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A review by chrissie_whitley
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
5.0
After being orphaned at age eight, Beth Harmon is sent to live at a children’s home in her home state of Kentucky. At this particular orphanage, they give the children tranquilizers to “even their disposition.” Plain and with a tendency towards being solitary, Beth wastes no hope or reliance on being adopted. Instead, after having observed the janitor, Mr. Shaibel, working on his chess moves in the orphanage’s basement, Beth announces her interest to him in learning to play.
Rebuffed by Mr. Shaibel at first, for being both a child and female, Beth presses by showing that she has already learned the way each piece is allowed to move across the board. Partly through Shaibel’s interest being piqued and partly with the presumption that swift and decisive losses will deter Beth’s interest, Shaibel invites her to play.
But Beth has been drawn to this game from her core, and her determination only flares brighter with the losses. A competitiveness burns inside her alongside a naturally highly strategic mind. Before long she eclipses Shaibel’s ability — who hands her a giant tome, [b:Modern Chess Openings|44063669|Modern Chess Openings|Walter Korn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550579083l/44063669._SY75_.jpg|68514279], and Beth’s true genius becomes apparent as she studies the strategies with the mind of a master.
Tevis has written Beth with such a strong inner strength, but with all this quick decisiveness and true competitiveness, he balances her nature with the taxing tendency toward addiction. It’s easy to point to the horrifically administered tranquilizers as to blame, and perhaps they are, but Beth’s nature seems to reach towards something outside herself to the point of obsession. She is as equally addicted to chess as she becomes to tranquilizers and later alcohol. And maybe not chess on the whole, but certainly she constantly struggles with impulsivity — in her desire to plan strategy by the moment and with sheer improvisation. Always reaching for the feeling she gets when she can see ahead in the game, however many moves beyond, and visualize her win, Beth rocks between the perfect balance of relaxation and tension inside herself. As she focuses on larger and increasingly prestigious tournaments, she allows herself to become isolated and sick with her addictions.
In addition to the brilliant characterization Tevis developed in Beth, he also created a character of the game of chess. As Beth’s abilities and natural skill develop over the course of the novel, so too does the way Tevis develops the game of chess on the page. As she adds nuance to her fierce game, chess also becomes layered and increasingly like a character unto itself in the way a great storm in another novel might be. From early raindrops and a slight breeze, to blustering hurricane-force winds, Tevis lays out the chess moves and Beth’s interior strategizing with the onslaught of incoming flood waters.
This novel reads exactly like any other sports book — rife with demanding competitive spirit. I know next to nothing about chess (I could probably manage to name all the pieces and maybe the way they move), and yet I never felt overwhelmed by the absolute onslaught of the chess notations or the laundry list of named openings, offenses, defenses, and the like. To me, this was easy to breeze by — almost like a book about a con artist, with all the named and well-known cons / hustles / scams being tossed around with bravado.
The Queen’s Gambit reads smoothly and was difficult to put down. Tevis, to maintain a reflection of Beth’s own character, didn’t waste time on superfluous details or distractions. His words are concise and purposeful, and I was mesmerized in his ability to draw me into such a laser-focused story with an incredibly admirable but not necessarily likable main character.
Rebuffed by Mr. Shaibel at first, for being both a child and female, Beth presses by showing that she has already learned the way each piece is allowed to move across the board. Partly through Shaibel’s interest being piqued and partly with the presumption that swift and decisive losses will deter Beth’s interest, Shaibel invites her to play.
But Beth has been drawn to this game from her core, and her determination only flares brighter with the losses. A competitiveness burns inside her alongside a naturally highly strategic mind. Before long she eclipses Shaibel’s ability — who hands her a giant tome, [b:Modern Chess Openings|44063669|Modern Chess Openings|Walter Korn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550579083l/44063669._SY75_.jpg|68514279], and Beth’s true genius becomes apparent as she studies the strategies with the mind of a master.
Tevis has written Beth with such a strong inner strength, but with all this quick decisiveness and true competitiveness, he balances her nature with the taxing tendency toward addiction. It’s easy to point to the horrifically administered tranquilizers as to blame, and perhaps they are, but Beth’s nature seems to reach towards something outside herself to the point of obsession. She is as equally addicted to chess as she becomes to tranquilizers and later alcohol. And maybe not chess on the whole, but certainly she constantly struggles with impulsivity — in her desire to plan strategy by the moment and with sheer improvisation. Always reaching for the feeling she gets when she can see ahead in the game, however many moves beyond, and visualize her win, Beth rocks between the perfect balance of relaxation and tension inside herself. As she focuses on larger and increasingly prestigious tournaments, she allows herself to become isolated and sick with her addictions.
In addition to the brilliant characterization Tevis developed in Beth, he also created a character of the game of chess. As Beth’s abilities and natural skill develop over the course of the novel, so too does the way Tevis develops the game of chess on the page. As she adds nuance to her fierce game, chess also becomes layered and increasingly like a character unto itself in the way a great storm in another novel might be. From early raindrops and a slight breeze, to blustering hurricane-force winds, Tevis lays out the chess moves and Beth’s interior strategizing with the onslaught of incoming flood waters.
This novel reads exactly like any other sports book — rife with demanding competitive spirit. I know next to nothing about chess (I could probably manage to name all the pieces and maybe the way they move), and yet I never felt overwhelmed by the absolute onslaught of the chess notations or the laundry list of named openings, offenses, defenses, and the like. To me, this was easy to breeze by — almost like a book about a con artist, with all the named and well-known cons / hustles / scams being tossed around with bravado.
The Queen’s Gambit reads smoothly and was difficult to put down. Tevis, to maintain a reflection of Beth’s own character, didn’t waste time on superfluous details or distractions. His words are concise and purposeful, and I was mesmerized in his ability to draw me into such a laser-focused story with an incredibly admirable but not necessarily likable main character.