Chess Story , a 1941 novella by Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig, is set on board a ship traveling from New York to Buenos Aires during World War II. Several of the passengers are escaping Nazi-occupied territories, as Zweig himself did.
One of the travelers is a Czech chess grandmaster. Several others want to see him play, so a tournament is organized. It turns out that another passenger is also an accomplished chess player. And then, the story begins.
Chess itself is a game of military strategy. Players need to think through their play while anticipating the play of their opponents. The two chess wizards in this came to the game differently, so their approach is different.
In about a hundred pages, Zweig creates a story of the forces of war. Different participants approach war differently. War damages people. Is it economic? A compulsion? A mental disorder? I kept thinking that this small book could spin off a thousand different dissertations.
I’m now at the end of the As in my Around the World project. It’s getting me through quarantine, and that’s good. On to the Bs!
