The Defense, Vladimir Nabokov, 1964
Originally written in Russian and published in an émigré journal in 1930, the English translation was issued more than30 years later. In this tale, Nabokov tells the story of Luizhan, a socially awkward and ill tempered child of a Russian writer of children’s stories who discovers chess at an early age and ‘loses’ his life to it. Taught originally by his father’s mistress, his ‘aunt’, Luizhan becomes a grand master playing all over Europe, winning prizes, and having a Defense named after him. During a visit to a German spa where he had stayed 16 years earlier, the 30 year old Luizhan is encountered by a young woman who falls in love with him. When Luizhan has a nervous breakdown during a final game of a major tournament, she nurses him back to health at a sanitorium and breaks his connection with chess. A few years later, he falls back into his obsession and commits suicide when his final ‘defense’ against the powers that are conspiring to put him into checkmate are closing in. An early Nabokov missing many of his later word games and clever ruses, but with the plot and idea of the master.