches an emotional and psychological depth that leaves the reader shivering with horror through a haunting allegory of Nazi Germany where human lives are mere wooden pieces to be strategically moved and sacrificed by an indifferent hand.

Zweig’s grasp on human nature is chillingly accurate, and the few characters presented come alive through such simple descriptions of their psychology, made easily accessible through having a psychologist serve as the narrator. Czentovic, the reigning world chess champion, quickly develops into a lifelike monomaniac through the brief summary of his life. This apathetic, uneducated youth miraculously develops a keen intellect for chess, being described as ‘Balaam’s ass’ when his talents are revealed, and quickly defeats chess masters across the world which ‘transformed his original lack of self-confidence into a cold pride that for the most part he did not trouble to hide.’ Zweig presents us with a highly unlikeable adversary, a wealthy, self-important man who looks upon all those around him as if they ‘were lifeless wooden pieces’ despite his vulgar manners and ‘boundless ignorance’ towards anything intellectual aside from chess (there is a wonderful aside where the narrators fried remarks ‘isn’t it damn easy to think you’re a great man if you aren’t troubled by the slightest notion that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante, or Napoleon even existed?’). We can all put a face to this character, we’ve all encountered someone vain and offensive who, despite our disdain, will always be able to sneer down upon us because we are no match to the one talent they hold most dear. While aboard a steamship, the passengers arrange a chess match with the great Czentovic, him versus all others, in which he crushed them in the first game without hiding his arrogance of being the superior.

Enter our hero, Dr. B, an immediately likeable, shy and nervous man with an immense intellect that bestows a method for forcing a draw with the great chess master. For the majority of the novella, the reader must face the horrors of Dr. B’s pas to understand where his talents grew, somehow blossoming in the cracks of soul-crushing interment in the Gestapo headquarters. Often relaying the story in the second-person, the use of ‘you’ brings the reader into maddening solitude of Dr. B, enduring his pain along with him, and even the most calloused of readers must come away with a residue of unbearable horrors and madness forever coating their consciousness. Zweig, having fled his home in Austria in fear of the Nazis, forces the reader to witness and endure a fate worse than the sickening dehumanization and deathly labor of a concentration camp, but to share in his solitude, emphasized in frightening proportions by Dr. B’s torment that is ‘a force more sophisticated than crude beating of physical torture: the most exquisite isolation imaginable’.

The allegory presented in the novella is sickening enough to rot any heart. We have Germany ruled by an inhumane, obdurate hand, cold and calculating in each move it makes, and we have the artistic mind going mad in solitude. Creativity and art is trampled by the sinister, calculating powers that march forward seeking victory, unshaken by the countless lives that must be sacrificed to achieve it. Chess, however, is a game of two sides, black and white, and Zweig pushes his allegory even further to represent this duality. As in the ‘blind’ games played in Dr. B’s head, Germany undergoes schizophrenia of sorts, declaring war on itself by seeking to exterminate those within, be it for their religious or political views. While chess becomes a solace to Dr. B, it can also be observed as a metaphor of National Socialism – what had roots as something empowering, something to cling to in order to rise up from the depth of depression (ie. his solitude or the state of Germany post-WWI), can become something fierce, violent and destructive as history has revealed and as is seen in the mania that grips our hero in this tale.

Zweig displays a mastery over his writing much as his characters do over chess. While the subject matter is sure to weigh heavy on the mind¹, the writing comes across effortlessly and pleasingly, almost as if it were intended to purvey an uplifting, humorous tale. I had a laugh as Zweig probed my own literary pretentions, casting Czentovic’s vain disinterest and quick removal from the vicinity of a chess match between two ‘third-rate’ players as being ‘as naturally as any of us might toss aside a bad detective novel in a bookstore without even opening it, he walked away from our table and out of the smoking room.’ The language flows and manages to embrace the reader through its simplicity, although it drags along a heavy burden with it. There was one aspect of the narrative that specifically caught my attention, and as I am still just a blind child testing the waters of literature, I would like to present to those of you whom I look up to this query of mine. Zweig often has his narrator connect the dots for the reader, such as when Czentovic states that he allowed the draw to happen, saying ‘I deliberately gave him a chance’, a few lines later the narrator asserts that ‘as we all knew, Czentovic had certainly not magnanimously given our unknown benefactor a chance, and this remark was nothing more than a simple-minded excuse for his own failure.’ Now, most readers would have been able to draw this conclusion themselves, and it seems a bit insulting that Zweig would feel he has to baby the reader (this happens multiple times in the first thirty pages), however, as the narrator is not Zweig, or even anyone purporting to be a writer, but instead a psychologist, does that excuse the overly explanatory nature of the writing? The narrator, being a psychologist, would want the reader to understand because, as he states, he wants to be able to analyze the mind of a monomaniac and this method ensures the reader is keeping up. Or, on the other hand (chess is black and white, might as well make room for a battle of wits here), is this method something to be a bit disappointed with? Perhaps I am spoiled having read so much Faulkner in my teens and finding enjoyment in authors that leave much to the reader to piece together. I would be very interested to see what my goodread friends think of this technique, as I want to excuse Zweig because he is keeping to a proper voice, yet I dislike it when authors explain things. For years I’ve deplored Ayn Rand for not letting so much as a scoff emit from a character without explaining the implications of the scoff.

Chess Story is a tiny powerhouse of depth. The conclusion had me pacing back and forth in the snow smoking a cigarette to calm the ever-increasing beating of my heart. It is horrific, it is harrowing, it is pure brilliance floating from the page. Despite it’s small size, this is not a novella to be taken lightly, as it will leave a dark cloud over your thoughts once the final page has found its way into your heart. Zweig is a master of the human psychology, and a master and condensing such potent messages into a tiny novella. The clash between an uncaring, calculating intellect and the manic but human mind of a hero will grip you until the end, which comes both mercifully soon (this book is easily read in an hour), yet far too soon. The allegory is ripe and shakes you to the core.
4.5/5

¹ The fact that Zweig eliminated his own map shortly after completion of Chess Story will come as no surprise, for the darkness this story wallows in is something that an optimistic mind wouldn’t dare approach. As Nietzsche said: ‘ if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you’. When I was at the edge of my teenage years, a former English teacher and close friend of mine warned me of wallowing in the darkness of literature and philosophy, telling me ‘the longer you flirt with darkness, the more it seeps into your soul’, which, while being a spin on the Nietzsche quote, has never left the back of my mind. From that I learned to climb out from the depths and appreciate things that satisfy a lighter side of myself, the white side of the chessboard, without spending all my time feeding the darker side. Without such guidance I wouldn't be here to write this today.

‘But is it not already an insult to call chess anything so narrow as a game? Is it not also a science, an art, a unique yoking of opposites, ancient and yet eternally new, mechanically constituted and yet an activity of the imagination alone, limited to a fixed geometric area but unlimited in its permutations, constantly evolving and yet sterile, a cogitation producing nothing, a mathematics calculating nothing, an art without an artwork, an architecture without substance, the only game that belongs to all peoples and all eras, while no one knows what god put it on earth to deaden boredom, sharpen the mind, and fortify the spirit? Where does it begin, where does it end?’
...more

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Oct 30, 2017 BlackOxford rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, german-language

We Are Never Alone

With astounding concision in a short story about chess, Zweig outlines a profound psychological theory: that a human beings greatest resource - the ability to reflect upon himself and his actions - is also his greatest vulnerability.

Experience alone, without the capacity to reflect upon it, provides rigid rules for responding to situations which never quite repeat themselves. Reflective ability creates the ability to cope with entirely novel conditions through the power to ...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, short-stories, literature, german, european

Schachnovelle = Le jaueur d'echecs = Chess Story = The Royal Game, Stefan Zweig
The Royal Game is a novella by Austrian author Stefan Zweig first published in 1941, just before the author's death by suicide. In some editions, the title is used for a collection that also includes "Amok", "Burning Secret", "Fear", and "Letter From an Unknown Woman". Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the National Socialists, Dr B, a monarchist hiding valuable assets of the nobility from Schachnovelle = Le jaueur d'echecs = Chess Story = The Royal Game, Stefan Zweig
The Royal Game is a novella by Austrian author Stefan Zweig first published in 1941, just before the author's death by suicide. In some editions, the title is used for a collection that also includes "Amok", "Burning Secret", "Fear", and "Letter From an Unknown Woman". Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the National Socialists, Dr B, a monarchist hiding valuable assets of the nobility from the new regime, maintains his sanity only through the theft of a book of past masters' chess games which he plays endlessly, voraciously learning each one until they overwhelm his imagination to such an extent that he becomes consumed by chess. After absorbing every single move of any variation in the book, and having nothing more to explore, Dr B begins to play the game against himself, developing the ability to separate his psyche into two personas: I (White) and I (Black). This psychological conflict causes him to ultimately suffer a breakdown, after which he eventually awakens in a sanatorium. Being saved by a sympathetic physician, who attests his insanity to keep him from being imprisoned again by the Nazis, he is finally set free. After happening to be on the same cruise liner as a group of chess enthusiasts and the world chess champion Czentovic, he incidentally stumbles across their game against the champion. Mirko Czentovic was a peasant prodigy possessing no obvious redeeming qualities besides his gift for chess. Dr B helps the chess enthusiasts in managing to draw their game in an almost hopeless position. After this effort, they persuade him to play alone against Czentovic. In a stunning demonstration of his imaginative and combinational powers, Dr B sensationally beats the world champion. Czentovic immediately suggests a return game to restore his honour. But this time, having sensed that Dr B played quite fast and hardly took time to think, he tries to irritate his opponent by taking several minutes before making a move, thereby putting psychological pressure on Dr B, who gets more and more impatient as the game proceeds. His greatest power turns out to be his greatest weakness: he devolves into rehearsing imagined matches against himself repeatedly and manically. Czentovic's deliberation and placidness drive Dr B to distraction and ultimately to insanity, culminating in an incorrect statement, after which Dr B awakens from his frenzy.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و هفتم ماه مارس سال 1974 میلادی
ک‍ت‍اب‌ شطرنج باز اثر: اشتفان تسوایک، نخستین بار در س‍ال‍ه‍ای‌: 1325 هجری خورشیدی، و نیز در سال: 1334 هجری خورشیدی ب‍ا ت‍رج‍م‍ه‌: ن‍ی‍رس‍ع‍ی‍دی‌؛ت‍وس‍ط انتشارات: اب‍ن‌س‍ی‍ن‍ا، در 75 ص م‍ن‍ت‍ش‍ر ش‍ده‌ اس‍ت‌؛ و در سال 1395 هجری خورشیدی، انتشارات علمی فرهنگی این اثر را دوباره در 110 ص چاپ کرده است

با این که بیش از چهل سال از خواندن این داستان میگذرد، هر بار ببینم کسی شطرنج بگسترده، یاد داستان آقای ب میافتم، و این داستان، به نظرم شاهکاریست خواندنی. در رمان شطرنج‌باز می‌بینیم که آقای ب، پس از آنکه کتاب خودآموز شطرنج را می‌رباید، برای کاستن از زجر و عذاب تنهایی و سکوت، در سلول انفرادی، به شطرنج پناه می‌برد، و زیر و بم‌ها و ریزه‌ کاری‌های آن را فرامی‌گیرد، چنان مفتون و مجذوب این «بازی شاهانه» می‌شود که احساس می‌کند در سرزمین دیگری که برای او ناشناخته است، گام بگذاشته است. تسوایک در آن زمان، به مانند شاهِ بازیِ شطرنج، که در تنگنای بازی گیر کرده باشد، و راه پس و پیش نداشته باشد، حس می‌کرد که در زندگی، به چنین تله‌ ای افتاده است، و همه راه‌ها به روی او بسته شده است. در این رمان، آقای ب، انسان هوشمند و متفکری است، که در سیاهگوشه ی تنهایی، بازی شطرنج را از روی کتاب آموخته است، و پس از آزادی از زندان با «چنتو ویک» که قهرمان بزرگ، و بی‌رقیب شطرنج جهان است، رودررو می‌نشیند، و به نبرد می‌پردازد. چنتو ویک جوانی ست روستایی، و خام و خشن، که حتی یک نامه ی چند سطری را، نمی‌تواند درست و بی‌غلط بنویسد، و در عین حال، در بازی شطرنج بی‌همتاست. او می‌تواند نمادی از نازی‌های پیروزمند باشد، که به ارزش‌های فرهنگی، بی‌ اعتنا بودند. و آقای ب، شاید نمونه ی دیگری از خود نویسنده ی کتاب باشد. آقای ب، از صحنه ی نبرد برنده بیرون می‌آید، اما عهد می‌کند، که دیگر دست به مهره‌ های شطرنج نزند. و شاید اگر تسوایک چنین تعهدی را می‌پذیرفت، و از نویسندگی دست برمی‌داشت، زنده می‌ماند. اما او نمی‌توانست فکر نکند، و مقاله و داستان و رمان ننویسد، و می‌خواست وجدان شفاف و روشن دوره و زمانه خود باشد. ... ا. شربیانی ...more

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Apr 18, 2014 Kalliope rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-german, austro-hungary, latam, 2014

This book is about the workings of the mind.

But before I go into that, let me start by saying that to me the name of Stefan Zweig evokes a feeling of nostalgia. Of course, this is foremost due to the title of his famous memoirs, and because we know that he belonged to a world that was disappearing. And probably because he realized this he decided to depart from it.

But for me it creates an additional longing. It makes me yearn for a world in which I did not yet exist, a world that followed Zweig ...more

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Oct 15, 2017 İntellecta rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: german-literature, classics

Stefan Zweig created an extraordinary, exciting, thought provoking novel in a typical, virtuosic self-writing style.

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May 03, 2014 Florencia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, read-in-groups-or-with-friends, german-austrian, stories-and-novellas-for-this-life, selected-gray-penguins

...nothing on earth exerts such pressure on the human soul as a void. (19)

Black. White. Which is it? Which one is our nature? We can be good, we can be cruel. We praise ourselves saying being human entails being good. We have daily proofs that is not necessary the case. If we are meant to be good and we are not, our mind have lost the battle against a deviation. Or against our true nature.
Now that is a depressing thought.

I had this book on my to-read shelf for months. And I wasn't going to ...more

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Apr 22, 2014 Manny rated it liked it

Shelves: the-tragedy-of-chess

The chessplayer and the non-chessplayer will read this classic novella in different ways. The non-chessplayer sees it as a tragedy where the noble but unworldly Dr. B is defeated by the oafish but practical Czentovic. Chess is used to symbolize the pure world of the mind, where Dr. B should triumph due to his superior intellectual powers, but discovers that his opponent's ruthlessness and greed are stronger. Czentovic cannot win fairly, but is perfectly happy to cheat.

The chessplayer would like ...more

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Jun 11, 2015 Gaurav rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, classics-germany, scandavian, owned

Chess
Stefan Zweig

Before the start of review, let me put across a warning to all probable readers of this novella that this book has two active beings- one is the reader of course but other one is the author himself, he keeps on following you or rather your moves right to end of the book or the game more appropriately. It may sound strange- so it is and Zweig is but only pleasantly, more you will come to know through the course of this review. Chess, the Royal Game is not just a book its a game Chess
Stefan Zweig

Before the start of review, let me put across a warning to all probable readers of this novella that this book has two active beings- one is the reader of course but other one is the author himself, he keeps on following you or rather your moves right to end of the book or the game more appropriately. It may sound strange- so it is and Zweig is but only pleasantly, more you will come to know through the course of this review. Chess, the ‘Royal Game’ is not just a book it’s a game of life. The book has written like the game itself wherein it occurs to the reader every move is maneuvered by author after response of the reader. As you progresses through the book your mental faculty expects a few switches as per the developments in the narrative but, it come across as if the author is playing an active role in it and somehow he manages to gauge your expectations, and then changes his moves to tease the reader for further assimilating the new developments and expect some new adaptations however the author manages to win this intriguing tussle. The reader has been thrown across some pleasant tricks throughout the plot however overall it’s an enriching experience altogether. As Chess, the ‘Royal Game’- the game of genius- works upon intellect of human being by walking over chance. The book is not just about ‘the game’ rather is a treatise of human life- as most of the books by Zweig are. It’s a story of survival of human being through different patches of life when circumstances are not friendly to him, he is thrown in space less void where he doesn’t have any distractions to keeps his mental muscles moving and away from madness. Eventually, after winning it through game of life, he got a distraction to evade his space less void but he becomes so beguiled by this distraction that it turns out to be an obsession. Zweig’s grasp on human psychology is immaculately accurate, and the characters are infused with life with bone chilling depiction of their nature without any hesitation, the reader may feel as if he is actually seeing them going through various patches of grief and agony.

Czentovic grows up as a human being who has total apathy towards world, nothing seems to interest him, he does nothing until he is requested to do so, doesn’t enjoy company of other children. He is totally aloof towards his surroundings. However, gradually develops interest towards ‘the royal game’ but his interest was quite uncharacteristic of a human being. Even though he lacks the imaginative power to chalk out different possibilities in the game as grandmasters normally use to do but that couldn’t hamper his stupendous rise in the royal game. He develops into a dogged character who has son sense of ridiculous towards world but his character lacks emotions which is so core to being of a man. Gradually, the curiosity (aroused due to uncharacteristic nature of Czentovic) of the reader transforms into sort of indifference, which is somewhere deep ridden in your consciousness that you realizes it only through the end of book. The mental faculty of Czentovic never helped him to envisage even a single game, every game he just attempts on the board.

As soon as the reader starting to feel somewhat oblivious towards character of world champion, the author makes a masterstroke- he throws an outstandingly intriguing character- Dr.B- across the reader; who gets awestruck by the genius of Dr.B as he helps McConnor to manage to pull off an upset against Czentovic. Now the reader has again taken aback by the stupendous genius of Dr.B who immediately beomes hero of the story. However, inquisitiveness of the reader takes lead off all his/ her emotions, the reader is thrown to deep horror stories of Nazi camps. The space less void which is as good as vacuum, where Dr.b was confined, sends chills across the spine of the reader. The solitary confinement in a complete vacuum, a room hermetically cut off from outside world, as intended to create pressure not from without, through violence and the cold, but from within, and to open lips of people eventually. There the reader meets the horrifying reality of Nazi confinements wherein one was left irredeemably alone with oneself in soundless depths. One may have thoughts with oneself but even thoughts, however insubstantial may be seem, need something as a reference to fix upon, or they begin to rotate and circle aimlessly around themselves; even they fail to tolerate vacuum, so lifeless were those confinements. There the identity of human beings was reduced to be just subjects for Nazi forces; the consciousness of man was made devoid of every sense of existence in those timeless, space less voids wherein you don’t have anyone to explain that how that terrifying void gnaws at you, mocks your existence and destroys you into utter nothingness. And we stare coldly at godless world of Nietzsche and the famous phrase- nihilo ex nihilo- comes to life. Eventually, Dr. B somehow manages to get a reference (a book about chess tournament games) to put his thoughts around it but he goes to the extent that he develops a kind of madness about it.

No sooner had the thought entered my mind than it worked like strong poison; suddenly there was a roaring in my ears and my heart began to hammer, my hands turned cold as ice and wouldn’t obey me.

First all at once I had an occupation- a pointless, aimless one if you like, but an occupation that annihilated the void around me. In those one hundred and fifty tournament matches, I had wonderful weapon against the oppressive monotony of my own space and time.

My delight in playing turned to a lust for playing, my lust for playing into a compulsion to play, a mania, a frenetic fury that filled not only my waking hours but also came to invade my sleep

One stumbles upon two interesting characters somewhat similar in nature- in principal maybe- yet so contrastingly different. On the one hand, you have Czentovic who doesn’t gain priori knowledge towards the game- the life- but attempts the game- the life- as it comes to him. While on the other hand we have, Dr. B who has imagined and worked out all possible outcomes in ‘the game’ of life but in the process he becomes obsessed with this idea to such extent of madness that ‘the game’-the life- itself becomes oblivious to him. But one aspect is common among both characters- lust, madness and obsession. Perhaps, that’s how ‘the game’-the life- is you may plan out all possible (outcomes possible which may seem to you) outcomes but still you might not be able to crack it since ‘the game’ has actually to be played on board and may be unpredictable more often than not. Here, as the reader may have developed a sense of sympathy and emotional connect with the character Dr. B, the author- as he seems to be active throughout the book- makes another marvelous move and ripped off you with all your assumptions but the reader left in a surprising wonder which left him/ her stunned or rather numbed. And suddenly your feelings start to retort towards disgust and apathy, and it’s ‘checkmate’ by the author.

Zweig always flabbergasts me with his amazing control over the prose- he psychological acumen is breath-taking somewhat like that of Kawabata and seems to have put so much depth in characters in so few words, his mastery over his writing here is as much as his characters do over chess. One may feel envious of the ability of Zweig to be able write as if he was not making an endeavor at all. His prose comes across the reader so effortlessly and pleasantly that it doesn’t occur to reader that it a tale of human psychology- treatise on survival- and not a comic tale. It’s just utter brilliance flowing through 80 odd pages. For though the size of the book may be small but the depth it has would certainly stir your mental faculty and would strike straight into your heart.
Highly recommended, esp. for someone who loves to plunge into deep abyss of human psychology!
4.5/5 ...more

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Apr 21, 2014 Agnieszka rated it it was amazing

Shelves: short-stories-and-novellas, nyrb, 2014, reviewed, zweig, austro-hungary, 1001-books

I always considered chess the most boring game in the world. Two people sitting opposite each other, and between them chessboard with these funny figures that players move after few minutes cogitation. It seemed as exciting as snail racing.

Apparently I was wrong. Chess Story centres around two extraordinary men, being opposites in every term, personality, background, approaching to life. A chance meeting on an ocean liner gives them possibility to chess duel. Its a great psychological study, ...more

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Jul 27, 2013 Garima rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, short-wonders, my-2-cents

If you want to experience the wonders of a powerful novella without compromising much on time front but at the same instant ready for a deep emotional involvement which would accelerate your heartbeat, if not at a fatal but abnormal rate then Chess Story is for you. A gripping work of fiction with unique characters and an impeccable narration that would not only make the fascination about the game of chess come alive but also convey the dynamics of human mind during the most testing times which ...more

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Dec 25, 2014 Duane rated it really liked it

Shelves: rated-books, reviewed-books, german, 2015-book-challenge

One gets the sense that Zweig was projecting his inner turmoil, his insanity, into the character of Dr B. This projection was much too real, too disturbing to be fiction. Dr B's mental frailty was brought on by mental torture, total isolation, at the hands of Germany's Gestapo. Zweig's was troubled by the isolation from his country (Austria), his people, his culture. Dr B found his relief in the game of Chess, Zweig found his in writing. Quite a powerful story to be packed into 84 pages. 4.5 ...more

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Dec 03, 2016 Steven Godin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic-fiction, austria

My my, how times do change, they don't make um like this anymore. As for time, what a way to spend an hour. Exceptional!

Stefan Zweigs final achievement, and what an achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological. Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world ...more

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Jul 27, 2013 Dolors rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Those containing Black and White

Recommended to Dolors by: Garima

Shelves: read-in-2014, dost

A chessboard with sixty-four squares hidden in the folds of a checkered pattern bedspread represents much more than a mere pastime in Zweigs short novella.
The dichotomy of black and white pieces of divided consciousness locked inside a man struggling to keep sanity over mental torture.
Chess moves, chess problems, imaginary games played in frenzied compulsion, both ruin and salvation of someone who has been deprived of the warmth of humanity, become the only means of creating meaning out of the A chessboard with sixty-four squares hidden in the folds of a checkered pattern bedspread represents much more than a mere pastime in Zweig’s short novella.
The dichotomy of black and white pieces of divided consciousness locked inside a man struggling to keep sanity over mental torture.
Chess moves, chess problems, imaginary games played in frenzied compulsion, both ruin and salvation of someone who has been deprived of the warmth of humanity, become the only means of creating meaning out of the complete nothingness that soaks the dimensionless and timeless walls of a dark cell.

“My awful situation was forcing me to at least try to divide myself into a Black Me and a White Me in order not to be crushed by the horrendous nothingness around me. “ (59)

Mr. B is introduced by a nameless narrator as a Jewish lawyer who embodies the cultivated Austrian heritage and its flourishing Enlightenment before World War II. Captured by the Gestapo, he is condemned to the most sophisticated form of isolation for months on end and psychologically abused during ruthless interrogations in order to extract important information related to his previous professional practice. An anthology of a hundred and fifty master games for chess is the only object Mr. B can get hold of during the long period of his incarceration and imagining those moves in his mind turns out to be the only distraction from the vacuum that surrounds him. The diversion transforms into pleasure and the pleasure transforms into mania and soon enough Mr. B’s chess moves come so natural to him that they epitomize the definition of his sole existence. Black and White pieces and a checkered board dissolve into Mr.B’s flesh and blood and the game of chess shapes his whole being. He plays to exist, he plays to survive, he plays with his soul.

“Like all headstrong types, Czentovic had no sense of the ridiculous; ever since his triumph in the world tournament, he considered himself the most important man in the world.” (11)

Worldwide Chess Champion Mr. Czentovic is a hollow automaton whose only virtue is an uncanny gift to play chess. Devoid of emotion, humility and visual imagination, this self-absorbed simpleton sees the “royal game” as a conduit to wealth and popularity. He plays unwaveringly with vanity and contempt in unnerving slowness and controlled fashion, victory and money to nurture his cold pride are his only motivations.
Nothingness is all Mr. Czentovic is made of and his opaque psyche doesn’t need to elucidate any other meaning than to prove his own supremacy over mankind.
Maybe an allegory for the disturbing undercurrents molding the Nazi ideology of the time. Maybe a symbol to depict the dark forces that seized Vienna and destroyed its flourishing cultural heritage.

A battle between opposed understandings of the world ensues on the chessboard. Two men carrying the weight of different backgrounds on their shoulders, one in monochromatic black and the other in schizophrenic colorfulness, struggle against their pasts and impending futures and play the game of chess with antagonistic purposes.
One plays to exist, the other to annihilate.
A metaphorical chessboard where wooden pieces draw a map of connections among the countries before the tragedy of World War II exploded, destroying the cultural tradition that delineated Zweig’s faith in art as the ultimate expression of everything that was good in humankind.
Both suffering in exile, both mourning a golden past, both sinking into despair under the weight of history, both struggling to create meaning within themselves in spite of having been robbed even of their identity, both Mr.B and Zweig play the game of chess under the constant checkmate of despondency.

A handful might have the courage of never losing hope, but many others fail in the attempt like Zweig did. I am made myself of many grayish contradictions, but whenever I feel the call of “Black” dejection I remember a sagacious friend of mine who once told me to follow the path of wisdom, even if its ways be hard and steep. To follow that path you must believe in the “White” thread of hope and keep searching for it even if you don’t see it today. Keep searching for it, he repeated to me, because it exists. So in the continuum of life, I try to pay homage to my friend's advice and keep searching with renewed energy, singing the Song of Good Hope. ...more

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Nov 20, 2018 Manuel Antão rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2002

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Me vs. Karjakin: "Schachnovelle" by Stefan Zweig

(Original Review from the German and English editions, 2002-06-01)

My lichens rating has gone down the proverbial toilet. I went from 1800 to 1600. Been losing simple games. I hate it when I get ahead and then lose. The other day I even managed to fuck up a text book draw with opposite bishops. I think of myself as a club level Karjakin but Sergey appears in my dreams and asks me to stop ...more

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Feb 02, 2015 Seemita rated it it was amazing

Shelves: for_legacy, favorites, novella, translated, europe, austria

"Wanting to play chess against yourself is a paradox, like jumping over your own shadow."

But what fun is life if words like manic, insanity, paradox and contradiction are not put to test once in a while? Even at the cost of years of discipline and rationality?

Stefen Zweig surely put his own constructs up the wall when he created this ingenious piece of art. Yes, it was pure art; outrightly splendid form of art that overwhelms the realms of conventional thinking and forces the mind to stretch ...more

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May 03, 2016 Brina rated it liked it

Shelves: memoirs, holocaust, classics

Chess Story or the Royal Game is Stephan Zweig's autobiographical short story detailing how he used chess as a way to escape boredom while imprisoned by the Nazis. A mere 84 pages in length, Chess Story is the last book Zweig wrote before he and his wife committed suicide. In its pages, he details his relationship with the royal game of chess.

We first meet grand champion Czentovic when he is orphaned at age 14 and living in a parsonage. A reclusive teen, he uses chess to get ahead and ...more

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Apr 01, 2014 Jason rated it really liked it

Shelves: for-kindle, reviewed, 2014

If I didnt have some weird neurotic rule against short stories and novellas qualifying for space on my thrill me chill me fulfill me shelf, this book would have totally gotten five stars from me. It really is that good.

Last week I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel and even though I was majorly disappointed, there was a blurb at the end about how the movie was based on the writings of Stefan Zweig, whom I had heard of but didnt know a great deal about. Then someone (I forget who) told me that Wes ...more

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Nov 18, 2010 Richard Derus rated it liked it

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.

Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.

Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story.

This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work's unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.

My Review: Lumpenproletarian chess prodigy Czentovic, a boorish and unsympathetic figure, meets noble Jewish Dr. B. on a cruise. The good doctor is escaping the Nazis after a horrific torture-by-isolation. Czentovic is off to new triumphs as the world's greatest living chess master. Dr. B. survived his horrible isolation by reading and re-reading and memorizing and repeatedly playing in his mind great chess games from a book he stole from one of his torturers. The stage is set...the grisly Grand Master meets the gruesomely treated noble spirit in a chess battle for the ages, and is defeated. The doctor retires from the scene, completely unmanned by reliving his horrible confinement through his victory over the taciturn, unintelligent idiot savant Czentovic.

Zweig committed suicide after completing this book. I see why. It's the least optimistic, most hopeless, depressing, and horrifyingly bleak thing I've read in years. Four hankies won't do to stanch the helpless, hopeless weeping induced by reading the book, and a pistol is too heavy to hold in fingers gone too numb to clench even slightly.

It's one long flashback. The "action" of the chess match takes on an almost lurid and pornographic tinge after the grim tale Dr. B. tells of his time with the Nazis. It's dreadful. It's downbeat. It stinks of freshly-opened coffins and crematory ovens. If there is a redeeming value in having read it, it's that one need never, ever, ever touch it again, and I ASSURE you I will not.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. ...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Megan Baxter rated it really liked it

The emotional wallop of this book is far out of proportion to its size. At 84 pages, I read it in less than an hour. But that hour was filled with pain and hurt and hope and human persistence and human degradation and it hurt to read.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

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Oct 10, 2017 David Gustafson rated it it was amazing

I have long considered Thomas Mann's novella, "Death in Venice," to be one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century, a foreboding of the doom awaiting the European bourgeoise intellectual living in an alternate universe from the revolutionary and reactionary forces about to set that continent afire.

Stefan Zweig's riveting "Chess Story" is a page burner that represents the impact of the post traumatic syndrome of that conflagration upon Europe's civilized psyche.

Since I am a history ...more

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Dec 05, 2010 Aubrey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star, reviewed, translated, nyrb-classic, german, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, life-after-life, 1-read-on-hand, person-of-everything, shorty-short

Yet how difficult, how impossible it is to imagine the life of an intellectually active person who reduces the world to a shuttle between black and white, who seeks fulfillment in a mere to-and-fro, forward-and-back of thirty-two pieces, someone for whom a new opening that allows the knight to be advanced instead of the pawn is in itself a great accomplished and a meager little piece of immortality in a corner of a chess book someone, someone with a brain in his head, who, without going mad,

Yet how difficult, how impossible it is to imagine the life of an intellectually active person who reduces the world to a shuttle between black and white, who seeks fulfillment in a mere to-and-fro, forward-and-back of thirty-two pieces, someone for whom a new opening that allows the knight to be advanced instead of the pawn is in itself a great accomplished and a meager little piece of immortality in a corner of a chess book— someone, someone with a brain in his head, who, without going mad, continues over and over for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years to devote all the force of his thought to the ridiculous end of cornering a wooden king on a wooden board!

If I were kind, Reader, I would leave you with only this quote, and let you discover this piece of literature on your own with a minimum of preconceptions. If I were cruel, I would do the same.

I am not used to novellas. I am not used to speeding up at twenty pages, reaching a breakneck pace at forty, and before the one hundred mark is reached running right off the rails, thoughts not yet having caught up to and corralled the words leaving shreds of my mind in their wake. It is frightening, Reader, to lift your gaze from the last pages of a wisp of a book and finding your heart beating at a madcap dash beneath your breast. And yet, I would not have missed the thrill for the world.

What is worse, Reader? The Void, or the Object? The lack of a single point to focus on, or the focusing on a single point forevermore? The wandering ship bereft of a single beacon to direct it on its course, or the pyre luring immortal souls into eternal immolation? A healthy Mind cannot stand either, but the latter makes for a lengthier disintegration.

And if the point is a game? A game requires two participants, and the Mind is only one. It knows this, and it will pace and it will fret. For it is either the game, or the Void. But how does a Mind combat itself? By splitting, of course. And then the switch. One reality, than the other, until practice makes perfect and the game shrinks into an infitesimal moment in an infinity of time and the spinning Ouroboros of thought is well satiated.

But this holds only so long as true Reality is kept far away from this abstract field of purely mental exertion. For Reality is so slow, and the Mind is so hungry. For it, there is no longer any Time to waste.

Chess does have its blessings. Thirty-two pieces, a concrete structure, and so many rules of play! Much like this writing of ours, with its twenty-six letters and smattering of punctuation marks and tried and true methodologies. Both require a certain level of obsession and mental meiosis and disconnection from reality, but hey, it's better than having nothing. Right? ...more

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Jan 29, 2019 Gabrielle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, reviewed, own-a-copy, used-bookstore-finds, read-in-2019

With Zweig, I apparently started at the end : Chess was sent to his publisher just days before he took his own life. At first glance, it is the story of a handful of passengers on a ship to Buenos Aires who find out that a cold and condescending chess champion is on board, and challenge him to a game in the hopes of beating him. They all fail, of course, until a mysterious man shows up to give them a little advice on how the game is played. Intrigued, the unnamed narrator decides to ask him how With Zweig, I apparently started at the end : “Chess” was sent to his publisher just days before he took his own life. At first glance, it is the story of a handful of passengers on a ship to Buenos Aires who find out that a cold and condescending chess champion is on board, and challenge him to a game in the hopes of beating him. They all fail, of course, until a mysterious man shows up to give them a little advice on how the game is played. Intrigued, the unnamed narrator decides to ask him how he became so well versed in the strategic game. The more you dig, the less this is about chess, and the more it is about the human mind, obsession and a certain form of madness.

With fewer than a hundred pages, this novella can be read in a single sitting – I personally found it difficult to look away from, and not just because the writing was fluid and engaging; as soon as Dr. B. begins his tale, I was fascinated and heartbroken. His sanity is saved by his imagination, by fighting the sensory deprivation he is made to endure, but the effect of his captivity is a double-edge sword: when he is put in a position to use the considerable powers of his mind in a practical way, things begin to break down and turn against him (if only he’d known how to meditate, I found myself thinking!).

There is also a clear analogy: to the Nazi regime, people were merely pawns, to be moved around or eliminated as profited them best. Czentovic’s ruthless and disinterested playing style echoes the way the German war machine mindlessly trampled most of Europe (Zweig also paints his antagonist as a rude and uncultured man who becomes arrogant and greedy after a taste of success), as where the importance Dr. B (who by contrast is well-educated, humble, clever and compassionate) gives to his intellectual life represents the humanism that Zweig held in such high regards. He pessimistically seems to indicate in this story that he doesn’t see how humanism can triumph over Fascism, which given the time at which it was written, is not an inconceivable position.

Reading a bit about the man who could come up with such a story, I was both impressed and saddened. Impressed by the man’s great productivity and obvious erudition – and deeply saddened by how his personal story ended. My understanding is that he and his wife killed themselves because the events of WWII made them feel that this horrific failure of humanity was simply intolerable; their ideals were blown to smithereens and the world they had wanted to live in had been destroyed, which made carrying on unbearable. Knowing this made the short novella even more impactful.

“Beware of Pity” and “The Post Office Girl” are winking at me from my bookshelf, alongside his biographies of Mary Stuart and Erasmus; I don’t think I can keep them waiting very long! ...more

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Sep 19, 2018 Jibran rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, german

To make sense, it might be better to read this story as a parable of the human mind than a psychological sketch grounded in realism, though I suspect this is not what Zweig had intended.

As with the rest of his novels, the narration is superb and eminently readable, especially when he expounds on the tragedy of one Dr. B and his capture that eventually led him into creating a mental defence mechanism to survive the nothingness of solitary confinement. Chess, the king of games, or the game of ...more

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Apr 24, 2014 Teresa rated it really liked it

Barring time constraints (which I don't have at the moment), I would've written this review before now. Something is holding me back, most likely the brilliant reviews my GR friends have already written about this brilliant novella, which by its end brought to my mind a perfect example of the form, Bartleby, the Scrivener.

I don't know how to play chess, so I'm sure I missed some analogies, especially political ones with the references to the royal game. But, for me, not only the physical but the ...more

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Jan 20, 2018 Joshie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, short-stories, 4-star, own, literature-german, penguin-modern-classics

Isolation is such a dangerous thing. The mere thought of being enclosed in four walls with nothing but a bed, a wash bin, a table, and a chair is in itself psychological torture. Zweig's classic short story Chess tells of a stranger's haunting past during the Nazi regime. A monomania sprung from one's desperate need to find a coping mechanism against the taxing and consuming instruments of torture; a fixation depleting one's muddled grasp on self-control and reality.

Zweig knew the depths of the ...more

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Jun 14, 2016 Χαρά Ζ. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-love

_Chess story/A royal game_

Sweet mother of Jesus, what a masterpiece. There is no way i can possibly describe how masterfully this book is given to us. It's about chess and the human ability to survive and endure pretty much anything, it's about greatness and it's about madness. Stefan Zweig achieved in a grand way to write this story about a battle between a highly spiritual, a highly intelligent, troubled human and a disarmingly, completely uneducated and only logical thinking person. This book ...more

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May 31, 2012 Lee Klein rated it it was amazing

A flowing, engaging, gripping, hefty, accessible, masterful novella. Effortless/seamless old-timey Austrian structure: a narrator tells a story that includes someone's third-person account about one major character and a longish first-person account by another major character. The two chess players are well drawn and absolutely differentiated: one's a stoic idiot-savant peasant, the other's an anxious intellectual from a highly regarded Viennese family. Really worth spending the hour or so it ...more

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Reading 1001: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig	6	18	Dec 04, 2019 10:47AM
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About Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig

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Stefan Zweig was one of the world's most famous writers during the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the U.S., South America, and Europe. He produced novels, plays, biographies, and journalist pieces. Among his most famous works are Beware of Pity, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He and his second wife committed suicide in 1942.

Zweig studied in Austria, ...more

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Quotes from Le joueur d'échecs

“Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?” — 147 likes

“In chess, as a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, - for someone to play against himself is absurd ...
It is as paradoxical, as attempting to jump over his own shadow.” — 97 likes

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Preview — Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

Chess Story

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Stefan Zweig

Books by Stefan Zweig

Related Articles

Trivia About Chess Story

Quotes from Le joueur d'échecs

new topic
Discuss This Book