Note: Friday's Forgotten Books is a regular feature at pattinase, the blog of crime writer Patti Abbott. Log on each week to discover old, obscure and unfairly overlooked titles.
How does one find books that have fallen out of the mainstream consciousness? It's a good question to ask, because titles tend to sink like stones without a marketing machine behind them or a place in the canon. Every once in a while, though, someone will pipe up with unexpected praise for a forgotten book, and when that happens I sit up and take notice. So as fantasy author Daniel Abraham heaped kudos on Walter Tevis' chess-centric 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit during a recent installment of PodCastle, I added it my to-read list.
No one has ever taken Beth Harmon very seriously. Orphaned at age eight and confined to the Methuen Home, she moves through her days in a narcotic haze, force-fed the tranquilizers the orphanage's matron uses to make her charges easy to manage. But one day something cuts through her drugged fog: She sees the orphanage's dumpy janitor mulling over a strange game in the basement, a game played with black and white pieces on a checkered board, a game called chess. Beth pesters him until he agrees to teach her how to play, and after a few matches she discovers the strange ability within herself to unfold strategies entirely within her mind. She has a gift, one that could take her all the way to Russia, the nation which holds chess almost in holy awe. But before that can happen, Beth will need to conquer all the naysayers without and her hidden demons within.
You've got to hand it to Tevis. Though I find playing chess only slightly more pleasurable than a colonoscopy, he somehow manages to move it into the realm of thriller, transforming movements on the board into action every bit as enjoyable as the wildest car chase. It's an achievement. So why then has The Queen's Gambit fallen into obscurity? Much of it probably has to do with his protagonist. Not just unlikeable, Beth seems almost an embodiment of Samuel Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes." Every time she gets near to a grand achievement, she methodically sabotages it with drugs or drink or unenjoyable sex with near strangers. It's perplexing, maddening amd infuriating, and by the end of the book you want to shake her. It doesn't help that Tevis oddly reserves more criticism for religious types who oppose communism than for the oppressive Russian Bear itself. An engaging Gambit that doesn't quite pay off.
(Picture: CC 2006 by We Are CS)
8 comments:
Well, I hope you know that Tevis, a brilliant sf and fantasy and contemporary mimetic fiction writer, wrote the source novels for the films THE HUSTLER, THE COLOR OF MONEY, and THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, and his story collection FAR FROM HOME is a must. MOCKINGBIRD not too shabby, either...I haven't read this one yet, and should...then there are all the excellent chess stories by Fritz Leiber, and that good one by Kurt Vonnegut...
Yes, I saw that he did The Hustler and The Man Who Fell to Earth. I think I need to read some more of his stuff. Gambit was well-done, but ... a bit flawed. It's worth reading for the chess stuff though, even if Beth makes me want to tear my hair out.
And, well, these days the more unfortunate folks in the Orthodox Church are among the stronger supporters of the current "strongman" government of Russia, so Tevis, in comparing them unfavorably to, say, the administrations of Gorbachev or even Kruschev, might not've been too far wrong...Lenin and Stalin, not so good, as far as I'm concerned...
Russia's a sad place, isn't it? I had a Russian roommate once, and it doesn't seem as if they've ever had a good government, even now.
Tevis doesn't critique the Russian Orthodoxy in the novel. In fact, he never mentions it. He saves his criticism exclusively for southern Evangelicals who oppose communism. It's odd because he brushes over the Russia's woes almost entirely when when (spoiler warning!) Beth gets there.
Not to get political, but I'm not a fan of Marxism in any form. The abolishment of private property and its tendency toward harsh autocratic regimes is fundamentally unjust to me.
Ah. Well, frankly, Southern Evangelicals in the US (and not just southern ones) were more a threat to a lot of us here than any sort of Marxist was, in the early '80s (and now)...but, as you might gather, I'm not a big fan of Leninism, either, and certainly would've been more likely to side with Proudhon and Bakunin, and certain with Kropotkin and Emma Goldman, in any arguments with Marx and the Marxists who followed him...
Well, we may have disagree on the relative perniciousness of evangelicals! However, I'm glad to know you aren't a fan of Stalin. Did you ever see that Borat clip where he goes on the campaign trail with an unsuspecting local politician? "This man strong -- like Stalin!" Hilarious.
I can only note it was religious fanatics, perhaps not quite describable as evangelical (but if not, then the next slot over) who were responsible for the Murrah bombing in Oklahoma City and the depredations of 9/11 (not all evangelicals are Xian)...while Leninists of various stripes have been having All Kinds of Fun in other countries, they've usually been less murderous here...and, of course, not *all* evangelicals are murderous fanatics. But some are, and use their convictions as a fig leaf for their bloodlust.
Call it a quibble, call it a point of contention, but I think there is some confusion here over terms, i.e. what do we mean when we say evangelical?
To my mind, evangelical is not "religious fanatic" is not IRA fighter is not radical Islam suicide bomber is not a milkman holding Amish girls hostage in a schoolhouse is not a crazed pedophile with hallucinogenic visions keeping a kidnapped girl in a tent in his back yard. . .
The denotation: Evangelical refers solely to the Gospel narratives of the Christian church and those followers. (Emphasis mine, source OED)
The connotation: An evangelical is someone who works to disseminate persuasive information, attractive or not, concerning a specific interest, usu. a belief system. (from evangelize, 'to bring or tell good tidings')
The word as it is bandied about: A person slavishly devoted to a cause, losing all personhood and respect for others in their pursual.
Post a Comment