B, who helps the men achieve a draw with the chess master. The men immediately say that he must challenge the world master in a game just between the two of them. As it plays out, Dr. Interestingly, Czentovic is not the book’s true subject, as I was led to believe at first. While the narrator and some other men are together playing against Czentovic, out of obscurity comes Dr. Before we begin the review, though, I want to highlight this magnificent cover, which features a fitting detail from The Chess Game, a painting by Vieira da Silva.Ĭhess Story begins and ends on an ocean liner going from New York to Buenos Aires. The narrator discovers that Mirko Czentovic, the world champion chess master, is on board. Czentovic has an intriguing story. Raised by a priest, he was basically forsaken as a child because he had no visible intelligence. He never learned how to spell or how to interact with people. But he watched the priest play chess and, for some reason, chess stuck. When the priest found this hidden skill he compared Czentovic to “Balaam’s ass!” Lacking most other skills, Czentovic quickly rose to become the best in the world, and with that rank came no little amount of pride. The narrator wants to meet Czentovic to attempt to understand him a little better. from the German by Joel Rotenberg, 2006), published after Zweig and his wife committed suicide in Brazil, “one of Hitler’s posthumous victims,” said Peter Gay in the introduction to the NYRB Classics edition. I’m not well informed about Zweig’s life or work, but it’s time I learned, and I’m glad to say I’ve begun. Here’s a short one (hardly a novella, more than a short story) that didn’t stay long on my “currently reading” list but will make its way there again. Stefan Zweig’s Chess Story ( Schachnovelle, 1942 tr.

Chess player stefan zweig