A Chess Story

Stefan Zweig published this short story in 1941 as "Schachnovelle." It is set aboard an ocean liner sailing to Buenos Aires. The narrator, whose motivation is curiosity about the chess mind, sets out to entice the famous fellow passenger Czentovic to play a chess game. Czentovic, we are told, is a chess master who lacks both social and intellectual skills, but has an innate talent for chess. Cz's entire life story is revealed to the reader and then the narrator sets out to see Cz at play. This requires strategy but once Cz has been induced to play a game against the narrator and other passengers they lose the game. Then during the second game a mysterious man appears and suggests winning moves they can make. The group of amateurs win. The narrator, intrigued, follows the mystery man. Mystery man relays his story, as follows:

He, Dr. B, was a monarchist banker in Austria when the Nazis arrive. He was imprisoned, and interrogated for months. During this time he started to break down and was desperate for something to focus his mind on so as to withstand the interrogations and remain sane. He, luckily, steals a book of famous chess games from a jailers jacket. He studies this moves, until they are memorized then he makes up new games in his mind. He does this for months and finds it quite useful as a way to focus his mind and retain sanity. Then he decides to play both sides at once, white and black, and his mind  compartmentalizes. He suffers a breakdown, and a fever and finds himself in a hospital. His doctor diagnoses him with a chess mania and suggests he not play again. The doctor also diagnoses him as insane and so he escapes from the Nazis.

Back on the cruise ship Dr. B plays another game against Cz. This time Cz antagonizes Dr. B with slow play and Dr. B starts to regress into "chess madness." The narrator, tells Dr. B to not regress and Dr. B, losing the game exits.

It is a good story, psychologically accurate, and intense (compared to Stein it is dated though). The author Zweig and his wife, Lotte Altmann, committed suicide in February 1942 due to the dismal future prospects.

Blasé in Berlin

The Summer House, Later: A book about the moment before happiness, is a collection of nine short stories by Judith Hermann. Each story can be said to be distinct, but each is unremittingly depressing, full of meaninglessness, and sadness.

In each story when a character does not know what to do/say he/she will invariably light a cigarette. There is much drinking, drug taking, and a little sex, all starkly described. At no point does anyone seem to enjoy themselves.

My favorite story from the collection is “Hunter Tompson Music” which is set in New York rather than Berlin. Hunter, an elderly man, lives in a seedy residential hotel. His greatest pleasure is listening to his classical music collection. When a young woman knocks on his door and introduces herself he is impressed that she can identify the music playing as Bach. This brief interaction is more human contact then Hunter is used to and when a dinner date is made there is a certain suspense to learn the outcome of an event that is sure to be traumatic. “Hunter remembers that he hasn't eaten out for years, that he doesn't know any good restaurants, that he can't tell her anything about the city, that he knows nothing at all.” In the event the dinner does not take place and the attempt to establish a human relationship has ambiguous results. What I particularly like about this story is the sense of pathos Hermann invokes for Hunter.

It is this same lack of pathos, which I dislike about most of the other stories in the book. The characters seem to be too underdeveloped to be either likable or dislikable in much of the book. This might be due, in part, to the translation. Though it is not fair to be too critical of translators, whose task is nearly impossible, this translation leaves the English reader wondering exactly how the book could have been so well-received. The translator is Margot Bettauer Dembo who is a contributor to Words Without Borders. An excellent site for reading literature in translation.

"Stories of Five Decades"

Hermann Hesse's Stories of Five Decades is a collection of twenty-three short stories originally written between 1899 and 1948. Many of the stories have as their subject a young man's learning about life and love. The town of Gerbersau is the location of many of the stories and is alternately a pleasant, or stultifying environment for the characters.

“The Latin Scholar” is a typical story in this collection. Karl Bauer, a sixteen-year-old student who is boarding in a large town, is at a formative age. Due to the meager portions he is given as a boarder he has taken to filching snacks from the larder and it seems clear that his honest character is in danger of deforming without some moral intervention. Luckily the housekeeper, Babette, becomes aware of Karl's need for both food and guidance and provides both. When Karl falls in love with a maid and must deal with unrequited love he learns more than he has during his academic studies.

“An Evening with Dr. Faust” is a short and humorous story of looking into the future. Dr. Eisenbart and Dr. Faust listen in on the future with the help of a specially modified gramophone. What they hear is both shocking and disturbing to them. Considering that Dr. Faust is such a willing disciple of the devil it is amusing that it is possible to shock him with “evil.”

“Walter Kömpff” is one of the lengthier stories (35pgs.) and follows Walter from cradle to grave. The story begins with a description of Walter's pious mother and shopkeeper father and the deathbed promise extracted from the twelve year old that he would take on the family business. Unfortunately, Walter neither wants to be a shopkeeper, nor has any other career in mind, and spends his life uselessly struggling without knowing what he does want.

The story which I found most appealing was “Tragic.” Johannes an elderly compositor (a typesetter) is meeting with the newspaper's editor-in-chief and when asked, rhetorically, if his work is going well, he launches into a mournful monologue concerning the devolution of grammar. Johannes says, “Just as in Borneo and all those other islands they have extirpated the bird of paradise, the elephant, and the king tiger, they have destroyed and abolished all the lovely sentences, all the inversions, all the delicate play and shading of our dear language” (p. 272). The complaint of Johannes is interesting not only because it is poetic in its form, but also because it shows that linguistic customs are constantly changing. Insisting that a language conforms to outmoded grammar rules is unrewarding, but seemingly unavoidable.

These stories are quite good and well worth reading. Some are too parable-like (“The Island Dream”), but most deal with psychological and emotional growth which are just as relevant now as when the stories were first written.