Zugzwang

by Ronan Bennett

Book Overview

Zugzwang --A chess term used to describe a position in which a player is reduced to utter helplessless: he is obliged to move, but every move serves to make his position even worse. The breakout book... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596912537
• ISBN13: 9781596912533
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A Deadly Game Makes for a Good Read

In German, zugzwang is a term used in chess to describe a position in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness. The action is set in pre-Revolutionary Russia: St. Petersburg, 1914. Dr. Otto Spethmann is a psychiatrist who is drawn into a murderous intrigue and an intriguing romance. It's a deadly game, but good read.

Engaging mystery-suspense novel in an exciting historical setting

"Zugzwang" is a well-written, taut thriller, with two added twists: the historical backdrop in 1913 St. Petersburg, Russia, and a recurring chess-related motive. The latter leads to the title of the novel, "zugzwang" being a particular type of position in advanced chess play (more on this below). First about the setting in pre world war I Russia. One of the main historical elements is a chess tournament that really did take place in St. Petersburg in 1914 and that featured the entire world elite. The sad figure of Rosenblum in the novel was almost certainly inspired by the Polish chess master Rubinstein, who was considered to be the worlds greatest player at one point, but failed to demonstrate this at the St Petersburg tournament, thus missing his opportunity to land a deal on playing the reigning world champion, Emmanuel Lasker in a direct match for the crown. The story line and main events of this book are, however, entirely fictional. They involve murder and suspicion, complex relationships, and the murky world of illegal organizations and secret police. Mr. Bennett is a skillful writer and he succesfully blends the modern historical novel with the mystery/suspense aspect. It seems he really does enjoy mixing genres, for he introduces, about midway the book, a rather graphic and explicit erotic intermezzo. Besides being an effective suspense novel, this book has a major strength and a surprising weakness. The strength is the depiction of pre-worldwar I Russian society. I am no expert on it, but reading this novel the entire situation came to life in a compelling and convincing manner. The searing contrast between the plight of the poor masses and the extraordinary luxury of the upper classes; the simmering anti-semitism, threatening even the modern secularized Jewish middle class; the resentment by the subjugated people within the vast Russian empire, such as the Polish; the chaos of competing movements within this monolithic system; and the palpable threat of revolution - which as we now know did eventually occur. The references provided in the postscript support the impression that Mr. Bennett has studied this subject in a serious and scolarly manner, for which he deserves credit. The weakness in this novel is more surprising: the allusion to the chess motive "zugzwang" doesn't hold. The term is correctly explained before the novel starts: a situation in which any move that a player makes leads to a worse position or a loss. The chess game that is interwoven throughout the book also illustrates this idea (note that the author is a very good chess player and chess writer; for the uninitiated, he attempts to explain the ideas and the game in the book. I doubt, however, that the explanations will suffice for those who do no have a significant background in chess.) But in applying the idea of "zugzwang" to the story itself, the author seems to have lost sight of one of the central points of "zugzwang": that the position is actually ok a

Checkmate

In the best tradition of Ronan Bennett, these 269 pages kept me awake all night. Well researched setting of St. Petersburg in the early 1900's and sub-themes of judaism and terrorism (and some impressive chess moves - have to read it again and follow them) mixed with tight and faced-paced action entitle this book, along with others of Ronan Bennett's work, to its own genre: extremely intelligent political thrillers. A debut writer myself, I only wish that one day I can write like Mr. Bennett.

"Past wrongs will not be forgiven."

As Ronan Bennett's "Zugzwang" opens, two assailants savagely slaughter a liberal newspaper editor named Gulko. The setting is St. Petersburg in 1914, a tumultuous and brutal year in Russian history. Tsar Nicholas II is on the throne, but the crown lies uneasily on his head. Socialist "fighting squads" roam the streets, hunting down and killing government agents; the fanatical Black Hundreds regularly attack the revolutionaries, particularly Jews, whom they detest; and the wealthy go about their business, enjoying fine food and entertainment as if society were not collapsing around them. 1914 was also the year of a celebrated chess tournament that attracted the greatest players in the world. "Zugzwang," is a chess term that describes "a position in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness." It also describes the condition in which the first person narrator, Dr. Otto Spethmann, finds himself. Otto is a psychoanalyst living in St. Petersburg who has long since renounced Judaism. A widower, he lives with his rebellious eighteen-year-old daughter Catherine, treats patients, and enjoys outings with his good friend, the celebrated Polish violinist, R. M. Kopelzon. His placid existence is unexpectedly shattered when a policeman named Lychev angrily grills him about the identity of a young man named Yastrebov, whom Otto has never met. As if this were not disturbing enough, two intruders burst into Otto's office, question him mockingly, and steal the file of Avrom Chilowicz Rozental, a mentally unstable but brilliant chess player. Why would these thugs be interested in Rozental, a harmless but emotionally unstable individual who is totally uninterested in anything but chess? Otto is bewildered by the inexplicable intrigue that has thrown his formerly predictable life into turmoil. Another complication ensues when Otto falls in love with his patient, the beautiful and enticing Anna Ziatdinov. Besides the inappropriate nature of such a relationship from a professional standpoint, Otto has reason to fear Anna's father, Peter Arseneyevich Zinnurov (known as the Mountain), an influential and wealthy industrialist and a rabid anti-Semite. Zinnurov would be less than thrilled if he knew that his married daughter was having a torrid affair with her Jewish therapist. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that almost every major player is hiding something. More lives will be lost and reputations will be ruined by the time all of the secrets are at last revealed. Bennett is an intelligent and thoughtful writer who vividly recreates the chaos of St. Petersburg during a period when it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Although the tsar, along with his ministers and generals, believed that heavily repressive tactics would keep the protesters from gaining power, the government's methods galvanized the opposition and sowed the seeds of the monarchy's destruction. As Spethmann says, "They could tighten the chains:

Zugzwang - following the game of chess

Zugzwang is a highly entertaining thriller set in St Petersberg in 1914. An important part of the narrative is a chess game played by the two major characters. The game is documented in the usual way (Bennett's day job is chess correspondent for the Guardian) and the reader is helped by chess diagrams to remind us of the state of play before the next moves are discussed and played. How irritating then to find in Chapter 21 that the diargram is wrong! Not only is is wrong but it shows an illegal position with the black king and the white queen on diagonally adjacent squares, white to move. 'Can White make further progress?' is the caption. Grrrrr! The diagram in Chapter 25 is also wrong. The game can be followed in the text but no one of ordinary chess ability can follow the drama without getting out a chess board and laboriously following the game through to its zugzwang conclusion. It is surprising that neither the author, publisher nor any of the reviews I have read picked up these elementary and obvious mistakes. We can only hope that they are fixed for future reprints of this otherwise super read.