Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

The combination of Chess and Nabokov seemed to me a match made in heaven, a big fan of both, this was just too tempting to turn down, even though I knew it would take something pretty remarkable to reach the heights of either 'Pale Fire' or 'Lolita', I still felt like reading what is one of his earlier Russian novels (his third written in 1930) before he embarked on his American odyssey.

The Luzhin Defence is a book that does features chess, but doesn't delve too deeply into the actual playing of the game, so anyone clueless on the subject will rarely have to scratch their heads in uncertainty, it's main focus is the life of Luzhin himself, from his childhood in St Petersburg and learning the game with his Aunt, to becoming a shambling grand Grand Master who arrives in the Italian Lakes to play the Italian whizz Turati, and sets in motion events that unexpectedly had him finding the love of his life. The novel opens with a sense of nostalgia, with memory-misted scenes of Luzhin's boy-hood in Russia and his first initiation into the "game of the Gods" for which he is seen to have a prodigious and natural talent. Miserably alone, with little friends, and parents who both feel estranged and unemotional (Luzhin's father is a writer of boy's adventure stories but seems more dead than living) the boy would take to chess and give him that spark that had been missing from his life. The kid pushed around at school, would grow-up to become a maestro.

His passion for chess is almost one of obsession, an awkward figure he becomes, and is completely isolated in his opaque, imaginary world of configurations where he alone is sovereign as kings and queens and pawns are in eternal motion across his private field of vision. You get the impression the outside world and other people are of little significance. Nabokov rushes us from the early days, and the subterfuge he has to undertake to play the game, and we find Luzhin again in a post-revolutionary Europe, a ridiculous figure, his Grand Master status on the wane as other younger players get to grips with his own techniques for winning. During a stay in a health-spa Luzhin meets a Russian woman, herself an émigré from the revolution living in Berlin, and before long want her to be his wife, all to the annoyance of her parents, who want none of it. Their awkward courtship, where Luzhin asks for her hand has the air of a drowning man rather than a suitor.
And his beloved game would start to suffer, leading to big cracks appearing in his sturdy mind.

Reading Nabokov, any Nabokov, there is a 99% chance it's going to be worth it, this splendid novel was a delight, and even though it doesn't go all out in terms of plot or story, there are early signs here that the masterful narrative that showed up in his American novels was starting to emerge.
This had some wonderful sentencing, that was simply breathtaking, a joy to behold!
The Luzhin Defence can also be seen as a simple biography of a dull man, similar in some ways to that of John Williams' 'Stoner', but that conventionality only goes so far with Nabokov of course. In other ways, the life story is an extended metaphor, a game of chess within itself.

Nabokov is quite rightly regarded as one of the greatest writers to have graced this earth, so comparing this to most other books I have read, it would get top marks, but then I have to take into account both 'Pale Fire' and 'Lolita', for me, novels just don't come much better, The Luzhin Defence simply wasn't as good, but then that's no disgrace at all. A solid four stars. Thanks Vlad.