Book Review: Chess

Also known as The Royal Game. Bought at the Museum Shop at the Agora in Izmir, Turkey for 59 Turkish Lire or about $2 US. Stefan Zweig's compact novella (80 pages) pits a savant chess master against an Austrian refugee who studied the game obsessively while being held prisoner by the Nazis. Zweig was also an escapee from the Third Reich and committed suicide with his wife in 1942 after they had emigrated to Brazil. The heart of the piece is Dr. B.'s description of his captivity and how he managed to outlast the Nazi interrogators by focusing on chess. He plays against Czentovic, an oafish tradesman's son who happens to be a natural chess master. Zweig examines how obsessions can save us, but also harm us. Dr. B and Czentovic meet on a ship and are drawn into a game by curious fellow passengers. The former is driven nearly mad with the desire to win and his mania nearly destroys him. Compelling and impactful, like a short, sharp shock (to paraphrase WS Gilbert). 

My Cruise to Greece and Turkey: Part 3: Izmir, Chios and Karfas

Thurs. July 13--Izmir, Turkey

The clock tower in 
the main square of Izmir, Turkey

The main attraction of Izmir is 45 minutes away--the ruins at Ephesus and the home of the Virgin Mary. We had seen both the last time we were in Turkey, so this port of call was not a highlight. Izmir itself is a large city with a massive labyrinthine bazaar and a cruise pier a few miles from the center of town. Jerry stayed on board and I took the shuttle bus in. I wondered around the boiling city until I found the tourism center and acquired a map which led me to the agora of Smyrna, an ancient metropolis founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. I trudged pass souvenir shops, restaurants, and fish markets to emerge at the ruin with its columns, running water, headstones, and archways (including the Faustina gate, named for the wife of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius who rebuild the city after a devastating earthquake.)

Oddly enough, the highlight of the agora for me was browsing in the tiny museum gift shop. Amid the magnets, postcards and reproductions of busts and statues was a display of classics in English for 69 and 79 Turkish lire--the equivalent of $3 or $4 dollars US. The titles were off-beat, second-tier works by major authors--Jacob's Room and A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf, A Tale of the Stone Age by HG Wells, The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell, several short works by Stefan Zweig, etc. I was suddenly transported to the Strand Bookstore. They were all cheap and had simple, attractive covers. All published in Turkey in English. I don't know why I wanted to but I took a picture, maybe to capture this unexpected island of rare English literature in a remnant of the ancient world. I wound up buying two postcards, a magnet that said Turkey with pictures of different cities in each letter and Chess by Zweig, a slim novella I'd never heard of before with a preface on Zweig. I will have to read the other titles at some point.