Volume 30, Number 17 · November 10, 1983
Games People Play
By Al Alvarez
The Queen's Gambit
by Walter Tevis
Random House, 243 pp., $13.95
The Cannibal Galaxy
by Cynthia Ozick
Knopf, 162 pp., $11.95
Walter Tevis seems to be a writer who enjoys stacking the odds against himself. His first novel, The Hustler, back in 1959, was about pool—not the most universally appealing topic—and in The Queen's Gambit he has raised the ante with two apparently impossible themes: child genius and chess. Genius itself is intractable enough to novelists, not least because so few of them have it and those who do, perhaps by definition, have less time for themselves than for their art. But a child genius is not so much intractable as impenetrable, a phenomenon of nature, like a typhoon, awesome and unnerving. As for chess, it is a world to itself, of a subtlety so intricate that it is simply not available to the uninitiated. It is also static, private, and seemingly without drama in the conventional sense: two people facing each other across a small checkered board, unmoving, unspeaking, rarely even looking at each other. From this obdurate material Tevis has produced a spare and compelling book, exciting even for a reader like myself who does not play the game and barely knows the rules.
Review, 2498 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |